Houston joint venture secures $5.2M for AI-powered methane tracking tech

Fresh Funds

Envana Software Solutions' tech allows an oil and gas company to see a full inventory of greenhouse gases. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Envana Software Solutions has received more than $5.2 million in federal and non-federal funding to support the development of technology for the oil and gas sector to monitor and reduce methane emissions.

Thanks to the work backed by the new funding, Envana says its suite of emissions management software will become the industry's first technology to allow an oil and gas company to obtain a full inventory of greenhouse gases.

The funding comes from a more than $4.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and more than $1 million in non-federal funding.

“Methane is many times more potent than carbon dioxide and is responsible for approximately one-third of the warming from greenhouse gases occurring today,” Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary at DOE, said in 2024.

With the funding, Envana will expand artificial intelligence (AI) and physics-based models to help detect and track methane emissions at oil and gas facilities.

“We’re excited to strengthen our position as a leader in emissions and carbon management by integrating critical scientific and operational capabilities. These advancements will empower operators to achieve their methane mitigation targets, fulfill their sustainability objectives, and uphold their ESG commitments with greater efficiency and impact,” says Nagaraj Srinivasan, co-lead director of Envana.

In conjunction with this newly funded project, Envana will team up with universities and industry associations in Texas to:

  • Advance work on the mitigation of methane emissions
  • Set up internship programs
  • Boost workforce development
  • Promote environmental causes

Envana, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup, provides emissions management technology to forecast, track, measure and report industrial data for greenhouse gas emissions.

Founded in 2023, Envana is a joint venture between Houston-based Halliburton, a provider of products and services for the energy industry, and New York City-based Siguler Guff, a private equity firm. Siguler Gulf maintains an office in Houston.

“Envana provides breakthrough SaaS emissions management solutions and is the latest example of how innovation adds to sustainability in the oil and gas industry,” Rami Yassine, a senior vice president at Halliburton, said when the joint venture was announced.

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com

BP has partnered with an environmental nonprofit to reduce emissions of methane. Getty Images

BP forms new partnership to reduce methane emissions

Greener thinking

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions in oil and gas, methane is a less talked about, sneakier culprit compared to carbon dioxide. While it remains in the atmosphere for a shorter period than CO2, methane is 84 times more potent than CO2 during its first 20 years after being emitted into the air.

BP, which has its North American headquarters in Houston, has set out a strategy to minimize its contributions of methane to the atmosphere. The company made a three-year deal with New York-based Environmental Defense Fund to reduce methane emissions in its global supply chain by incorporating new technologies and practices, which will be identified by the new partnership.

"BP is taking a leading role in addressing methane emissions, and this collaboration with EDF is another important step forward for us and for our industry," says Bernard Looney, BP's upstream chief executive, in a release. "We've made great progress driving down emissions across our own business, including meeting our industry-leading methane intensity target of 0.2 percent, but there is much more work to do and partnering with the committed and capable team at EDF will help us develop and share best practices."

BP and EDF will work with universities and third-party experts in order to identify cutting-edge technology for the new initiative, and the company hopes to serve as a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is no small undertaking, says Fred Krupp, EDF president, in the release.

"The scale of the methane challenge is enormous, but so is the opportunity," Krupp says. "Whether natural gas can play a constructive role in the energy transition depends on aggressive measures to reduce emissions that include methane. BP took such a step today."

EDF, a nonprofit, won't be paid by BP — per EDF's policy —but BP will assist with funding when it comes to employing experts tasked with finding better technologies to minimize emissions.

"EDF and BP don't agree on everything, but we're finding common ground on methane," Krupp says in the release. "BP has shown early ambition to lead on methane technology. We hope to see more as BP delivers on its own stringent methane goal and we work together to spread solutions industrywide."

BP and EDF have identified three key areas the initiative will focus on this year.

New detection technology
BP will grant up to $500,000 to a detection and quantification technology project at Colorado State University. The initiative includes drone technology and stationary monitoring that hopes to speed up methane emission detection time.

"CSU welcomes this support from BP and EDF for this critical research work, and this provides the necessary confidence and momentum for other stakeholders to contribute in a collaborative environment, in which the results and tools will benefit the wider industry," says Dan Zimmerle, senior research associate for Colorado State University's Energy Institute, in the release.

Advances in digital technology
This year, BP and EDF will announce a digitization project for reducing methane emissions. An EDF report, Fueling the Digital Methane Future, which produced with Accenture Strategy, identified solutions such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality as potential pathways to fewer emissions.

Joint ventures
A 2018 EDF report proved that oil and gas companies can team up to reduce emissions together. BP and EDF plan to host a workshop to find best practices for emission reductions on a larger scale.

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As part of the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, our Female-founded Business category honors women-led startups that are shaping Houston innovation.

Five female-founded businesses have been named finalists for the 2026 award. This year's finalists, selected by our esteemed panel of judges, range from an AI startup for C-Suite execs to a company developing semi-autonomous crawler robots for corrosion detection.

Read more about these innovative startups and the visionary female founders behind them below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

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ai expansion

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Fresh off the announcement of Rice’s new Master of Artificial Intelligence (MAI) coming next fall, the university shared that it plans to expand its AI-related courses and be a “global leader in advanced computing and responsible AI.”

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