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The oil and gas industry is pushing back against the methane policy adopted recently by the European Union aimed at limiting emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

A new report, published June 10 by the research group InfluenceMap, highlights how oil and gas companies and lobby groups across the EU and U.S. are using a range of tactics to destabilise the EU’s methane regulation. The policy was adopted in August 2024, and includes new rules to reduce emissions in the energy, agriculture and waste sectors, and is due to be fully implemented by 2030.

DeSmog writes that "The surge in industry lobbying highlighted by InfluenceMap coincides with the EU’s strategy to regulate the energy market, as it weans off Russian gas by 2027 and signs deals to import gas from the United States and other countries."

Under the new rules, which could reduce methane emissions associated with oil and gas imports to the EU by at least 64 percent by 2031, oil, gas and coal companies will be required to measure, report and verify (MRV) emissions as well as meet specific conditions for detecting leaks and repairs. They would also be banned from routine venting and flaring, including from imported fossil fuels.

George Oddy, an analyst at InfluenceMap, told DeSmog that “Over the past six to nine months we’ve seen a concerted lobbying push. We’re seeing a significant amount of pressure on policymakers from the [fossil fuel] industry, led by a couple of main industry associations.”

The concerted industry lobby is being justified on something called the “simplification mantra”. The European Commission has adopted a new mandate of competitiveness, security and simplification. The Commission is in the process of amending numerous sustainability reporting laws through an “omnibus package”. While the methane regulation is not yet included in the omnibus package, InfluenceMap’s research suggest industry groups are pushing to include it to weaken climate action.

In February, the European managing director of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) told Politico that the regulation jeopardizes a deal to secure US LNG. DeSmog writes:

Weeks later, industry group Eurogas raised its concerns in a position paper over the regulation’s impact on EU “competitiveness” as well as “security of supply”.

In April, in a joint letter addressed to EU Commission officials, 19 U.S. and EU energy groups highlighted the “significant challenges” the regulation creates for the “security of the EU’s gas supply, particularly as the EU seeks to ensure affordability and […] replace Russian gas imports.” Signatories included a roster of oil and gas multinationals: BP, ConocoPhillips, Engie, Eni, Equinor, Naturgy, Repsol, and Uniper, as well as lobby group Eurogas.

European nations have significantly increased their imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) since 2022, primarily due to a decline in Russian pipeline gas supplies following the war in Ukraine. The US has become the EU's largest LNG supplier, with imports from the US more than doubling since 2021. This shift has been driven by Europe's need to diversify its energy sources and reduce reliance on Russian gas. 

Industry groups in the United States have been particularly forceful in getting the EU to weaken measures that would ensure fossil fuel imports are meeting Europe’s methane requirements.

InfluenceMap research refers to a May 2024 correspondence between EU Commissioner Maroš Šef?ovi? and LNG company Cheniere Energy, which defined the MRV requirements for importers as “unworkable”.

Last November, a letter to EU officials signed by US trade groups including the Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute voiced concerns that the EU methane requirements might prevent the EU from importing US fossil fuels, thereby impacting EU security of gas supply.

A March 2025 letter to the US Trade Representative echoed these concerns.

Indeed, the InfluenceMap report describes the industry’s lobbying efforts as a “two-pronged approach”: pushing for weaker regulations, while raising concerns around energy security.

DeSmog states:

“Since the Trump administration officially started work in January, we have heard many [actors] from the U.S. oil and gas industry being quite vocal at the EU level, and calling to the fact that the methane requirements on imports would be a problem to conclude long-term LNG import contracts,” said Esther Bollendorff, senior gas policy coordinator at the Climate Action Network.

Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4), a powerful greenhouse gas that is over 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period. The Global Methane Pledge from COP26 acknowledges that methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, responsible for a third of current warming from human activities.

Most methane leaks come from flaring excess natural gas instead of putting it into a pipeline.

Separately, McGill University in Montreal, Canada last week released the results of a new study which found methane emissions from the country’s non-producing oil and gas wells appear to be seven times higher than existing estimates.

“We measured the highest methane emission rate from a non-producing oil and gas well ever reported in Canada,” said Mary Kang, associate professor of civil engineering at McGill and senior author on the paper.

Kang’s team measured methane emissions from 494 wells across five provinces and analyzed well data such as age, depth and plugging status. The national emissions estimate they arrived at — 230 kilotonnes per year — is sevenfold higher than the 34 kilotonnes reported in Canada’s National Inventory Report. The study was published in ‘Environmental Science & Technology’.

There are more than 425,000 inactive oil and gas wells across Canada, most of which are in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The study only measured the methane emissions in 0.1 percent of them.

By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com