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Born in St Malo, Georges Mougin grew up in cod-fishing world of Newfoundland. His father ran a local workshop that maintained the fishing boats.

In 1947, a few years after leaving Arts et Métiers, with the help of a Danish naval architect, he coordinated the work of transforming a US surplus ship into a polar vessel that became the “Commandant Charcot”. This was when he met Paul-Emile Victor, and was the start of a 50-year friendship and of his fascination with the Antarctic.

Together with the Saudi prince Mohammed al-Faisal, he founded the ITI Company (Iceberg Transport International), which from 1975 to 1981 established the conditions of feasibility of transferring and exploiting tabular icebergs from the Antarctic, but had to give up the project in the face of numerous obstacles.

Since 2003, taking account of the creation of oceanic forecasting services, and the availability of maritime resources developed for off-shore oil drilling, Georges Mougin endeavored to reactivate this project to exploit icebergs.