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By Zubin Bamji
When gas supplies are disrupted, countries immediately feel the consequences: power systems buckle, factories slow down, and businesses scale back operations, directly affecting people’s livelihoods. These pressures are most acute in countries where flaring is highest, and energy access is most fragile.
Every year, the World Bank Group publishes the Global Gas Flaring Tracker, and every year we return to the same question: why is the natural gas extracted during oil production still being wasted in huge quantities and often despite the economic benefits?
As the latest report shows, in 2025 the world flared 167 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, the equivalent of Africa’s entire annual gas consumption. Gas flaring at oilfields around the world increased for the third year in a row, with consequences that will be felt for a long time.
The human cost of energy insecurity
These consequences go beyond energy security in geopolitical terms—supply chains, import dependency, and strategic reserves. For people lacking energy security, it means something more immediate: will the lights be on tomorrow? Will the factory run a second shift? Will I be able to power my shop?
Reliable electricity is the foundation on which economies are built, and jobs are created. Every time the power goes out, a small business loses productive hours and potential revenue it cannot recover. Reliable electricity is a prerequisite for private investment. When investors face uncertainty over power availability or costs, projects become less attractive and investments that could have created jobs go somewhere else instead.
And yet at the same time, across many of the world’s largest flaring countries, the gas being wastefully burned at oilfields is the same gas that could power the grids that keep businesses running. Many of these countries also import gas at high cost, while simultaneously flaring large volumes themselves. This leaves their power sectors needlessly exposed to supply shocks and their citizens needlessly paying for energy they already have.
Capturing flared gas is an economic multiplier
When we talk about ending routine flaring, the focus is often on avoided emissions. This is of course important, but the economic case is just as powerful. Capturing associated gas for domestic power generation does more than keep the lights on; it creates jobs up and down the value chain.
Direct high-value jobs come first: engineers, technicians, and specialist construction workers who build and operate gas systems. Then there are the indirect effects: the small businesses that can now operate reliably, the manufacturers that can run full shifts, the communities that can attract investment they previously could not. Associated gas can also be processed into LPG (liquified petroleum gas), one of the most accessible clean cooking fuels. The recent Tracking SDG7 report estimates that two billion people use polluting fuels and technologies for cooking, putting their health and well-being at risk. Utilising associated gas for LPG reduces the time burden on households, particularly women, who spend hours collecting traditional biomass fuels. For many women, this can mean more time for paid work, education, and entrepreneurship.
Several countries have reaped the economic and environmental benefits of harnessing gas rather than flaring it. Kazakhstan, for example, reduced its flaring by 87 percent over the last decade through sustained regulatory enforcement and infrastructure investment. Argentina is making meaningful reductions in its fast-growing Vaca Muerta basin by expanding pipelines and processing capacity—demonstrating that production growth and flaring reduction can go hand in hand.
The investment case is compelling.
Eliminating routine flaring globally would require about $70 billion to $100 billion. Compared to the $54 billion worth of gas burned annually, the payback period could be around two years, followed by long-lasting revenues, import savings, tax receipts, and increased employment.
For countries that import significant volumes of costly gas, like Egypt, India, and Iraq, capturing and utilising associated gas is not just sensible energy policy—it is a fiscal one. Every cubic meter of gas redirected from the flare stack to a market is a cubic meter of costly imported gas avoided; a bill that does not need to be paid, a subsidy that does not need to be financed.
Given the global events of the last several years, the opportunity to boost energy security and enhance government revenues has never been clearer. This year’s Global Gas Flaring Tracker examines all of this in depth—we encourage you to read it.
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