February 2026
Here at the Big Gas Polluters coalition, we have largely focused on the air pollution claims and actions of oil and gas producers. But even for the companies that have made investments in lowering emissions at their well sites and implemented more robust emissions monitoring programs, all those efforts are half-measures if they continue handing off their gas to pipeline companies routinely venting copious amounts of methane.
Unfortunately, that’s still too often the case, and it is why Energy Transfer, one of the nation’s largest pipeline and energy infrastructure companies, earned our February 2026 Polluter of the Month.
Energy Transfer owns the pipelines transporting about 30% of all U.S. “natural” gas, and it generated more than $15 billion in earnings before taxes and depreciation in 2024 alone. Yet, it dedicated a mere three pages in its most recent corporate responsibility report to its environmental impact and emissions reduction plans, specifically referencing methane emissions just four times.
While the company says it performed 3,400 gas imaging inspections in 2024, and its website declares it is “committed to protecting and preserving the environment,” what we’ve observed in recent months – from both on-the-ground observation as well as super-emitters captured by satellite – tells a shockingly different story.
Stats
- Evidence filmed on-the-ground. In November 2025, Earthworks visited two Energy Transfer midstream sites and found evidence of pollution at both. These included one facility in the New Mexico Permian, the Carlsbad Gas Plant, where a faulty flare was releasing methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for more than 2 hours. The release was so large that it was visible through an optical gas imaging camera from over 4.5 miles away. Days earlier, a visit to the company’s Rosetta Light Facility in Dimmit County, Texas, revealed evidence of a blowdown event that led to an investigation by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
- A multitude of pollution events large enough to be visible from space. Satellite data suggests Energy Transfer facilities were the source for dozens of methane plumes in 2025. For example:
- The company’s Red Lake Gas Plant, near Stanton, Texas, was observed three times last year by Carbon Mapper’s Tanager satellite, and it was seen emitting hundreds of kilograms of methane on each occasion, including a plume estimated at 1,000 kilograms per hour on November 5th.
- The company’s Waha Header Compressor Station, near Coyanosa, Texas, appeared to be emitting hundreds to thousands of kilograms of methane in March, June, August, September, October, and November 2025.
- Another of its facilities, the Crestwood Mosaic Compressor Station, located just east of Loving, New Mexico, appeared to be the source of 4 super emitter events between January and July 31, 2025, including at estimated rates of 949 kilograms per hour on July 25, 2025, 812 kilograms per hour on July 4, 2025, 379 kilograms per hour on February 5, 2025, and 462 kilograms per hour on January 31, 2025.
- In total, more than 40 plumes spotted in Carbon Mapper’s publicly accessible data portal appeared next to Energy Transfer facilities in 2025. Additional incidents include: two incidents observed next to the company’s Rebel Gas Plant; one near its Red Bluff plant and another two nearby the Red Bluff Compressor Station; four near the Pemberton Booster Station; one near the East Sale Ranch Compressor Station; one near the Lone Star Valero Pecos; one nearby its WT-2 Station; one near the Windham Ranch #1 Compressor Station; one near its WTG St. Lawrence Plant; two near the Arrowhead Gas Plant; one near the Yucca Compressor Station; one near its Black River Compressor Station; one near the G2LT CDP; one near the Bear Gas Plant; two near the Little Joe Compressor Station; one near the Hamilton Compressor Station; one near the Dominator Compressor Station; one near the Biggs LaSalle facility; one near the White City Road Compressor Station; one near the West Slash Compressor Station; and, one near the Panther Gas Plant. And the Carlsbad Gas Plant, where Earthworks thermographers documented a faulty flare in November, was also observed twice by Carbon Mapper’s Tanager satellite earlier in 2025, with methane super-emitting plumes visible on each occasion.
- Reported methane waste. In New Mexico alone, Energy Transfer, together with its subsidiaries, reported losing over 163,500 mcf of methane gas to venting or flaring between January and December 2025 – roughly equivalent to the amount of gas consumed annually by about 3,000 U.S. households (note this data is self-reported).
- Dozens of fines, millions in penalties. Since the start of 2020, Energy Transfer and its subsidiaries racked up more than $21 million in penalties for 38 separate air pollution or other environmental offenses, according to Violation Tracker data.
- Using industry’s influence to weaken methane pollution rules. The company has used millions of dollars in political donations to successfully fight against oil and gas regulations and enforcement actions. But the emissions and local safety risks remain. In March 2025, for example, a 30-inch gas pipeline ruptured in March 2025 as a result of errors from an Energy Transfer company technician, blasting more than 23 million cubic feet of gas into the air, while a May 2025 incident on the company’s Sea Robin offshore gas pipeline resulted in the second largest gas release reported to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration since 2010.