Executive Q&A: An Interview With Mims Talton of Flogistix | Part 1

You asked for it, and we answered! And so did our executive in this month’s Q&A. Sean Guerre, Executive Director of Energy Drone & Robotics Coalition, sat down with Mims Talton, President and CEO of Flogistix, to talk about how Flogistix started, how they’re using drones and robotics to prevent flaring, where the industry is now, and where it might be going in the near future.

Here’s that interview.

Questions and responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Sean Guerre: Can you walk us into a little bit about the story of Flogistix and what y'all do in the industry and how you serve it?

Mims Talton:  We started Flogistix about 13 years ago and it’s a vertically integrated manufacturer of compressors—more specifically, vapor recovery units. Our claim to fame, if you will, is that we're really a technology company first. We have over a million lines of code that we've written in the control system that sits on top of every one of our field units. That control system allows us to control in increments of an ounce, so we can actually take tank vapors directly directly from the tanks and do it effectively without inducing oxygen or having other tank disruption problems. So we are really good at pulling from tanks directly and then we also pull from vapor recovery towers, heater treaters, and other on-site equipment. 

Basically, what we do is we eliminate venting and flaring, but we do it in a very practical, economic fashion. So we're providing a decarbonization solution for oil and gas operators, but in particular, for the oil operators. 

We believe that oil has to eliminate Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from production—at a minimum. And we do that. We captured over 10.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022 across our fleet of installed compressors. We have a large fleet of about 3,500 units that we own currently and then there's about 1,500 or more sold units that are in the marketplace as well and that's our FX series of vapor recovery units.

SG: How did you add UAVs and aerial drones to the mix of what you do?

MT: We believe that we're the only practical decarbonization or methane abatement solution that's actually up and running today. We're focused specifically on those emissions, and those emissions are quite valuable. This gas can be 3,000 BTU gas, so it has a high economic value to collect to cool, and put it in the pipeline for sale. 

And so what happened is the world got very interested in methane over the last five or six years—we were already providing a great abatement service for these methane emissions. And so what we saw during the height of COVID when we were all shut down and really had extra time on our hands, to be candid, we started playing around with drones.

The second drone I bought was a DJI M300. So we went from sort of messing around some little drones to right into an m300. And we started playing with that, we started flying it, we started putting payloads on it, taking pictures, and doing various things. We eventually got into methane sensors like lasers and methane sniffers and OGI cameras that we could put on our drones and we could find methane leaks quite accurately. We found that this is an extremely effective way to find everything that's leaking on a location. 

The existing tools don't do that. So we, along with our 325 existing customers, are very keen to deliver a methane detection service where we're going out on behalf of our client, flying their facilities, documenting leaks, and even doing 3D scans of facilities. 

And the real difference at this point in time, we do have a leg up on the industry with sensors and drones, but we definitely have a leg up on actually deploying the commercial solution. We've had teams out in the field now for a couple of years deploying drones and capturing data and doing all the different things. We built our own air methane portal so our customers can access all this data and all these images and stuff that we're doing.

We actually have a viable AI solution for quantification. It's not what I would call 110% perfect, but it's directionally good enough to help us manage the leak repair process which has been very valuable to our clients. We believe over time, we can make that a lot more accurate than it is today. I mean, it’s AI, that's the way it works—we're constantly improving it and the more images we see and can document, that makes it that much better for the next application.

We see a lot of people in the detection space already, but they're not oil and gas people. So that's one of the things that we think gives us a significant advantage—that we already work hand in hand with the operators. We already have a pretty good feel for the challenges they have, and we believe that there's a bright future around drone deployed sensors to do a number of things in the industry besides just finding methane leaks.

SG: Where do you think the industry is—on methane detection, abatement, repair? And where do you think companies are headed with their programs?

From Flogistix

MT: I think the question that you're asking is really about how prepared are the E&P and pipeline companies to produce oil and transfer oil and gas today, and into the future, without emissions? Or at least begin addressing the issue, which is where we find a lot of people starting out

The good news is we already count 85% of the public operators, the public oil and gas companies, as customers in the U.S. So better than 85% of the public companies are taking this very seriously and they're already taking steps to detect and abate methane. So we still have 15% of the public operators that we haven't dealt with yet. And then I think we have a large number of independent operators that are either already customers and are addressing the issue or are starting to address the issue. We added five new clients for vapor recovery services in September 2023. 

SG: Okay, so it's a little bit more well-developed than we even thought. Still people are certainly going to adapt their programs based upon the final regulatory scheme and when they have to report, but they started the process they're understanding the value.

MT: Yeah, the issue is bigger than the local regulations, whether they come together on a federal level with the methane tax or not, who the heck knows in Washington. I would put that as just a big question mark all around it. They say it's gonna happen but I've seen that show many times 

But, vapor recovery started out as a safety issue because the shale oil wells produce a lot of gas. And that gas was going uncollected, and it was settling on locations and people were getting burned—flashfires. And so it really started out as a safety matter.

It very quickly became an economic thing because people figured out, along with our education efforts, that these are quite valuable vapors and they really shouldn't vent or flare them. And so if they have a pipeline, they would really do themselves a big favor to go ahead and collect those vapors—from a safety and economic and then also ultimately a regulatory standpoint. 

But I will tell you that the pressure on the industry as a whole to clean up and to participate in the energy transition and for oil to compete in the future, we have no option. These emissions have to be eliminated.

I participated in a panel discussion last week in Abu Dhabi at the ADIPEC Oil Show. And there were other participants for Schlumberger, Baker, and Exxon, so some big companies that are serious about this issue. I think that the industry has already gotten that message for the most part—that we've got to clean up. And many operators have been doing this for 10 years—Chevron, Oxy, Devon, Continental, Ovintiv. We have a lot of big independents and big public companies that have been trying to clean this up for a long time. 

Now, the world is really focused on it, so now, we're trying to provide evidence that our customers are cleaning up these emissions for a long time. That's caused us at Flogistix to not only be interested in detection technologies and solutions, but even to be interested in integrating carbon credit solutions for our customers because we create a great economic story when we take away the emissions from the production of oil. We create a green barrel in effect, and we create a data trail with our system that allows us to document and create reports around that, which is a huge advantage that we have in the marketplace for Flogistix.

More Where That Came From

This interview was so good that we have to break it into two parts. Check out Part 2 where Sean and Mims talk about specific drones, data capture and analysis, the energy transition, and more.

Plus, next month, we’ll sit down with another industry exec for a Q & A session. Do you know a good candidate for an interview? Send us their info at news@innovateenergynow.com.