Gas flaring hits 6-year high — $54B at stake…World Bank Report     

• $54bn up in Smoke as Gas Flaring Hits 6-ýear High… World Bank Report

The latest Global Gas Flaring Tracker, an independent report of gas flaring worldwide, reveals that global gas flaring rose for the third consecutive year in 2025, reaching 167 billion cubic meters (bcm), the highest recorded level since 2019.

The gas wastefully burned could have powered homes and industries, created jobs, reduced import bills, and extended electricity access and clean cooking fuels for communities that still lack it.

Published annually by the World Bank’s Global Flaring and Methane Reduction (GFMR) Partnership, in collaboration with the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, the report provides a comprehensive independent assessment of global gas flaring volumes, intensity, and trends. A missed opportunity of historic scale.

The 167 bcm of gas flared in 2025 exceeds the volume of LNG (liquified natural gas) that transited the Persian Gulf last year; a resource large enough to equal the gas consumption of Africa, yet burned without benefit.

The economics demand action.

The gas wasted in 2025 was worth an estimated US$54 billion. Eliminating routine flaring globally would require US$70–100 billion in upfront investment, roughly twice what is currently being lost each year. Yet despite the tools needed to end routine flaring being well established, it persists; what holds back progress is not technical but structural — inadequate regulation, insufficient capital, limited market infrastructure, and a failure by operators and governments to treat reduction as a priority.

Progress is possible.: Kazakhstan has cut flaring by 87 percent since 2012, and the United States made the largest absolute reduction of any country in 2025. Proven solutions exist. What is needed is the commitment to deploy them.

Missed Opportunity: The report finds that the 167 bcm flared globally in 2025 exceeds the volume of LNG that transited the Persian Gulf that year, a stark measure of the energy value being wasted. It also matches Africa’s entire annual gas consumption, a continent where energy poverty remains a significant barrier to economic development.

In effect, oil producers are burning a valuable resource that could support energy access, reduce reliance on costly imports, generate much-needed revenue in developing countries, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. With acute energy challenges persisting across much of the world, the scale of this missed opportunity demands urgent attention from policymakers, operators, and investors.