Washington Asks Brussels to Exempt US Gas From the EU Methane Rules. The 2027 Import Deadline Is the Pressure Point

The United States has asked the European Union to exempt US natural gas from key requirements of the EU methane regulation, according to a document seen by Reuters and reported on 15 December 2025. The US request includes delaying the import obligations to 2035 and treating US federal rules as automatically equivalent to EU standards. The European Commission has said it will not repeal the regulation or grant an exemption, while it works on implementation guidance that could ease compliance.

The dispute concerns the import provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/1787, adopted in 2024, which sets methane rules for the oil, gas and coal sectors. The United States is the largest supplier of LNG to the EU, and its share has risen since 2022 as Europe replaced Russian pipeline gas. US exporters and officials argue that the EU's requirements are burdensome and difficult to meet for gas that passes through a complex network of producers, gatherers, pipelines and liquefaction plants before it is loaded onto a ship.

The Commission has signalled flexibility in how the regulation is implemented without changing the law itself. Under the regulation, equivalence can be shown at the level of a producer, through company-level measurement and verification, or at the level of a country, if the Commission recognises the exporting country's regulatory framework as equivalent. For EU importers, the regulation creates a compliance obligation that they will pass back to suppliers through contract terms. If US exporters cannot provide the required data, EU buyers could face penalties or be forced to shift purchases, though the scale of US supply and the limited alternatives make a sharp shift unlikely in the near term.

The International Energy Agency estimates that methane emissions from the energy sector remain above 120 million tonnes a year, and that around 70% could be avoided with existing technologies. Several US producers and LNG developers already offer certified low-methane gas and have invested in continuous monitoring.