Last month, the European Council approved a new EU methane regulation for the 27-nation bloc. Expected to come into effect in July, it introduces new rules for monitoring, reporting, and verifying methane emissions, as well as mitigation measures such as detecting and fixing leaks, and limiting routine venting and flaring.
The regulation will also bring in new tools to monitor emissions from non-EU sources of crude oil, natural gas and coal. These requirements — phased in from 2025 to 2030 and beginning with transparency — will make the European Union the first jurisdiction to ensure that imports of fossil fuels do not exceed maximum intensity limits for methane emissions.
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) has published a new paper by Maria Olczak, an OIES research fellows, Andris Piebalgs, a professor at the Florence School of Regulation and Jonathan Stern, a distinguished research fellow at the OIES, exploring how the EU methane regulation will work.
Noting many of the key details remain to be decided, the authors try to answer high-level questions:
But while it lays out the principles, the key technical details, e.g. methodology to calculate methane intensity of imports and reporting templates, will be specified by the Commission via delegated and implementing acts. These will be adopted by a new European Commission, following the elections to the European Parliament in June 2024.
“Analysing the EU Methane Regulation: what is changing, for whom and by when?” By Maria Olczak, Andris Piebalgs and Jonathan Stern. Oxford institute for Energy Studies, June 10, 2024.
In effect, it remains unclear how the Regulation will be implemented and how it will evolve. Hence this paper presents the best answers we have so far to three research questions:
1) What are the major changes introduced by the Regulation for different types of operators and Member States?
2) What is not yet, but will need to be, included in the Regulation before it can be meaningfully implemented, specifically in relation to delegated and implementing acts?
3) Does the Regulation meet the expectations raised in the 2020 EU Methane strategy with regard to reducing emissions associated with fossil fuel imports?
Download the full report, originally published by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies on June 10, 2024.
Publisher’s note: The contents of this paper are the authors’ sole responsibility. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.
