Open Letter to the European Commission on the Key Challenges for the Methane Regulation legislation

The International Gas Union (IGU) has co-signed an Open Letter addressed to the European Commission, outlining an Action Plan to address key challenges for natural gas importers in the EU’s Methane Regulation legislation.

Strong action to reduce methane emissions is critical to maximising the commercial, social, and environmental value of Gas in all its forms, and this is why we applaud the many IGU members who are already committed to reducing their methane emissions by at least 30% and operating with near-zero leaks by 2030.

However, much more needs to be done to address significant disparities in performance across the world's regions and countries, thus methane emissions must be consistently reduced globally and across the entire natural gas value chain.

We therefore support the objectives behind the EU’s Methane Regulation legislation of enhancing transparency across the natural gas value chain and the wider uptake of methane emission mitigation solutions across the globe.

Notwithstanding the above, closer cooperation between government and industry is necessary to ensure well intended regulatory actions are aligned with the industry's realities, and that they do not hinder countries’ ongoing efforts to achieve energy security through diversification.

This is where we, at the IGU, play a critical role: the peer-to-peer sharing and the regionally-based dialogues that the IGU facilitates are an extremely powerful mechanism to share leading industry practices and build the capacity and ambition necessary to drive out methane emissions from across the full natural gas value chain.

IGU’s Director for Strategy and Advocacy, Mark McCrory said: “We are calling for the EU Commission to actively engage and collaborate with exporting countries and suppliers to overcome issues related to the implementation of the Methane Regulation. I am confident that, together, the global Gas industry can do more in tackling methane emissions to further enhance Gas’ key role in driving human progress and global growth.”