The August 2022 issue of JPT featured an article on the most common voluntary certifications that have at least some kind of methane emissions-related requirements. Since then, MiQ appears to have become a certification framework of choice for many industry players. According to Georges Tijbosch, CEO of MiQ, as of January 2023, about 20% of US natural gas production has gone through the MiQ process. Tijbosch noted that most of the currently certified production received grades A, B, or C. While this is no high school, we naturally tend to assume that getting an “A” is the ultimate goal of getting certified. It might be true for some; however, as we all realize after graduating schools and universities and upon entering the workforce, life is quite often more about continuous improvement over time vs. achieving the top grade as such. This article is aimed at exploring the MiQ grading framework in more detail and explaining practical pathways for industry participants to achieve any desired MiQ grade. For simplicity, we will focus on the MiQ Standard—Onshore Production, but the fundamental concepts are applicable to other industry segments. The MiQ Standard scores a facility based on three broad categories. - Methane-intensity quantitative metric - Monitoring technology deployment - Company practices related to the methane emissions management Each of these categories is scored by an auditor accredited to conduct MiQ audits and who is an independent subject matter expert in the fields of methane mitigation, monitoring, and accounting. The combined score across the three categories results in a letter grade on the MiQ certificate issued for that facility’s production. Natural gas buyers (typically utility companies or industrial users) then request certain volumes of certified gas and, depending on the targeted end use and other factors, may specify a desired grade. Roy Hartstein is an emissions subject matter expert, as well as founder and president of Responsible Energy Solutions, an organization that performs certification assessments and helps companies prepare for certification. Hartstein and his team have conducted over a dozen MiQ audits. He talks about three aspects of value that motivate natural gas producers to improve from a non-A to an A grade: 1) possibility of earning a higher premium on the sold certified gas; 2) internal risk management across several avenues such as safety, identification of malfunctioning equipment, or early detection of operational inefficiencies; and 3) alleviating environmental concerns of the investment community. He believes this advances a long-term strategy to secure oil and gas’s potential as part of the future energy mix. Regardless of the underlying motivation, most of us like to think we are straight-A students and don’t want to bring home a report card with a lower grade. But at the time a company initiates the certification process, they may find they qualify for a lower (i.e., non-A) grade. What are the potential implications of this?