Twelve countries, the European Commission, and the East Mediterranean Gas Forum have established a multinational working group to develop an emissions measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) framework across the international natural gas supply chain from pre-production through final delivery. The framework aims to allow for comparable and reliable information on emissions.
The working group’s efforts will center around building upon existing reporting approaches, according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Energy. The group’s participants include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (Observer), the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
The emissions MMRV Framework aims to enhance comparability by evaluating and expanding upon established standards and protocols. Its goal is to establish a uniform set of technical criteria for reporting emissions and operational data across different levels of data availability. The strategy prioritizes actual measurements over modeled or estimated data, striking a balance between economic considerations and technical feasibility. The Framework will also be technology-neutral when it comes to measurement approaches.
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To ensure consistent and trustworthy information, the Working Group will endorse independent third-party validation to confirm the precision and representativeness of both emissions data and the overall greenhouse gas emissions intensity across the supply chain.
Additionally, the group will facilitate accreditation procedures to guarantee that certifiers remain independent from the reporting entity and possess the necessary technical qualifications for conducting reviews. According to the press release, the deliberations and recommendations of the emissions MMRV Framework are shaped by the insights of global and local industry, environmental, and technical stakeholders, each contributing expertise and technical knowledge in MMRV and the oil and natural gas industry.
Leveraging insights from these stakeholders, the international MMRV Working Group will engage in collaborative efforts throughout 2024 to develop, as appropriate, guidance, protocols, and tools for voluntary adoption within natural gas markets. The MMRV Working Group is also considering to include hydrocarbons in the future. The group’s focus will be on addressing the methodological aspects of MMRV, and will not agree to or prescribe performance-based emission reduction targets.
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