The way gas is marketed must be changed.

That’s according to Jan Dirk Bokhoven, CEO of Dutch oil and gas company EBN, who believes gas should replace coal if we are to cut emissions.

Mr Bokhoven told ELN: “The main reason why we, as an industry, think the public need to use gas rather than coal is because of carbon dioxide emissions. It has much lower carbon emissions. The unfortunate thing is that at the moment the image of gas is not much better than coal and in my view if I look into the Netherlands but also other countries, we don’t market gas.

“We market oil products but [not] gas. We get gas, we use it at home to heat our houses and it is always there but nobody thinks where the gas comes from. So in my view we need, as an industry, to start to market gas.”

He was speaking at the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) London Annual Conference today. Mr Bokhoven said production and operating costs of oil have increased fourfold as a result of low prices.

Production needs to be increased to tackle the issue “make things cheaper” in the production process, he added.

He believes fracking could be another option but said he is aware about public concerns.

Speaking to ELN after the conference, he added: “We need to provide the right information of what we are doing. It is not always clear what we actually are doing. That’s something that needs to be explained because as an industry we don’t provide any information to the public. We talk to each other but not to the public.

“If we don’t have the public’s acceptance it is a big issue and if we are not capable of reaching out to the public as an industry, we have more severe problems than just cost issues or oil prices.”