OGMP 2.0 Reporting: The Five Levels, Gold Standard, and EU Equivalence

OGMP 2.0 — the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 — is the methane reporting framework run by UNEP IMEO (the UN Environment Programme's International Methane Emissions Observatory) and the framework the EU Methane Regulation points to as an equivalence anchor for imported natural gas. This page explains what OGMP 2.0 is, what each of its five reporting levels covers, what "Gold Standard" recognition involves, and how Greentruth's QET-NG methodology supports Level 4 and Level 5 reporting for both EU compliance and voluntary reporting commitments.

OGMP 2.0 in one paragraph. OGMP 2.0 is UNEP IMEO's methane reporting framework for the oil and gas value chain. It defines five reporting levels — from generic emission factors up to site-level measurement reconciliation — and it sits underneath the EU Methane Regulation's Article 28 equivalence pathway. Member companies progress toward higher-level reporting over time; the framework underpins the most credible voluntary methane disclosures in the industry today.

How this maps to the EU Methane Regulation

OGMP 2.0 is the methane-only reporting framework for the upstream, midstream, and (in expanding scope) downstream oil and gas value chain. It exists because the methane signal is the part of the GHG inventory most affected by measurement quality — and because for years the industry's only public-facing numbers were activity-data estimates with limited audit defensibility. UNEP IMEO administers the framework; member companies report annually against it; and the EU Methane Regulation explicitly references it as one of the anchors for demonstrating equivalent MRV.

Three things to know:

• OGMP 2.0 reports methane, not the full GHG inventory. Other gases (CO₂, N₂O) are accounted under separate frameworks; QETs additionally carry these via the methodology's full multi-pollutant CI in kgCO₂e/MMBtu using IPCC AR5 GWP100.
• OGMP 2.0 reports at the company level, with members publishing annual asset-level data. It is not a transactional or certificate framework — it sits underneath transactional instruments like QET-NG.
• Membership signals a commitment to progress up the reporting levels over time. Greentruth's QET-NG methodology supports member companies in producing Level 4 and Level 5–consistent records.

What a QET-NG is · The broader QET concept

OGMP 2.0 organizes methane reporting on a five-level ladder. Each level represents a stronger relationship between reported emissions and the underlying physical measurement.

The practical inflection point is between Level 3 and Level 4. Below Level 4, reporting depends on factors and assumptions. From Level 4 upward, the reported value is anchored to a measurement that an independent verifier can inspect.

How MRV works across frameworks

Map of pipelines and pathway resolution

The framework uses the "Gold Standard" label to recognize member companies that have committed to — and are progressing toward — the higher reporting levels within UNEP IMEO's published timelines. The status is a public signal: a company carrying the Gold Standard recognition has signed up to source-level measurement (and, for non-operated assets, a credible plan to reach it) within UNEP IMEO's stated window.

For buyers of natural gas, Gold Standard recognition matters in two ways:

• It is the public-facing marker of a producer's seriousness about measurement-based methane reporting.
• It is increasingly the precondition for being treated as a credible counterparty under the EU Methane Regulation equivalence pathway.

For the operative definition and the latest membership criteria, defer to UNEP IMEO's published guidance.

UNEP IMEO / OGMP 2.0 framework

This is the part of the framework most pressing for non-EU exporters. Regulation (EU) 2024/1787 — the EU Methane Regulation — requires producers and importers placing natural gas on the EU market to provide chain-of-custody methane information (Article 28) verified to a reasonable-assurance standard (Article 8). For non-EU producers, that requirement is mediated by an equivalence demonstration governed by European Commission implementing acts.

The Partnership is one of the public anchors the Regulation points to for that equivalence. A producer reporting at Level 4 or Level 5, with verifier-grade data, is in materially stronger position to demonstrate equivalence than a producer relying on default factors. Greentruth's QET-NG methodology v2.3 incorporates OGMP 2.0 alignment in its EU compliance extension, alongside the EEMDL Protocol (UT Austin Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab), which handles the source-level vs. site-level reconciliation with tiered thresholds. The Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines — in Tracking and Transacting Clean Natural Gas: Operationalizing Environmental Attribute Tokens by Liam O'Byrne and Brad Handler (April 2026) — addresses this architecture in detail, framing OGMP 2.0 alongside NGSI, OGCI, ONE Future, MiQ, and ISO 14067 as the measurement frameworks a compliant token must remain agnostic to at the input layer.

Payne Institute commentary

How the EU Methane Regulation equivalence pathway works

How a QET-NG is verified to ISO 14064-3

European Commission — EU Methane Regulation

Greentruth's QET-NG methodology is built to issue tokens whose underlying data is consistent with Level 4 and Level 5 reporting — without requiring the buyer or auditor to reconstruct that consistency themselves.

• Site- and segment-level attribution. Each QET-NG carries the production facility, basin, and (for transmission) the validated pipeline pathway across the 32,000-segment Lower-48 network model. The same architecture extends to the EU as Greentruth's coverage extends in 2026.
• Source-level measurement ingestion. Where producers operate Level 4 source-level measurement programs, the data feeds directly into the QET-NG mint, with the verifier of record stamped on the token.
• Top-down reconciliation under Level 5. Site-level measurements can be reconciled with bottom-up source-level emissions under the EEMDL Protocol's tiered thresholds, with the methodology version recorded on the issued token.
• Audit trail. ISO 14064-3 reasonable-assurance verification at the token level; methodology and R&D GREET 2025 version recorded explicitly per QET; chain-of-custody preserved on-chain via the EarnDLT registry.

The output is a registry-grade record that an importer's compliance team, an EU verifier, and a corporate buyer can all draw from the same underlying source — without the producer having to publish four different views of the same data.

Read the long-form QET-NG methodology

How GasTrace consumes producer QETs downstream

For US-only reporting commitments outside the EU compliance lane, the Partnership is one of several relevant frameworks — and not the primary one anchored in the QET-NG methodology. The QET-NG methodology's normative references lead with three US-anchored frameworks:

• NGSI Protocol v2.0 — the Natural Gas Sustainability Initiative protocol, source-category methane intensity reporting.
• OGCI Reporting Framework — the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative's reporting framework for member companies.
• ONE Future v6.2023 — the ONE Future Coalition's voluntary methane intensity reporting framework, with a 1% intensity target across the value chain.

A producer can be aligned to NGSI v2.0, OGCI, and ONE Future simultaneously, with OGMP 2.0 layered in for any EU-bound supply. Greentruth's QET-NG methodology is built to ingest data consistent with all four; the framework export the buyer receives depends on which downstream use the token is being applied to.

How QETs align across reporting frameworks

How the GHG Protocol relates