MANAGER, EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AND OPERATIONS

About Us

The Methanol Institute (MI) serves as the trade association for the global methanol industry.  Methanol is a key chemical commodity and emerging energy fuel.  MI maintains offices in Washington (Old Town Alexandria), Singapore and Brussels.  The Manager, External Affairs and Operations is based in the Washington office and reports to the Acting CEO.  The Washington Office focuses on legislative/regulatory affairs, product stewardship, and market development initiatives in the Americas and Europe.  We are seeking a dynamic self-started with experience from Capitol Hill or in trade associations.

Job Responsibilities / Primary Duties

• Assist in legislative and regulatory activities of international trade association, focusing on Americas and Europe.
• Serve as association’s lead Congressional liaison.
• Manage consultants and direct research activities in support of trade association objectives.
• Assist in coordinating activities of member-driven committees.
• Responsible for all communications initiatives including: media relations; weekly newsletter publication; fact sheets; web site management; and social media (blog, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube).
• Represent association at industry conferences.
• Plan and co-ordinate quarterly Board Meeting at off-site locations, and conference call meetings of member committees;
• Assist in liaison with member companies and partners, planning relevant workshops/conferences, and developing presentations.
• Day-to-day management of office operations, communications, and financial/accounting.
• Maintain contact database.
• Intern recruitment and management.
• Staff the office on a full-time basis, including when Acting CEO is on business travel.

Skills and Qualifications

• At least a bachelor’s degree.
• At least 5 years of work experience.
• Capitol Hill or trade association experience preferred.
• MS Office proficient (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF).
• Demonstrated proficiency in web site management and social media.
• Excellent communication skills.

Office management will include: monitoring existing computer and communication systems to ensure optimal performance; maintaining vendor relationships; and working with MI’s outside accounting firm and book-keeper on all invoicing.  It is anticipated that the Manager, External Affairs and Operations will spend 70% of time on substantive issues, and 30% on administrative duties.

The ability to organize, prioritize and assume increasingly greater responsibility with minimum supervision will be important qualifications the Manager, External Affairs and Operations brings to this position.

Compensation will be based on level of experience.  Full benefits package included.

Please send letter of interest and resume to job@methanol.org.

North American methanol producers are planning to increase their production capacity by 60 percent in the next few years. This is primarily due to an increased demand for a petrochemical used as a fuel additive to make gasoline engines burn cleaner. Shale gas has been instrumental in revolutionizing North America’s methanol industry. As supply has outpaced demand, the price of gas has fallen to a level profitable enough for methanol producers to not only revive capacity, but also build new plants. A direct result of this has been that North America, which relied on imports for more than three-quarters of its methanol in 2011, will be able within a few years to produce most of the methanol it needs.

“It is a bullish time for methanol producers,” said Michael Morden, a portfolio manager at Mackenzie Saxon Stock Fund. Demand in China, by far the largest methanol consumer, is expected to rise to more than 50 million tons by 2016 from 30 million tons last year. While North American producers will benefit, they will continue to face competition on the global market from methanol producers in the Middle East, where costs remain low. Importantly, demand for methanol is forecast by analysts to remain strong as more fuel is blended for new applications, such as powering ships. “Demand growth looks to be stronger in the future than it has been in the past,” said Jason Chesko, director of investor relations for Methanex. “Greater use of green energy applications is causing demand to be higher.” More information can be found here.

MI today released a new white paper from California-based environmental consulting firm TIAX entitled Methanol as a Renewable Energy Resource. Funded by MI, the report is designed to tell the

story of methanol as a significant source of renewable transportation fuel.

More specifically, the white paper highlights several key facts, including:

• Renewable methanol can be produced via four primary pathways: municipal waste, industrial waste, biomass, and carbon dioxide;
• Biomethanol is the subset of renewable methanol produced from biomass feedstocks;
• In the case of renewable methanol, feedstock availability is not expected to be a limiting factor;
• Renewable methanol has an advantage among alternative fuels in that it is one of few fuels actively seeking to use CO2 streams as its feedstock; and
• The renewable methanol pathways being pursued today rely on feedstocks that have little value or would otherwise incur fees for their generators, which is advantageous for the economics of renewable methanol.

The white paper also highlights the work done by BioMCN, Enerkem, Chemrec; VärmlandsMetanol, Carbon Recycling International, Blue Fuel Energy, University of California Riverside, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Syntec Biofuel, Gas Technologies, Range Fuels, and Air Fuel Synthesis.

The report can be found here on the MI website.

The use of methanol as both an additive to and replacement for fuel  continues to expand rapidly around the globe – new countries are adopting standards and guidelines for the use of methanol as a clean energy source and helping to ween themselves off of traditional petroleum.

MI is here to help!  As always, MI is the leading source of information and resources regarding methanol handling – and this topic is no different.

MI partnered with TEIR Associates to develop to very useful documents.  The first focuses on the blending of methanol by terminal operators, and covers topics related to blending ratios, safe handling, distribution and storage.  The second document illuminates similar topics for retail station owners who are seeing methanol introduced into the blends they are selling at their stations.

And of course, as a global organization, we have also made these available in multiple languages.  Currently you can also access this documents in Mandarin and Spanish, as well as English.  We will keep our readers posted of additional languages as they come available.

If you have any questions about these, you can reach MI at MI@methanol.org.

The documents are available here.