EU methane regulation could backfire

While broadly supportive of EU efforts to tackle methane emissions, representatives of the gas industry warn it could deter supply contracting if timelines and compliance requirements are not made more pragmatic

Well-intentioned European methane regulations risk becoming an overly blunt instrument that penalises some gas and LNG producers without adequately reflecting measurement uncertainty, technological progress or the broader global emissions context, panellists said during a discussion at LNG2026. The speakers said the EU’s emerging methane framework, which will expand monitoring, reporting and verification standards to imported gas, could raise costs, complicate trade flows and create unintended distortions between suppliers, even as the industry broadly supports the objective of cutting methane. Compliance risks and contracting constraints Kavita Ahluwalia, senior vice president for governmen