EU mulls tweaking methane rules for US gas to help trade talks – Reuters

Citing three sources familiar with the matter, Reuters reported on Monday that the European Union (EU) is contemplating options to alter its methane emissions rules, making it easier for the United States (US) to comply with its gas exports.

Key takeaways

• As part of the energy options being explored to aid trade talks with the US, the Commission is looking at using flexibilities in how it applies EU methane rules, which could benefit U.S. LNG exporters.
• The aim would be to avoid weakening the overall law, while introducing technical rules that could enable US exporters to be deemed to be following "equivalent" methane rules to those of the EU, and therefore automatically comply with the EU law.

Its worth nothing that the US is already the EU's biggest supplier of LNG, having ramped up deliveries as Europe raced to replace Russian gas following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.