LONGPATH WINS $5M IN DOE FUNDING FOR CONTINUOUS METHANE LEAK DETECTION

LongPath Technologies, Inc. has been awarded $5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The award will support the commercial scaling of LongPath’s innovative approach to continuous emissions monitoring and mitigation from the oil and gas sector, including the launch of Basin-SCAN (Basin Scale Continuous oil and gas Abatement Network).

LongPath’s Basin-SCAN program will result in the largest continuous emissions monitoring network for the oil and gas industry, enabling real-time location and sizing of natural gas emissions across 700 square miles of the Permian oil and gas basin in the Southwestern U.S. It is anticipated that LongPath’s Basin-SCAN program will reduce oil and gas production emissions by 60-80% in the Basin-SCAN area.

“LongPath is honored to be selected from a very competitive pool of energy technologies for ARPA-E’s new SCALEUP program,” said Greg Rieker, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO at LongPath Technologies, Inc. “This award recognizes the many years of hard work developing, deploying, and refining this technology by our incredible team of engineers and scientists, and sets the stage for major growth in commercialization.”

Founded in 2017, LongPath Technologies, Inc. is the first company to leverage Nobel prize winning long-range frequency comb laser sources to achieve dramatic cost reductions for continuous emissions monitoring.

LongPath’s system is akin to a radar for methane (the main component of natural gas). A single, centralized laser sensor sends invisible, eye-safe beams over many miles to detect, locate and size methane leaks among dense oil and gas infrastructure. This capability meets an urgent need for low-cost solutions to detect gas leaks from vast oil and gas infrastructure, an environmental health and safety issue that is the focus of increasing interest from industry, lawmakers, local communities and environmental groups.

LongPath’s continuous emissions monitoring services have already enabled major methane emission reductions in the oil and gas sector with partners in the productive U.S. Permian basin. Under Basin-SCAN, this progress will be amplified to provide measurable impacts on U.S.-wide emissions.

“Providing cost-efficient methane emissions monitoring across large areas provides for a rare industry and environmental win-win.” said Rieker, “When we can find and fix large leaks fast, we can not only save oil and gas operators money and improve health and safety, but we can also help the industry be a cleaner option in terms of air quality and climate effects.”