June 2026
In the coming months, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce an effort to significantly undermine its rules limiting methane and other health-harming air pollutants from the oil and gas industry.
Who would benefit most from weakening these protections (which even many oil and gas companies previously claimed to support)?
In earning our August 2025 Polluter of the Month designation, we detailed Hilcorp Energy’s distinction as the #1 methane polluter in the U.S. and its history of excessive pollution incidents. Almost one year later, we’re still finding and documenting numerous emissions events at Hilcorp facilities.
Hilcorp continues to claim it is “committed to reducing emissions” and says it maintains a robust emissions monitoring program, with dedicated staff performing optical gas imaging inspections at thousands of sites as well as employing aerial flights to detect and address emissions. But the evidence of ongoing methane waste keeps growing. This is exactly why we need baseline rules for finding, fixing and eliminating these pollution sources – companies that have built billion-dollar businesses buying up dirty oil and gas infrastructure don’t deserve a free pass.
Stats
- New site visits, ongoing evidence of pollution. Since last summer, Earthworks’ expert thermographers returned to observe Hilcorp facilities in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin in August, September and November 2025 and then again in April 2026. Each time they found signs of poorly maintained equipment and recorded continuous emissions of hydrocarbons venting from tanks and valves. One site, Ladd #001R, which sits less than 1000 feet from the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle School and dormitories, has been consistently polluting methane and health harming volatile organic compounds every time we have visited since 2025 – including site visits in August 2025, September 2025, two in November 2025 and two in April 2026. Despite reporting each of these documented pollution events to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), the issue remains unaddressed and the students remain potentially exposed to this toxic pollution. These incidents are just the latest additions to the video evidence identifying otherwise hidden pollution from over 100 Hilcorp oil and gas facilities that Earthworks has compiled over the last several years.
- More pollution events large enough to be visible from space. Satellite data suggests Hilcorp’s facilities were the source for several recent methane super-emitter events (which the Environmental Protection Agency describes as incidents releasing methane at a rate of at least 100 kilograms per hour). Since the start of 2025, at least 12 plume sources (and 13 plumes) documented in Carbon Mapper’s publicly accessible data portal appear next to Hilcorp facilities in New Mexico and Wyoming. These included:
- one incident documented near its Cow Hollow Unit 266-10 facility;
- one incident observed next to its Hagood Federal 12-5 facility;
- one incident recorded next to its Riddle A 003B facility;
- one incident observed near its San Juan 29 6 Unit 087M;
- one incident documented near its San Juan 27 4 Unit 143B;
- two incidents observed next to its San Juan Gas Plant;
- One incident documented near its Huerfano Unit 119, where the Tanager-1 satellite observed methane emitting at a rate of nearly 200 kilograms per hour at the end of June – and Earthworks later documented ongoing air pollution at this site in a visit on August 5th;
- one incident recorded next to its San Juan 32 9 Unit #220;
- one incident observed near its Shute Creek Unit 4;
- one incident observed next to its San Juan 28 6 Unit 074;
- one incident observed near its San Juan 28 6 Unit #203;
- one incident recorded near its San Juan 28 7 Unit #048.
- Public reporting of a bad neighbor. An exposé published by Capital & Main in November 2025 reveals the unfortunate realities for two families living next to Hilcorp wellsites. As one of the family members quoted in the article states, “hell, the country’s making you just very, very wealthy. Why would you not put a little bit back into what you tear up?” That’s all I want these companies to do. Just be reasonable.”
- The methane waste continues. In New Mexico alone, Hilcorp reports losing over 322,762 mcf of methane gas to venting or flaring just since the company was awarded our August 2025 Polluter of the Month (data from September 2025 through April 2026 for both the company’s upstream and midstream-affiliate operations, accessed on May15th; and note this data is self-reported). In addition, NMED’s most recent company excess emissions reporting also reveals more than 20 excess emissions events occurred at Hilcorp’s San Juan Gas Plant over the past year (annual data released as of May 2026).