GLEN PARROTT:
Hello everyone. Welcome to enter EnerCom’s The Oil and Gas podcast. today is Tuesday, April 16. So, the day after Tax Day, did you get your, your taxes filed there Aaron Excellent. So, I’m Glen Parrot and with me today, my cohost AARON VANDEFORD, who has indeed paid his taxes. so, it’s been a couple of weeks since we last did this. at the time, the final four a was or not the final four, but a march madness was just underway, and we’d made our picks and now that the final four is over with Rick didn’t do that great. You know.
AARON VANDEFORD:
So, I was reading something and it’s actually harder to get a perfect bracket than it is to win the lottery in some cases.
GLEN PARROTT:
Seriously. Yeah. And yet somebody always went, yet someone does it. Well, I, I told Rick he needed to change his model is analytics. Got them only so far. He did get Michigan state though, but ultimately, we didn’t end up that way, but that’s not what everyone’s here for. So, let’s get rolling along as we kind of go through this. podcasts, you know, we try and take a look at some of the items that are timely and topical. and given the, the date and everything, I guess top of that list would be most recent news being Chevron’s acquisition of an Anadarko, which, for those are presumably everyone knows about this. But if you don’t know Chevron set to acquire Anadarko Petroleum, to cash and stock deal, valued at an astounding $33 billion. Do you have an extra billion laying around He don’t? yeah, that’s, that’s a big deal. Yeah, it is pretty interesting. Yeah, it’s a, I mean, so again, you know, the, you know, the nuts and bolts transaction was valued at 65 bucks a share, gather, what are they saying Like a 37% premium to Thursday’s closing price, Thursday, April 11, I believe. And it really, it takes Chevron, from the fourth biggest international oil major by production, to the second largest. So that’s quite a leap there for a big company. I mean, good grief.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Right And you know, Anadarko’s no, obviously no small, small company. It was a needle mover, but it was a needle mover to allow them to get into, the US shale market a little bit in a major way I’ll say. And so, when you start to think about, you know, these large internationals and, and, and Exxon with their XDL purchase, this is kind of Chevron’s version of that, many years later, a decade later, or
GLEN PARROTT:
When did that take place Do you know It was like 2000, 2000. Yeah.
AARON VANDEFORD:
I mean, I’m going to get it wrong now, but I think it was 2010 because it was the very first article we wrote on oil and gas. Three 60. Is that right Yeah. Oh, and that was the transaction. So, I wrote that, but I think it was 2010. Huh. But it was the launch of oil and gas, three 60
GLEN PARROTT:
I little fun, fun EnerCom fact for you. Well, that’s actually pretty cool, actually. Sad, Huh Don’t know what to do with that quick. But needless to say, we did write about this one, on three 60, part of this deal with, but I found interesting was that this notion that I guess Occidental was involved in this and to the extent that they were also targeting Anadarko and looks like they were prepared to pay a 70 bucks a share. and, you know, obviously you, Chevron’s made some, it’s a strategic decision or Anadarko made the district TG decision to the feeling that, that Chevron was the better fit as opposed to an occidental bid. So, I’ve got no color or context around that other than I, you know, I think it’s interesting that, that it was put out there that Occidental’s in the next,
AARON VANDEFORD:
Yeah. And I think that that’s a real positive to see another player come in a kind of a competitive bid. we’re thinking about what’s going on in the board rooms and these decisions. And you know, Anadarko is going to be a shareholder of Chevron or very large shareholder. Yeah. And so, as you start to think about who you want to align yourself with and, and who may be a better fit, it’s not all about the, the end price. I mean they still gotta close to 40% premium that that seems to fit. But, you know, it’s not all about the immediate close. And so, I think that’s an interesting thing to watch.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. The only thing that I heard was I guess on CNBC where they were saying they were quote unquote structural issues with the Occidental bed. And, and that’s just been my mind speculative. We don’t, we don’t know at this point, but regardless, it irrelevant. You know, I think that really at the end of the day, just really speaking more towards Chevron’s goals, as you know, as you mentioned, really their overall Permian strategy. So, I get sort of that industrial scale to shale drilling, bringing that to bear. So, you know, other things around that, you know, it, I’m certainly going to increase the number of rigs, you know, introduce, sort of, they’re really efficient to their efficiencies in their pad drilling and you know, digital annex analytics, etc. but it also for Colorado, you know, there’s this element, this component about bringing potentially, I don’t know if it’s really bringing that model for yeah. Chevron’s model to Anadarko’s DJ basin assets here. So, the question, my mind is what, you know, what do you think, where do you think Colorado plays into this from if you’re Chevron
AARON VANDEFORD:
It’s pretty interesting. It’s the Permian side of it was certainly the driver, right. And at Arco had a huge, has a huge position here in the DJ Basin, one of the legacy large positions and yet it may be kind of one of those non-core assets for a Chevron. And so there may be an opportunity for, for another player to come in and pick that type of asset up. I’m not sure who that may be. I, I’ve kind of wracked my brain and said who, who’s kind of the size and scale that would want and need that. Right. but Chevron might turn around and say, no, actually this is kind of why we did this. And so, without, you know, more, more information and in Chevron’s thinking, Permian certainly going to get the capital and the lion share of capital. When you’re starting to think about competing for capital, I think that’s where it’s going to go. And ultimately, I think in their, in their call for this, they laid out at a 2019 plan and capital budget that was ultimately less than the two companies combined. So that’s efficiencies. We’re reducing capital spend, but a lot of that reduction in capital spend came from the Chevron assets, not the Anadarko assets. Gotcha.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. The, and that’s during the announcement, you mean what you heard of certainly was focused on Permian and you know, I don’t want to say to a lesser extent, but also, LNG and then it seems off to the side there is, oh yeah. I’ve also got these DJ assets too. So, I’m really curious. That’s how that’s gonna play out. You know Do you just take that and, hey, yeah, we’re, we’re going to potentially sell it off and bits and pieces or one fell swoop or, or as you mentioned, do you take it and run with it I don’t know.
AARON VANDEFORD:
More to come. More in common for sure. But you know, we certainly saw Anadarko and in the way that they dealt with that asset, I mean, they, they certainly inside their portfolio where we’re allocating capital towards the Permian. And so, I’ve got to imagine that the Chevron will continue to go down that path. But I think, you know, I’m sure we’ll touch on one 81 here coming up, the Colorado Senate bill and how that’s progressed. But that may give a little bit more clarity, more, a little bit more. Runway for someone to put some capital to work, in and around the Colorado assets.
GLEN PARROTT:
So, you also brought up something the other day, you made a comment on the heels of this announcement where you’re like, you know what, this is you. Would you classify this as a quote unquote a healthy?
AARON VANDEFORD:
Acquisition and healthy m and a deal Yeah, so explain that. No, so I did. We as we exited 2018, we kind of saw, or kind of the middle of 18 we saw these stocks for stock deals. The MNA market was starting to, to heat up, but most of it was to fix structural issues. And so, if we think about, you know, Chesapeake and, and even the Denbury announcement, it was really to fix a debt problem in a public setting and or fix a growth issue. And an m and a generally should work together, but it was not at a premium valuation company going after something they, where they see tremendous value. It was really some other catalysts in there. And this is the first and obviously a very large deal with a competitive bid space that we have a healthy company, Chevron who is trading at a premium to a lot of it appears and Anadarko’s a healthy company trading at a discount. But we’re really good assets. All right. And now we’re going to put this thing together. And I think that that is fundamentally different and a real positive for this industry. and the MNA space moving forward compared to what we were seeing in kind of the mid 2018 timeframe with those deals, would you still have classified this, a healthy deal had been oxidized
AARON VANDEFORD:
Yeah, I think so. I actually, you know, Occidental’s another healthy player. Yes. Certainly, you know, large and in charge and the Permian also. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I just, I was, you know, it’s like, but, but does, does it being Chevron, does that make it a bigger message And I think so. I think so. And I think it also, you know, and we’ve, we’ve been traveling some, we’ve been out in New York, you, it, you’ve been down in, in New Orleans and we’ve been listening to some of the, the shareholder response. This kind of woke people up, in a little bit to say, Hey, maybe as an investor I need to look at the space a little bit more because something’s happening. Yeah. And so, I think, you know, it’s an internal vote of confidence and internal being the internal industry saying, Hey, there’s, there’s a lot of value here, right.
AARON VANDEFORD:
We’re going to figure out how to make this work. And so, I think investors have to take notes as well. And they have, right Yeah. Certainly, a different message than the sort of similar x resolute type of deal where there was one buyer, it was kind of a stellar going to a buyer and saying, hey, we want this. And they said, sure if you’re willing to sell for this. And they said, you bet. Yeah. Okay. And you know, I think fundamentally that is different than what you see here. Yeah, exactly. you know, for 40% premium with some cash, this a healthy deal.
GLEN PARROTT:
Nice. So, there you go. Everyone who knows maybe this a portend is better for 2019 I’m not sure. I think so. It certainly, cause if you’re Occidental, I mean seriously, you’re still potentially shopping around and you’re like, okay, this deal didn’t work on out. You know, you’re going to, you’re going to fight that or you’re going to, you know, argue for it or are you going to go, you know what, there’s other opportunities out there that, that are for us equally healthy and additive.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Yeah. I, I, I believe that they are still in the market. Yeah. And they’ll, they’ll find something that, that is a good fit for them. and so, you know, our company’s ready to go shopping. I hope so. I think there needs to be some consolidation and certainly the messages that we’re seeing, in the market and from investors of this free cashflow mantra that we’ve talked about in our previous, shows are requiring a larger company, a more production, more of a production base. And so, if that’s where we’re going, MNA needs to need to kind of lead some of that charge. So
GLEN PARROTT:
I’m positive. There we go. No Way. and, and the, you know, the way we kind of structure this as kind of go through timely and topical, we spent a lot of time on that one hot item. I just want to make mention, around just really quickly, let’s touch base on, on Colorado. Senate bill one 81, you know, we’ve, when we started doing the podcast, just been sort of introduced in this brief amount of time. It’s really been rushed through m and a, in essence a one 81 is passed by the Colorado General Assembly. I think it was, had it been almost two weeks ago. Yeah. If we can half or so, I think, I’d say, you know, the, you know, the governor is expected to sign this into law any day. right now they’re, you know, they’re going through the, the rulemaking revamp process. you know, Eh, there’s not much more really to comment on. There’s a lot of wait and see. And there’s, most companies seem to be having this feeling that they can
AARON VANDEFORD:
Work with what’s been put forward. And so, there was this leading up to the General Assembly, you know, this feeling that this was going to be a moratorium. It was going to shut down for a little while that that’s been alleviated. you know, we’re going to continue to be able to go to work. Most of the, the overall, you know, perspective of, of a lot of the clients we’re working with and having conversations with is, look, we can work with this. we’re, we have to work with it. So we are, and ultimately, we want to be good stewards of, of the communities we’re working. We want to be good stewards of the environment. We’re continue, we do that. We will continue to do that and show it. And so, you know, I think one of the things you will see in investor presentations that are going to come up is everyone’s going to be a rural operator, even though they may not be.
AARON VANDEFORD:
But yeah, you’re certainly going to start to see a, everyone’s speak to themselves as a rural Colorado operator and, and, you’ll have to decide for yourselves who’s, who’s, we’re nowhere and really rural communities while we’re not drilling in Denver. Right. It’s not like he’s going down main street, but, you know, the, a lot of these assets that are, that are outside of communities are certainly going to be drilled, probably not affected in any material manner at this point. And there will be litigation that, that will kind of clean this up as there is with any bill that comes forward.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. I think the, the greatest distress that at least within the industry in Colorado in particular ways that it was on the heels of, you know, in November ballot initiative, that was an assault on oil and gas in Colorado. And suddenly this one comes along and it’s, I don’t want to say it was an overreaction because that’s not the case. but there was certainly the speed of which was his coming there. People needed time to digest and understand and have dialogue and I think they felt that they weren’t getting that opportunity. So, at least in the, in a reasonable way. But anyway, that’s the latest and greatest on at least, you know, the status of one 81 unless there’s any other color that you’ve got around it.
AARON VANDEFORD:
No, I think that that’s, that that really kind of summarizes it. It was very fast. I think that that, as you mentioned, the industry would have liked a larger voice in it. Yeah. But I think we’re, we’re at a point where look with, let’s go to work and I think we’re feeling that across even the other conversations that we’re having with investors. People ready to go back to work and they have been for a long time. And so, you know, as we, as we went through one 12, one 81, we’ve, we’ve got something where we can go to work. Yeah. Let’s go to work.
GLEN PARROTT:
Okay. So, moving along. you know, you’ve mentioned that we’ve kind of been doing a lot of traveling recently, kind of hitting up the other industry conferences that EnerCom is fortunate enough to, to attend, like this. Most recently of course, IBW is oil and gas industry symposium and was in New York. going on this time last week
AARON VANDEFORD:
And you get stuck there and in the snow storm that we had here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you’ve got to enjoy New York for a few extra days.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. Colorado decided to spool up a quick little blizzard and I think 600 flights were cancelled, mine included. And so, it was very pleasant in New York though. Yeah. Actually. Yeah, it was really nice. you know, the weather held out for everybody. So, in any event, got to go to the conference and you know, see, you know, some, some good presentations, have good dialogue, I guess, and you were there as well. Naturally I’m representing one of our clients.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Overall thoughts overall, I thought, I think a lot of the same themes that we’ve kind of heard have progressed a little bit. certainly, you know, generation of free cash flow. If you can do it, we want you to do it. And the investors are preaching that, and companies can do it. or moderating growth, paying down debt or, or rightsizing balance sheets in any way possible. So, you know, we’ll still probably see some of that type of M&A activity or a dad exchanges those types of things. and then share buybacks or something that, that of, you know, continued to be preached forward. and then then something that, that kind of an evolution of this free cash flow idea was. And we, I heard it more than once was this, we’re going to be Ebitda neutral in 2019 which is kind of a step back of, well, if you take out kind of the other things that we have the interest and we’re, we’re going to kind of spend that cash flow.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Yeah, I mean, I didn’t want to be the one guy in the room raised his hand saying neutral mean really. I don’t. So, I, I appreciate the term and I think companies are doing what they can do and, and they’re moving in the right path from that to say, hey, we’re moderating growth. We’re spending within our means. but I don’t think they fooled anyone with this free cash flow to Ebidta on neutral type of, of little bit of a shift. And I think a lot of that came from, Hey, well prices haven’t been as we came in in 2018, prices were low, which means that our cash flows are going to be a little bit low on the production. So, this free cash flow got pushed out a little bit further. And even for the companies that, that weren’t going to be able to get there now have this even a neutral thing to be talking about. And so, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll hear more of that.
GLEN PARROTT:
You know, I was, and sitting in one of the breakout sessions with a specific firm is a small cap firm and, you know, these guys are, it was interesting, they were really impressed by a generalist investors, to be honest with you. The guy was, you know, admittedly that a generalist and he was a really asking, very pointed questions and really driving, management towards this answer the question around, Hey, you know what You know, we’d like to see you guys, you know, drive towards a more free cash. And, you know, you’d see the management teams are, you know, they feel the pinch, right They’re like, ah, if I can, you know, and, and they were like, okay, well if you’re able to do that, what are you going to do with the extra cash And they’re like, pay down debt. we can do share buybacks, not sure if we can, I mean, you know, these guys are in this position where they’re, they’re being pressed on it and they’re, they’re trying to ask the question that they’re like, oh yeah, we’ll try and get there if we can.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Yeah. And it, it, it’s, the capital allocation decisions that these companies are having to go through even to get to that free cash flow number has a lot to do with what leases have I purchased are, you know, what, what’s expiring. am I really okay on my, my midstream contracts that production declines because that’s real money out the door? my hedging profile that I’ve got and then I’ve set up for the next 12 to 36 months, are really 24. You know, I hate to say, well, we’ll drill for a hedge book, but certainly weighing for not having to pay, for unused production. And so, as we, we ask companies to be long-term thinkers and very reactionary and in the near term, these things are at odds. And so those are all things that they companies are thinking about is we are going into the capital budgeting. We’ve, we’ve set a capital budget, but as we get into this Q one time period and we got our first check in or that, you know, how are we going to adjust And you know, companies say they can move, move it up very quickly, but they kind of back it down a little bit in some ways too. so that was certainly there.
GLEN PARROTT:
Companies themselves, some of the presentations, I don’t want to say highlight cause that’s not necessarily the case. But once I at least I wanted to talk about was, you know, there were some, some good presentations, no doubt. and, so, mm. Yeah, I guess, like a great presentation. But this was a Howard Weil, Cimarex I thought I’d gave a great presentation. IPAA, they weren’t there, but he had companies like a PDC,
AARON VANDEFORD:
Who actually had an activist, not do, you know, a little bit earlier, a couple of weeks before and continues to make noise. And so, this, this age of the activist is here. Right. But you know, I really good for PDC to, to be their, control, their message, get out there and, and really make sure you’re having a dialogue and not crawl into a hole, which we see a lot.
GLEN PARROTT:
That’s exactly where, and that’s, I guess where I wanted to highlight a couple of these companies. I’m like, oh, PDC activist investor, you’re out there, you’re messaging. you know, another company that, that, that showed up and in frankly could have stuck his head in the sand, but didn’t, and that was ultra petroleum. So UPL, you know, management showed up. They, you know, they took the heat, but they showed up there in, in that, and you know, their messaging on out as best as they can.
AARON VANDEFORD:
No, it was, it was, it was great to see. It’s a, a new team there at ultra. This was their first time as a, as a unit going out and speaking with investors. And so, they got to get out there and reintroduce themselves, reintroduce the story, reintroduced the Pinedale to folks. And it’s a huge asset. I mean, $500 million Ebitda asset and a lot of these companies. So for that type of asset, and it’s a gas asset, that, that can do that. but certainly, you know, the balance sheet strains what they’re doing and they’re going to be proactive and they’re working with it. But another example of, of getting out in front of something when they need to.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. And, and, I also, I sat in on the SRCS a presentation as well as the breakout and, and I gotta tell you, I, I thought that Lynn Peterson did a great job, meaning from a, just a pure leadership perspective. You know, he showed up. He, he addressed the investors’ concerns specifically around sort of, you know, the issues around Colorado and Senate. Bill one 81 going back to that topic, but, you know, he didn’t shy away from it. He was a, you know, upfront talking to everybody saying, Hey, we’ve addressed this, and you know, you know, look, we want to be in this communities. We work with these people, you know, you know, were hand in glove, you know, making this work with within our neighborhood and where we’re at. And, and you know, he didn’t shirk from it. So I thought that it was actually a, I thought it was a great way to come on out to everybody and really show confidence, show that they’ve got a plan and show that they are working within quite arguably one of the harshest regulatory environments in the u s for oil and gas.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Well, I, I think it’s a good leadership position, that he kind of came out and said, hey, you know, not only SRC, but we’re going to be able to move this forward. And, and the DJ players have been put in the penalty box ever since, kind of the whispers at one 12. Right. And I think there’s a real opportunity for companies to message clarity and a path forward, with where we are with one 81 to alleviate some of those, those discounts. And so, you know, if I was a buyer, I’d be a buyer of the DJ, at this point.
GLEN PARROTT:
The, well, so as an investor, you know, I guess, the reason I was bringing that up with regards to, you know, the investors, you know, multiple conversations around that and, and they really, they did express real frustration around companies that don’t show up and present because, and I, and I asked him, we’d be at launch, you know, it’s like, Hey, look, you know, shoot straight with me. I mean, how important is it really for individually, to meet with company management face to face in your investment decisions And I’ve asked this question multiple times, you know, over the years, you know, asking me what happens if you can’t do that And you know, they all look at you like, well, yeah, it is extremely important. management interaction, you know, it’s, it’s certainly much more fulsome, if you will, than just going through research reports and numbers alone. you can read body language, et Cetera, and, and, you know, their, their biggest frustration is that, you know, you can, as an industry, if oil and gas is going to sit there and complain that investors are buying well, it’s because you’re not showing up and talking to us, you know, head in the sand strategy is not a solid strategy.
AARON VANDEFORD:
No, it’s not. It really is a two-way street on that. You know, industry has to show up and, and I’ll, I’ll challenge the investors, put their money where their mouth is fair. So, you know, we need some of that investor investment. But what’s really interesting on, you know, we’ve talked about some of this travel and some of the things that we’ve been around that was before this, Chevron deal, right So there was a, I won’t say record low, but kind of a depressed MNA market throughout Q one. We had, you know, low prices and December leading into the first part of, of Q1, everyone was kind of down and, and that was from, you know, companies down through investors when we felt some of that sentiment that some of the conferences that we’ve been at that said, I think as we, as we talked about earlier, that healthy MNA gives a little injection into, the investor’s eyes to say.
GLEN PARROTT:
All right, let’s keep working here. More to come on that, right. Yeah. The, that it’s going to take more than one deal to I think because, and the reason I was, I was just reading an Eric material, his, March commentary. So Eric is a partner at nine point energy and you know, he’s got this monthly commentaries that they put out and you know, the thesis of his commentary was asking the question around, is the energy sector broken And, you know, within that he talks about everything that we’ve mentioned here, and have talked about for a while. And he talks about where he’s drafted in an open letter to the boards of, I want to say like 13 or so companies, that he’s involved with. And he’s recommending the strategy of using free cash flow for share repurchases. you know, his argument being like, Hey, look, if you’re trading at a discount to my, your liquidation value, you got a good solid balance sheet and, and you’ve got the free cash to buy back a certain percentage of your shares outstanding. Whether you know 10 to 30% and yet you are unwilling to do so. Why the hell should I it Except he doesn’t say how. That was my attitude. Why the heck should I, and, and, and his, his, you know, he’s like, Hey, look, there’s really no legitimate answer to that question. And so that’s, I guess I’m con on the, from the investor perspective, I guess I’m taking that side where I’m like, okay, well I understand that perspective.
AARON VANDEFORD:
But yeah, no, I love it. It makes sense. You kind of walk through this path and you say, look, returned capital to shareholders. There’s methods of doing that. It’s, there’s a dividend share buyback, you know, there’s years this one-time deal. And certainly, we’ve done some work with our, our, different teams and different boards of directors over the years is as we think about that and in different boards struggle with it. One of the things that we came up with was you can buy back shares if, if your company’s trading for above, essentially you’re finding and development cost because now you have this capital allocation decision where you say, look, I’m actually, if I’m trading above what it costs me to drill a new well and bring new production online, my best use of proceeds because I am an oil and gas company, not an investor, right.
AARON VANDEFORD:
Is to put money into the ground, bring that on and see that premium to that. And so that was really the lever that, that when we did some work with, with a few firms, who is who we’re looking at that all right, that makes sense. And that was another way to look at it. But we certainly have, and we, we did a monthly at the end of 2017 really looking at the art of the share buy back because they were very popular at that point when prices were very low, valuations were pretty similar, but prices were low. should management teams to be buying back stock and people implemented these, these programs did it and know the, the investment community didn’t reward it. Valuations remain depressed, stock price went down. Yeah. and so, it’s a balancing act and certainly it, you know, Eric’s well-reasoned. Certainly, a lot of companies are doing it. we’re waiting to see what that, you know, looks like. But guys like cab, it could become a private company here that the rate they’re buying back shares and they’re, they’re a great management team. But yeah, that, that obviously too far, but they’re very active on that share via back front and trying to return capital shareholders. They’ve implemented a dividend. They’re really trying to be very shareholder friendly.
GLEN PARROTT:
I’m going to reach out to Eric. I’m going to say, Hey, look, you want to come on, we’re going to do a one on one with you and you and Eric, that would be awesome. I would love that discussion is going to say Glen who No. So, you don’t totally valid and, and it’s, I guess, you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna see how this shakes out going forward. you know, I don’t know the answer. I really don’t. I understand where he’s coming from. I understand what you’re saying. and I think companies are trying to navigate this and see how things play out. yeah. So, I guess moving along, unless there’s anything else we want to wrap up on that.
AARON VANDEFORD:
No, I think it, it’s kind of guides into what it’s going to come up next and in some of our, our discussions because the, that’s one thing that boards are wrestling with at essentially every board meeting. We’re sitting in on some of these board meetings, capital allocation, capital budgeting. What are we doing with free cash flow Should we be buying back shares Should we be reducing debt Those are all things that boards are wrestling with. And I, you know, you’ll introduce it a little bit more, but we want to have a guest in and some interviews with folks that are actually sitting in these boards and making those decisions.
GLEN PARROTT:
Exactly. So, yeah, upcoming for, for our listeners, hears could go, we’re running, 35 minutes into this, you know, what a thematically what the boards want. so we’re lining up a, some guests interviews and we hope to kind of tackle that, that very topic so we can get a little bit of color and it’s not just our speculation, so that I’m looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to, one of the things that, that we’ve, we’ve mentioned this before is oil field tech. I think I mentioned it in the first broadcast that, EnerCom has had in the past, this oil field tech and innovation, conference. we’ve had techos a theme and our conferences and we work with tech companies that, the, it’s, it’s enough that it makes sense for us to really, insert that into the, into this lineup on a more frequent basis because I do think that there’s, we’ve got plenty of people to talk to. and, one of those is going to be, coming on up is going to be one of the guys who actually presented at our Dallas conference. Tom with the innovation illustrated and, I wanna say its Tom j query to query.
AARON VANDEFORD:
And so, he’s going to be talking, you know, AI in the oil field, use these, develop stuff with, with other operators. he’s worked with IBM’s Watson Technology. he’s advising boards and so, you know, how should Howard, he’s telling people how they should be thinking about implementing it. And so, you know, I think that’s helpful for everyone to have that perspective of what are the challenges, what, what is capable, what is not capable and, and really kind of flush out what is artificial intelligence.
GLEN PARROTT:
That’s the risk right Is that, I don’t say risk for him or anything, but, but you know, I recall the day as a, you know, the buzzword was big data and everybody you can get them presentations and they say, hey, we’ve got big data, you know, like, okay, I don’t really know what that means. And how are you operationalizing that and how has it actually, you know, quote unquote big data, you know, contributing to your overall success because it just seems to be a buzz word and that buzzwords kind of died off and it’s gone away. And, you know, there’s other ones that have come on up and now the, the, the, I won’t say the bumper, but it is, it’s Ai and people are like, man, that sounds super sexy. Artificial intelligence.
GLEN PARROTT:
Wow. To me it’s a little scary. Like, yeah. All right. What, what did, what decisions is this making But, you know, Tom will let us know what, what, what he’s thinking and what it needs, what it can do. Yeah. I want to know what the state gives them a perspective I think can experience. And that’s the one thing is that, you know, these guys, you get the opportunity to talk to these guys who have worked closely with the IBM folks. I’m really kind of curious because I’m, I really want to ask him sort of the whole, you know, hey, what about like Elan Musk and his concerns around, you know, distrust AI and get his take on it. So, I’m looking forward to that. So, Tom’s going to be coming on up here, within the next, two or three podcasts and then we’re also going to be a filtering and some additional guests, that I think is going to be overall, interesting for, for people who are interested in an oil field technology.
GLEN PARROTT:
Yeah. So, okay. as far as the, this podcast goes, I think we should probably get to the point where we can wrap this on up, unless there’s anything else we want to mention or bring forward. Let’s wrap it up. So first and foremost, I want to thank everybody for taking the time to listen in. Aaron, thank you for your time on this. And, I want to thank those companies that, you know, the, the presented at IPAA and shared their stories, so it was good to see them. and that’s it for now. So, this will be the end of an EnerCom’s oil and gas podcast number three. So, thanks for listening. Everyone.
