From 01-01-2027, EU importers of crude oil must demonstrate that their suppliers’ methane measurement, reporting and verification is equivalent to EU requirements. The model contract clauses of 20-07-2026 place the document of compliance on the seller, so the question arrives at this autumn’s renewals, inside the contract, before any regulator acts.
The document of compliance rests with the seller under the model clauses of 20-07-2026, and the obligation applies from 01-01-2027. One spine underneath: immutable source records, review ladder, independent verification, nothing deleted.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1787 puts the legal obligation on the importer. The evidence stands with the producer. The contract connects the two: under the Commission’s model clauses, the seller delivers a document of compliance by an agreed date, and the refiner files it with its authority. Whoever holds the record holds the relationship. The requirement attaches to contracts signed or renewed on or after 04-08-2024, so every renewal from today forward carries it; older contracts carry a reasonable-efforts test that tightens as the market matures.
The chain above is the crude oil business as it runs: methane quantified at the wellhead and the plant, measured at the loading arm, attributed to the cargo it left on, and filed where the cargo lands. The record is built where the barrels are, and read where the barrels go.
The equivalence dossier demonstrates that your measurement, reporting and verification stands equal to EU requirements - per producer, in the form the importer’s authority reads. The per-contract intensity statement puts a proven number on every barrel you sell.
What it protects is commercial, not administrative: continuity of the term contracts at renewal, the netback on every barrel that would otherwise reroute, and the ability to price verified low-methane supply on the cargo invoice.
The refiner carries the legal obligation from 01-01-2027. Cappi’s refiner filing view assembles the supplier record, the contract binding and the statement into the filing your authority expects - and shows, contract by contract, which suppliers can evidence equivalence and which cannot.
The alternative to evidence is substitution: rerouting supply costs margin, relationships and time. The record keeps the contract you already have.
Every output is produced from one verified spine: immutable source records through three doors, a review ladder where whoever enters never approves, independent verification by an accredited third party in a read-only workspace, and an audit trail on which every figure is reproducible. Nothing is generated by AI in any regulated output; nothing is ever deleted.
per producer · asset register to independent statement · equivalence mapping annex
per supply contract · intensity read only from the accepted record
supplier record + contract binding · the document of compliance, filed
full trail · every figure reproducible by any verifier
No OGMP membership is required, and you do not need a methane engineer on day one. The record starts from operational data every producer already holds - device registers, flare metering, terminal throughputs - and strengthens on a stated path.
device counts, flared volumes, throughputs from your systems of record · uploaded as they are
the platform computes methane quantities with versioned, cited factors · never typed by hand
instrument measurements enter with method and detection limit · site-level checks reconcile the total
Each step - from factors, to direct measurement, to full site-level reconciliation - lands as evidence on the same record, so progress is provable rather than narrated. Uncertainty is stated, reconciliation is attributed, and the stated path is what a counterparty can rely on at renewal.
Methane is not a European subject. It is the fastest lever on near-term warming, and the direction is global; the EU is simply the first market to write it into import law. A record built once answers every counterparty, wherever the barrel is produced and wherever it lands.
150+ countries · at least 30% reduction by 2030 against 2020 · launched at COP26
the UN international reporting reference · equivalence to it is exactly what the dossier demonstrates
large emissions are now detectable from orbit and reported publicly · the number is no longer only what a producer states
importing markets and financiers increasingly ask for the number · the EU codifies what counterparties already price
This is why the page speaks to every party in the chain: the producer who holds the evidence, the trader who moves the cargo, the refiner who files it, and the authority who reads it. One record, built once, serves them all - and the abated methane itself is sellable gas, so the work pays part of its own way.
European term contracts renew · the document-of-compliance clause enters at the negotiation table
the importer obligation applies · statements per contract, dossiers per producer
the Regulation provides for maximum methane intensity levels for placing on the Union market · today’s record is tomorrow’s eligibility
Enforcement begins in the contract long before it begins in court: the clause, not the fine, decides whether volume moves. A record built this quarter is negotiating material this autumn.
The Methane Readiness Assessment maps the data you hold against what the dossier and the statement require, names the gaps, and prices the path - approximately one week from the point your data reaches us.
