updated Tue June 16, 2020
The U.S. figures are sobering: More than 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells together emitted 281 kilotons of methane in 2018, according to the data, which was included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent report. That’s the climate-damage equivalent of burning 16.2 million barrels of crude oil, according to an EPA calculation.