It's a great move! Methane economy already exists. Methane storage and transport is reasonably simple and scalable.

Convert to hydrogen at point of use, and you can claim all the hydrogen hype without having to do all the hard things with hydrogen. If you accidentally oxidize methane instead of converting to hydrogen and oxidizing hydrogen, whoopsie-doodles, but it might be a simpler system.

Sure, but how is methane obtained if not from a byproduct of drilling up oil? Isn't it the "gas" in oil&gas?

It's probably a good move to "hydrogenize" the economy if we can, but it sure would be nice to move away from extraction into something that's more sustainably produced in-situ. Either electricity, or even methane synthesis.