The CCAC Oil & Gas Methane Partnership

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition created a voluntary initiative to help companies reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. The Oil & Gas Methane Partnership was launched at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York in September 2014. The initiative currently has the following partner companies: BP, Ecopetrol, Eni, Equinor, Neptune Energy International SA, Pemex, PTT, Repsol, Shell and Total .

In January 2020, OGMP members agreed to an updated framework designed to ensure that it fosters and encourages reporting that remains directly connected to strategic action. This improved methane reporting has a performance element that focuses on reduction approaches, technology advancement and policy development, aiding the oil and gas industry in realizing deep reductions in mineral methane emissions over the next decade in a way that is transparent to civil society and governments.

The new OGMP reporting framework delivers against four key objectives:

• Provide governments and the public with assurance that industry member methane emissions are being managed responsibly, thus credibly for informing policy decisions.
• Provide member companies with a credible means to demonstrate that they are contributing to climate mitigation, making progress against declared targets and in line with the objectives of the CCAC MMI, as well as reinforcing the case for natural gas as an important fuel in the energy transition.
• Encourage improved methane reduction performance in reporting and methane emission reduction through transparency, flexibility, collaboration, and best practice sharing.
• Encouraging wider participation in the OGMP so significant sectorial methane emission reduction improvements in line with the MMI objectives can be realized by 2025/2030.

Key updates to the original OGMP framework include:

• Companies will report actual methane emissions figures from both operated and non-operated assets in line with their reporting boundaries
• Reporting will cover all segments of the oil and gas sector where material quantities of methane can be emitted
• The scope of reporting will be expanded from the original nine core sources are to all material sources of methane emissions
• Member companies will announce their own individual reduction targets and periodically report on progress towards these targets
• Five reporting levels are established, with the highest level requiring that emissions include source-level and site-level measurements. Companies have 3 years to achieve compliance for operated assets and 5 years for non-operated assets.

The OGMP Reporting Framework 2.0 will provide the public the assurance than this important greenhouse gas is being managed responsibly. Companies which conform to this gold standard of reporting will be provided with the means to credibly demonstrate that they are contributing to climate mitigation and delivering against their methane improvement objectives and targets, as relevant.

OGMP members are currently in the process of finalizing approval and endorsement of the new framework before it is officially implemented. More information on the framework will be made available after all members have approved it.