EU settles on methane limits for fossil fuels imports

The European parliament and EU states have agreed methane greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity thresholds, and penalties, for oil, coal and gas importers. Petrochemicals escape the new rules.

With a view to the upcoming UN Cop 28 climate talks in Dubai, parliament's chief lawmaker for methane regulation, Jutta Paulus, said it was "high time" to deliver on the global methane pledge.

"Not all fossil fuel exporting countries will appreciate it. But the US will appreciate the EU restricting imports to those countries that act on methane emissions," Paulus told Argus.

The text agreed between negotiators has to be formally adopted by parliament and by EU ministers. The regulation would then apply directly in the 27 EU states on publication in the bloc's official journal.

Oil, gas and coal importers would, from 1 January 2027, have to demonstrate equivalent monitoring, reporting and verification requirements at production level. And the European Commission would, within three years, have to propose delegated legislation setting methane intensity classes for producers' and companies' crude, natural gas and coal sold in the EU.

Individual EU states retain the right to set penalties. Parliament failed to have a provision for closing the EU market to non-compliant producers.

"On imports, I'm not so much worried about loopholes," said Paulus. "I'm more worried about a very very long timeline [till 2030]. The measures on imports will come pretty late and will not have an effect until at least 2028 when we have equivalency on monitoring, reporting and verification [of methane emissions]."

The regulation obliges oil and gas operators in the EU to detect and repair methane leaks, and to submit a methane-leak detection and repair programme to national authorities within nine months from the regulations' entry into force. A first leak-detection and repair survey of existing sites would have to take place within 12 months. There are strengthened repair obligations and general bans on venting and flaring methane from drainage stations and ventilation shafts.

For coal, EU countries have to measure and report methane emissions from operating underground and surface mines. For mines closed or abandoned in the past 70 years, countries have to draw up public inventories and measure emissions, except for mines flooded for more than 10 years. Coal mine flaring is banned from 1 January 2025 and venting from 1 January 2027, if those mines emit over 5t of methane per kilotonne of coal mined. Venting and flaring is banned from closed and abandoned mines from 1 January 2030.

Paulus regretted a "no go" from EU member states and commission for including methane emissions from the petrochemicals sector. But she said the commission will make sure that updated implementing rules to the bloc's Industrial Emissions directive, so-called Best Available Techniques (BAT), will be amended to include petrochemicals in 2030.

"The rules will be copy-pasted from the methane regulation," she said.

Paulus noted inclusion of an overarching methane target cut in the regulation would have excluded emissions from agriculture and waste, which the European Environment Agency (EEA) notes as responsible respectively for 53pc and 26pc of EU methane emissions compared with the energy sector's 19pc.

By Dafydd ab Iago