"This Is The Lowest Hanging Fruit" Featuring Georges Tijbosch, MiQ
Today we had the pleasure of hosting Georges Tijbosch, CEO of MiQ in our office for a special edition COBT. Georges and his team are in town for CERAWeek and have made exciting announcements during the conference. MiQ is an independent non-profit organization that set up a framework to certify natural gas graded on methane leak levels. They are largely funded by philanthropic efforts and are committed to addressing methane issues in this decade, a mission we appreciate. Jeff Tillery, Mike Bradley and I greatly enjoyed visiting with Georges. To help guide today’s discussion, Georges first provided background on the organization including the formation of the group, their technical process for evaluating emissions, how attitudes around methane emissions have changed in the past few years, and the organization’s interaction with the energy industry. In the past year, they have increased to certifying ~20% of US gas production. We also discuss the organization’s future plans, the advantage of being an independent group, the typical methane escape associated with natural gas production, Georges’ vision for ten years from now, the organization’s interactions with the investment community, and natural gas as a long-term solution for Europe. Earlier this week, MiQ announced that BP has certified 100% of its U.S. onshore upstream operations with MiQ. It was an exciting time to meet with Georges! The conversation with Georges was far ranging and incredibly stimulating. For those of you like us who strongly believe in natural gas as an answer, Georges will have you thinking about not just how good an answer it can be but also about what can be the problems. You will also hear that so many of those problems are “low hanging fruit” and can be fixed and fixed soon. We are so glad Georges came by the office to visit during this busy CERA season. We look forward to staying connected with the team at MiQ and watching their progress in the years to come. Thanks to you all!