SINGAPORE, Sept 10 (Askume) – European Union legislation to impose methane emissions limits on European oil and gas imports from 2030 will face regulatory challenges, a senior executive at Norwegian oil company Equinor said at an APEC event on Tuesday.
The law, approved by European Union countries in May , will force international suppliers to reduce leaks of powerful greenhouse gases.
“There needs to be detailed monitoring … very accurate monitoring of methane emissions across the whole value chain up to import,” said Simon James, Equinor’s vice president and head of crude oil trading.
“How will this affect the market and crude oil arrivals? You will have to report your methane monitoring to EU standards. This will affect grades and some benchmark grades will also be affected,” he said.
He added, “As you can imagine it would be difficult to monitor grades like WTI (now part of the Brent crude complex) and to see how the industry responds and how companies like yours benchmark against the benchmark and A-grade products would be interesting to test.
