How Experience Shapes Success in Oil & Gas

In this episode, Jordan Ball shares his journey into the oil and gas industry, insights on refinery operations, and the importance of innovation and sustainability in energy. Discover how experience, curiosity, and decision-making shape success in this complex field.

Key  Topics

• Journey into oil and gas industry
• Refinery operations and maintenance
• Sustainability and innovation in energy
• Use of LP models for refinery optimization
• Decision-making and overcoming analysis paralysis

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is Under Pressure, Compressor Talk by Midwest Compressor. Strategies, systems, and stories from the compressor world. With your host, David Abshire. And now, on to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Good morning. This is David Abshire with the Under Pressure Podcast. This morning we have Jordan Ball. Jordan, thanks for joining us this morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Will Jordan, you describe your path into the industry as almost accidental. Auburn isn't exactly an oil and gas stool. The one internship at Valero changed everything for you. What was it about that the refinery experience that convinced you this was the career you wanted to pursue?

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Sure. I I don't know if I'd totally say accidental, but definitely not what I first saw when I went to school, like you alluded to. Yeah, Auburn is in the middle of pulpit paper comp country, and there's a lot of pharmaceutical plants, chemical plants in that in the southeast region. You know, you have to get over to like Mississippi, Louisiana before you really start seeing more refineries around. So in school, I had the chance to intern at the Valero Memphis refinery, and that's where my degree just kind of took, took, you know, a physical manifestation. I guess, you know, you're talking about thermodynamics and fluid dynamics and reactors, you know, all the things are just right there in a very tangible sense. You know, prior to that I had worked at a pharmaceutical plant. Uh, and it's just not quite the same, quite the same feel. So, uh, but when I got into it with the oil field and there's kind of a blue collar feel to it as well, it just really all, you know, grabbed me. That was that was where I wanted to be. So yeah, it yeah, that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, it's we all definitely uh I feel like having a story of how there was a uh full end of the industry one way or the other. So you spent your earlier years of a process engineer getting your hand started, doing turnarounds, pilot changes, treatment suspections, or eventually you're gonna get a commercial planning and then refinery operation.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

How did seeing both sides of this business change the way you think?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah. Uh so to start with, when you're doing process engineering, it's still very much in the vein of, you know, you're learning what it takes to put the barrel together, you know, to make the products, to own a different process, to work with operators and and all those things. I I'd say that was the steepest learning curve that I had to climb on a technical sense. You know, and you get to see all the nuts and bolts on the inside. So there's that. And then when you pivot to a more logistics-based or a planning and economics-based um position, you know, where I still kind of am today, you get to see what it takes to commercially orient and pursue a goal, whether that's, you know, just making the product so that it can be sold or how to sell the product in a way that's beneficial. You know, you're following market incentives and that sort of thing. But large scale, I think just having ex exposure to the wide, you know, the whole wide world of oil refining, you get to see what it takes to make something from a crude oil barrel all the way through to a product. And there are so many hands that touch that process, whether it's the operators or the folks who are transporting the oil in, the pipelines, the folks out in the field, uh, everybody in the refinery, the people who schedule, the people who coordinate, the people who sell. It's it's astonishing to me, even now as I live and breathe it, that you know, we can take something like a boil, an oil of barrel, a barrel of oil. There we go. And we can turn around and we can sell it for, you know, even today, like gas prices are high, right? They're three, three fifty plus, you know, most places, uh just with the state of the world. It's amazing that we can get oil from out in the middle of Texas and turn it into a barrel of gasoline that we can then sell at a gas station uh for as low as we do. So it it's it's pretty astonishing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

I definitely think, you know, with all the behind the scenes and the refining process and all the things that go into it, like you said, a lot of people are just not aware of all the different pieces of the puzzle to create, you know, a gallon of gasoline or a barrel of oil that's usable. So there's there's lots of different things in the process and all the people and all the jobs associated with that as well. There's thousands of people that may touch a barrel of oil before it ever gets to market, right? So there's so many things that people are not aware of. One thing you said really stood out. Refining looks easy from the outside because the industry's gotten so good at making it look routine. What do people completely underestimate about what it takes to keep a refinery running every day?

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Sure. Uh, and I guess this this harkens back to you know what I just said. Uh I I can't quite remember who to attribute it to, but I did have a mentor or somebody in my circles told me early on, you know, when I was just starting out, uh, that our job is to make oil refining look easy. You know, folks just see the price at the pump or they see, you know, something else. We just totally take it for granted that, you know, we can pull up somewhere and just, you know, fill up our cars for, you know, just a few quick minutes and and we're back on the road, right? But I'll say yeah, just what it takes to keep a refinery running day to day. Uh it takes a lot of hands in the field, you know, physically maintaining and keeping up with equipment. I guess that, you know, is is very much in your realm, David. Uh, in terms of compressor work, you know, design, that sort of thing. Uh you know, you could have folks who design the equipment, folks who run the equipment, folks who fix the equipment, folks when turnaround comes, get inside the equipment, clean out all the reactor, you know, goop and catalyst and all that stuff, and then refill it out. It is, yeah, it's like an orchestra of of folks. And uh, you know, sometimes it seems chaotic, and it seems like, you know, maybe it's uh not as organized as it is, but you know, it it really does come together in the end.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

I completely agree on the chaotic someday. So you mentioned one of the biggest shocks after college was realizing that, you know, textbook answers don't always survive uh survive the first contact with the real world. What was the hardest lesson you learned when that theory met the refinery for you?

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Sure. You know, I I struggle to come up with an exact answer, but uh, you know, in in the classroom, everything adheres to the theory, right? Adheres to the equation or whatever it is that justifies it. That's the way that, at least in the American system, we're taught, right? Is hey, you know, here are your inputs, or here's how you arrive at your inputs to solve your equation, solve the equation, there's your answer. You know, when you get into the field, you're lacking data, you're lacking ways to achieve that data. So, you know, you really have to think outside of the box. So I think of uh, you know, early troubleshooting efforts in the refinery. Uh, you know, hey, this reactor isn't the hating appropriately. You know, what's going on there? Do we have a bad pressure sensor? Do we have a bad TI? Do we have something? Is there something physically stuck in the line that you can't see that would, you know, defeat this equation that we've come up with that, you know, we think kind of rules the rules the process? You know, and this is where I'll give a lot of credit to uh to operators that I've had the chance to work with in the past is they come at things, you know, from a very practical, hands-on sense. Hey, this thing is broken, you know, this is the way we fixed it in the past, you know, and you're going, you know, with science brain, it's going, that doesn't make any sense. You know, hey, you turn to this thing that doesn't have anything to do with, you know, this thing downstream and somehow it fixes it, you know. And so there's a a lesson, I guess, in humility that I'd encourage, you know, young folks who are maybe coming out of school when they enter, you know, the world and you know, maybe they've made good grades and they think they're, you know, you know, they're confident in their abilities, which is a good thing. Uh but you know, when you when you interact with folks and and that sort of thing, uh, you know, to to listen to them and maybe, you know, I guess take what they're saying, you know, for uh for what it is, you know, and be able to apply that to your own theories and that sort of thing, and kind of back up to answers instead of starting with, you know, hey, this is like this is the science and this is how it's gotta be. Um I don't know if that's a very cohesive answer, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

No, that's a great answer. I think that's one of the things too, you know, especially coming into the industry new, uh, you know, it's very humbling, especially when you're working with other folks that's got, you know, great experience and wisdom that's been in the you know in the field for a long time. And you know, listening to the operators and the other engineers and you know, just just the people in the organization. And, you know, everybody, I think the experience part that I've learned in my career is just, you know, by taking that knowledge of the guys that's been doing it for 20 years to say, hey, I've seen these things happen, you know, it really sets you apart in the future to where you're gonna, you know, be able to retain that information and and pass on, especially so much in the oil and gas business. I've learned that everybody does everything different lots of times. Lots of times it's the same process, but lots of times people use lots of different methods and you know techniques to get there. So I I completely, completely get it. So one project you were heavily involved in was helping integrate renewable diesel exports in the Diamond Green diesel facility when it came online. What made this project so challenging from both an operational and a commercial standpoint?

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Sure. First, I'll I'll give a lot of credit to the guys who who did the bulk of the work. So at at the time I was uh when they were standing up the diamond green diesel plant at Holero in Port Arthur, I was the dock scheduler and and distillate scheduler. So a lot of the trick with renewable diesel versus diesel is in order to not say downgrade the product, it is chemically identical basically, but you have to track every every drop of the stuff, or else you lose the benefit of you know of running that process versus selling regular diesel. The way we handle renewable diesel in the US is we is we basically sell it as diesel at a certain location, but it's marked and it carries with it different environmental credits and that sort of thing, right? You've you'll probably have heard of RENS or the renewable volume obligation. It carries with it D4 RENS and generates those things when it's when it's uh put together. And you know, we had a number of legislations, the lending tax credit, and now the the producer's tax credit, and all those things kind of feed into the value. But in order to capture those extra benefits on top of it, you have to keep those products totally segregated. You have to have really good tracking. So that was really the hurdle of those things is is uh how do we manage clearing lines, keeping everything straight, keeping tanks from getting contaminated, that sort of thing. And then on top of that, at our particular site, because there is a fence line, I guess, differentiation between the two, right? DGD is is a joint venture of Valero. It's not Valero itself. You have to you have to manage competing interest at the dock, right? You know, if ship pulls up and they go, hey, we're here for you know renewable diesel, and you've got another ship over here that's like, hey, we're here for regular diesel, which one gets in first, what's the priority there? And that takes a lot of coordination across the uh the organization too. So I'll say for those, yeah, it just handling logistics there was a big old headache, you know, different additives, different ways to do these things. You have to clear lines, operators have to get out there and do jobs that you know they don't love to do, like build bend arounds and pump lines clear and those sorts of things. So really a yeah, a big lift there.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah, lots of lots of moving beasts, especially when you're imagining logistics for sure, especially with incoming and outgoing. I mean, it's that's that's a lot, especially especially the volume, right? Like everybody thinks like it's you know a little little amount, and you know, these things are are huge. And you know, from being around them myself personally, like I know once you're there, you're you're quite astonished, you know, by how much you know a tankler can carry, right? So it's it's yeah, crazy, crazy big and very intimidating too, especially like for me uh being in these facilities and getting to see some of this, it's like, oh gosh, and you know, one person's you know managing all of this and trying to make sure everything's running smoothly and getting out the door, and you know, it it's definitely lots of lots of responsibility for sure. So now you've worked both for the largest refineries in the country and much smaller companies. What have you learned about the trade-offs between the scale and the agility between the two?

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Yeah, so I'll start with large. So there's there's a lot of benefits to working for a large company, right? They've got generally like their benefits are great, you know, they've got everything lined out. Uh the downside, or maybe the well, I'll back up too. They have great processes, you know, over you know, they've had thousands and thousands of employees coming through, improving these things, lining them out. You know, they've got good corporate structures, those sorts of things. But accompanying those big, you know, but well-defined processes is a lot of bureaucracy, right? You know, it's not always as easy as, hey, I've got an idea, can we implement it? I think we can make our money back on it. You know, sometimes it has to go through, you know, 10 levels of approval before it gets signed off on, and then you've got to sign off on a budget, and then it's got to go through different design reviews and all these things. And by the time you've gotten around to installing the one pipe that you wanted to install, you know, you've missed your opportunity. And so they go, well, go back to the drawing board, do your economic research again. Does it still pay off? You know, and that can delay you a whole nother, you know, X amount of months. This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen more than once, you know, where you had a great idea that really would have paid off in a year or so. And then by the time it's, you know, people are out in the field and they're going, Well, yeah, I think we can do this thing, you know, the opportunity is fast. So that would be the con to those sorts of things. For a small company, you're often a lot more agile. The structure is a lot flatter. So approvals are much quicker. You know, every company is different. So I can't speak for everybody, but you know, the organization that I work for now, you know, we we have a pretty quick idea to implementation timeline, which is great, you know. And additionally, like when you have a smaller organization with maybe not such a large corporate organization sitting on top of each of the refineries and that sort of thing. For guys like me who are in the planning and economic space, like I get to wear a lot of hats and touch a lot of things that I would have never had the time or the bandwidth to touch when I was at Valero. So, you know, I worked in the scheduling and the planning department at Valero as well. And my role would have been pretty well defined, which is, you know, a feature for some folks at large organizations, but I pivot to C VR, which is much smaller and still much of the same job functions, but I get to touch on things like coordinating with our commercial teams, you know, talking to traders that I wouldn't usually get to talk to, running different kinds of models, building tools, you know, getting a lot of experience, you know, in a pretty short, you know, run of time that I I just wouldn't have ever gotten the chance to do at Polero. So those are kind of the pros and cons that I see. I for the cons for the small company, you know, of course it's sometimes you feel a little bit crazy, you know. If it's like all hands are on deck all the time, you know, it can get a little overwhelming. But you take the good with the bad there. And then I'll say, you know, for things like benefits, like there they find different ways to compensate you, you know, for things like you can imagine, you know, some of the big corporate benefits that they get, like they just have more negotiating power when they've got, you know, 10,000 employees versus a company with a thousand. So there's trade-offs in in in those things as well. But I won't get into the the nitty-gritty there.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

So yeah, no, absolutely. And I I think too, I've I've been on both sides just like you, where you know, you've worked for the big company and you know the implementation process just takes so long sometimes to get the approvals and get everybody on board. And the small companies definitely are a lot more nimble where you're able to get decisions, you know, push through and and make changes a lot quicker. And there's constraints on both sides, uh, but definitely for the small company, I agree a hundred percent wearing many hats. Yeah. I feel like some days I've I've got probably 30 different hats I'm wearing and you know it kind of hits you from all different angles. But you know, it's it's good and bad, right? It's like, but you know, like you said too, it's they both have the pros and cons, and you know, just weighing out both of them and seeing which one you kind of want to fit, you know, and what what you like the best. I think it's to each as their own, kind of on that kind of thing. So you've entered you've interviewed engineers yourself, and your advice for students about wasn't about GPA, it was about enthusiasm. Why do you think genuine curiosity and willingness to work hard often matter more than the perfect grades?

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah, I I'm not sure I've got a really, a really concise answer for you, but in general, like I think my philosophy is even if you're really smart but you don't want to work, you know, you won't work. You know, so if I'm talking to a student or somebody comes to me and they want me to look over the resume, you know, I'll advise them, hey, like if you did an internship, don't go through and and calculate how many minutes of you know processing time that you save so that you can put a big number on your on your resume. Find the project that you're most excited about or the one that you work the hardest on or the one that you know the most in and out on, you know, and put that at the top of your list. And then when they ask you about it, you'll be able to tell them everything that you loved about it, everything that you worked through, everything that, you know, all these things. And I think it speaks a little bit to that passion piece. You know, if you know, if you're smart enough to have a good GPA, like that's wonderful. I I think everybody should work really hard to, you know, to put their best foot forward. But, you know, when we interview folks in the industry, like you're looking for folks who are excited to work, who are curious, you know, because like I mentioned before, so much of the stuff that exists in the refinery doesn't, it doesn't get communicated in the classroom. And so if you're not curious about it, you know, it's it's like it's like culture shock and it can be defeating, you know, come in and go, oh man, like this is harder than I thought it was going to be, and it's more confusing than I thought it would be. And if you're not curious and ready to do problem solving and to kind of get your hands dirty and and get in there, you know, it it can be, you know, defeating, I guess. So those are usually the things I work for in or look for, uh, at least when I have, you know, my little limited opportunities to to interview folks. There are a lot of really smart students who come out of school, and if they were to Google where does, you know, where can you make the most money with this degree, like oil and gas will come up. And so they kind of obligatory, you know, throw their hat in the ring and go, oh yeah, like this is this is somewhere I can make a lot of money. Uh, but if you're only here, you know, to make money, like that doesn't necessarily come with a lot of enthusiasm. So, you know, you may wind up pretty quick if I'm not interested in this thing, like it's just not worth the you know, the squeeze. So I don't know if that totally answers your question.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

No, that was that was great. And I think you you hit the nail on the head, you know, if if somebody's coming out of college and they're just chasing the you know, the title and the money, I mean, of course, they're not gonna be successful, right? It definitely the passion comes into play. I agree with you 100%. And the GPA part, I've I've seen it where you know we've hired you know kids right out of college with phenomenal GPAs and just no work ethic, right? And so it's you know, those things that go along hand in hand where any good engineer that I've ever worked with has been able to use, you know, the common sense of and the knowledge and the hands-on experience to be a great engineer. And I've seen so many guys that I've worked with from electrical engineer to mechanical to petroleum, these guys that I've always got to work with over my career. I look back at the ones that were great, and they were always the ones that were boots on the ground, that were humble, that would listen, uh, be open-minded and have good work ethic and build trust internally on the projects they were working with, everybody, and you know, help lead and help guide and try to give them the information they need to be successful. And they made everybody else successful and the projects they worked on successful. So there's definitely a lot that goes into it just from having, you know, a good GPA and you know a big title, which we've all seen it, you know, throughout our career.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yeah. Yeah. The great thing is like those things aren't mutually exclusive. But yeah, I mean, you just some kids are just super bright, and school has never been a problem for some of them had to hustle hard, you know, for that GPA. So, you know, you're yeah, it it's usually a point of mine to try to figure out where they where they are, you know, on the enthusiasm piece because the GPA just doesn't tell the whole story, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah, absolutely. So you've also pushed back on the idea that the engineers who care about efficiency or sustainability should avoid oil and gas. In fact, you argue that's exactly why, you know, where they can't where they can't make the biggest impact, and that's why.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah. So I I guess the short the short version of that is, well, I'll speak from personal experience. I went to a lot of to school with a lot of guys who are really passionate about, you know, trying, you know, to step into kind of this this the sustainability space, you know, and you know, they were just dead set, you know, I don't want to interview with oil and gas, like that just doesn't it doesn't overlap with my interests, those sorts of things. Uh and I was uh kind of step into the state, the space and you know, experience things like uh Diamond Green Diesel coming online and those sorts of things. Those are big sustainability efforts that we've in you know embarked on. And you might have your own opinions on those, but uh, I'll say like if you're if you're looking to make a more efficient world a more efficient, you know, thing like that, uh what gets lost often is like in in that portrayal of the refineries where it's like we don't make the news until something's gone wrong or gas prices go high, it puts a bad taste in, you know, in students' mouths and that sort of thing, where it's like these guys are only out there to kind of screw over everybody, to squeeze every little last, you know, thing that they can. And if that comes at the expense of the environment or anything like that, you know, then they'll do it. And that's just not true. You know, every every lost molecule is lost money to the refineries. Uh so they really have like the incentives there, you know, are that we run a very efficient and enclosed and environmentally safe operation. You know, we don't want our people to be injured, we don't want them to be sick, we don't want the communities that we operate in to be those ways either. So I would argue for for students who are interested in doing that, you can step into a space like oil and gas, and you can actually make a big difference in helping those facilities run efficiently, effectively, safely. All these things that you care about, it just might look a little bit different than you had, you know, pictured in your head. You know, if you I've only ever thought of environmentally safe or beneficial operations being windmills and, you know, solar energy or something like that. I would just encourage those students to look into ways and the technologies that we have implemented in a lot of refineries that make the processes more efficient, more effective, have less byproducts, you know, and really serve the uh the communities that we we try to we try to serve.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

So no, I I agree a hundred percent. And that's one thing too that you know, from being in the oil and gas industry for over twenty years. Now in interacting with other folks that are not in the industry. You know, like you said, the only thing most of the time the news media wants to cover is, you know, the negative and not necessarily the positive. So any chance I ever get an opportunity to speak and put a spin on that, a fresh spin, where it's a positive spin on the oil and gas industry. Definitely too. I remember my son went to college in Colorado and we first went up there and we met some folks and they introduced and they, you know, everybody always asked, What do you do for a living? I said, Oh, I work in oil and gas. I mean, you would have thought I shot their dog. I mean, like it was I was like, and they kind of looked at me and I was like, Well, I was like, you know, everything that I work on, you know, and everybody that I know works in it, you know, we're doing lots of things to help the environment. And, you know, of course, everybody's got their own agenda, but ultimately at the end of the day, the big thing is just to let them know that, you know, we're doing the right thing, right? Like when we start talking about, you know, the all the different regulations that's been put into place over the last 20 years compared to other countries like Russia or China and how they produce oil and gas and refine it in their, you know, in their areas of the world, and talking about what we do here in the US, and to, of course, to be as cheap as we still are on our energy. I mean, compared to all the regulation that's been put in place for us. So I I think too, that's one thing that anybody in the industry, hopefully, like me or you, Jordan, are able to, you know, when we talk to somebody that's not in the industry, to let them know, hey, we're we're doing the right thing. I've I remember I've had people ask me that I knew that knew that I worked in the industry and talked about the VP spill, you know, back in the movie that came out, and you know, saying, oh, well, let's let's back up a little bit. And, you know, there's lots of other factors, and you know, they just always want to talk about the negative. But anybody that I know that's been in the industry for a long time that that's passionate about it, definitely always try to put a fresh spin on it to the folks that's definitely not in the industry. And luckily myself, I've got two daughters that work for me as well. So both of my girls, you know, are going to be, you know, following my lead and you know, being able to pass on that information as well to the next generation. And, you know, they definitely know, you know, growing up that they was told that, you know, hey, oil and gas is, you know, it's a it's a good source of energy, it's a reliable source of energy. And people don't understand, especially in the U.S., how big a clean source of energy it is, especially you know, the ways we refine it and process it and utilize it here in the US compared to you know, third world countries that, you know, buy it and you know how it gets made. So I I definitely agree.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah. One like very clear example of like an innovation that refiners have implemented, like, granted, probably on the back of some environmental regulation as well. But if you've been around a refinery, especially lately, like you'll have heard of a flare gas recovery unit. The refiners refineries that I worked at, you know, gosh, I don't know how it's been now, but probably, you know, 15 or 20 years ago, those units didn't necessarily exist. But they went from literally burning, you know, this off gas that they had no purpose for to capturing it, rerouting it, you know, making, you know, productive use of it, or selling it as product, you know, and that's been a great innovation, you know. And I don't think anybody in the refining space is like, oh yeah, those never paid off. You know, not only did it allow them to comply with environmental regulations, you know, it is it is a net benefit to their to their balance sheet in the end, you know, because you're capturing molecules, capturing product that you can sell. You're also, you know, taking advantage and being more energy efficient for the gas that you can't sell or that's hard to get out. You know, a lot of it they can actually use in their heaters instead of natural gas, you know, to drive their processes forward. So it's uh, you know, there are a lot of opportunities I think that are still out there, you know. And I'm I'm not the smart, the smartest cookie in the cookie jar, but I know that there's some kids out there and there's some folks out there working now, you know, that you know, will figure these things out. And I'm sure the flare gas recovery unit is not the last, you know, environmentally beneficial and commercially beneficial solution to be devised.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

So yeah, absolutely. I think too, I mean, that's one of the things that there's so much opportunity for you know being able to improve on what we do and applications and you know, especially like on my side of the world, the you know, the vapor recovery units, you know, where we're pulling the natural gas off the towers so they're not flaring, you know, just all those, you know, carbon captures that are out there like that. And we've seen it over the last, you know, probably 10 years where there's been a big push in the industry and from the states, which has been good. And it's definitely, like you said, it's it definitely helps the companies make more money and be sustainable in the future. And it is profitable. Um, I think, of course, too, that's the big thing, is is and lots of times the states and the federal government offers tax credits and different things to incentivize these companies. So it definitely is a win-win across the board. And the best thing is, is you know, we're able to, you know, do the right thing and the companies are able to make money and you know, be able to obviously to improve the environment in the areas they're working. So it's a big deal. So your work revolves around LP models that help optimize and enter refineries. For someone who's never heard of refinery optimization, what kinds of decisions are those models helping companies make every day?

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Yeah, just yeah, to back up one half second. So an LP model stands for linear program, but essentially it's a mathematical model that is meant to represent your refinery. So for every refinery, it's going to be a different model. You know, these aren't universal by any stretch of the imagination. But most companies now, and I would probably guess pretty much every company now that has a refinery has invested in some sort of LP model. But the LP models are really generally geared towards allowing you to make the best commercial decisions that you can. So to take two instances for our refineries, like the first commercial question that we usually buy is, or that we're usually trying to inform, is what should we make? Right? Where can we gain the most benefit? What's the market saying today? And for the past, I don't know, two, three years, like that's been, hey, if the more diesel that you can make, the better. Diesel is generally more valuable than gasoline. The more of it you can make, the more of it you can sell, the better. You know, that's gonna result in your best economic outcome. And so then you look upstream and you go, okay, well, how do we operate our units to best support that? You know, and that's another question that the models can answer. You know, you can kind of run the models to say this is how our units are organized and this is how they're performing, and this is gonna be the result, you know, based on the inputs, or you can say, hey, these are the desired outputs. What do we need to change in the refinery to run them? And then further upstream than that is, hey, what crude do you need to buy? Every crude, folks may think of it as just kind of like a universally nebulous kind of ooze stuff, you know, but in reality, every crude from every different region, every different geography has distinct properties, has distinct distillation curves. It's a mixture of molecules, so everything is a little bit different. So you may buy a barrel from you could buy two different barrels from West Texas. You could buy a West Texas light, you could buy a West Texas intermediate. The intermediate is, at least in theory, going to have more distillate fuels, more heavy components in it, um, and less gasoline precursors than the West Texas light barrel. So if you buy a West Texas light barrel and you run it through your generic refinery, chances are you'll make a little bit more gasoline than you will off of a WTI barrel. So which one do you want to buy to run through your refinery? Which one is more commercially beneficial to you? So, you know, and that's it's a difficult question to answer, uh, you know, and as we've gotten more access to more data, better lab testing, you know, more accurate models and well-tuned models and you know, all those things, you know, those the things that we can determine that we want to do with the refineries and with the inputs and with the outputs, you know, we just get a lot of a lot more clear on on what direction we should be driving in. Uh all that fits in the framework of like this is the market today and this is where we think it's gonna be tomorrow. But, you know, as we record this on uh July 21st, 2026, like the world is a little bit wacky, you know. We just don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. Is WTI, you know, on the announcement of something changing overseas going to go up five bucks, or is it gonna go down five bucks? You know, is it gonna go up five bucks tomorrow and then down five bucks or ten bucks the next day? Like we just don't know. So we we make the best assumptions that we can, and then we use those in the model to kind of inform our strategy, or we could inform you know a decision, you know, that we want to make today. So that's kind of the short of it. But you know, people can talk about this stuff for a long, long, long time.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and you know, that's one of the things too in our market today. You know, people don't understand we we talk about you know energy in the US, and they don't understand, you know, all the things that go in go into that energy. And I think too all the all the revenue and the jobs and the taxes and everything that gets paid, you know, off of our industry and our energy, you know, it's it's definitely one of those things that's helped, you know, the U.S. economy, I feel like, grow and be very independent, you know, compared to other countries. So, which is great. And something, you know, lots of times that don't get talked about us being energy independent and being able to, you know, refine our own oil and make our own gasoline and and have clean energy and all those things, and it just kind of falls to the wayside, unfortunately. And everybody's hard work, like yourself, that's uh works in a refinery where you know, at the end of the day, people just don't recognize, you know, everything that we do. And you know, when they go flip the light switch on or drive a car to Walmart or whatever they may do for the week, and they just take it for granted. And, you know, especially being in other countries as I traveled over my career and and you know, getting to see other things, uh, you know, and see how other people live where they don't have electricity or running water or you know, uh a good source of energy to be able to, you know, just turn on a heater at night. So there's so much of that stuff that just gets taken for granted here in the U.S., unfortunately, and people like yourself that's been in the industry are just it's not it's not appreciated as much as it should be, I think, in my opinion. But if you could if you could wave a magic wand and fix one challenge across the industry tomorrow, you said it would be overcoming analysis paralysis. Why do you why do so many good ideas get stuck in endless evaluation instead of moving forward?

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Yeah, I think it's nobody wants to be wrong in our space. And like I mentioned before, uh, you know, the you know, especially lately, I mean, maybe this is why it answered it like that. Uh, like the world is an uncertain place. So nobody wants to be wrong and nobody wants to be really wrong, you know, in our space. So, you know, it it's all, you know, everybody is trying to clear their investment hurdles. They're trying to make the best decision for their company. And when the news changes every day, you know, you want to reanalyze every time the news changes, you know, which is a perfectly human, you know, impulse, you know, especially when you're dealing with investors' money and you know, you have people to answer to and those sorts of things. But if I could, yeah, wave my magic wand and and fix that, you know, more often than not, I think looking back, especially when I was at, you know, a larger company, and even when I'm here at at C VR and things are much more simple and flat, we can get in cycles where, yeah, we have a good idea. And the the the analysis analysis paralysis that keeps us from acting on that idea for a year, for two years, you know, while we just kind of wait to see if the news is gonna change or something like that, you know, can read to act or can it can feed through to actually poor commercial outcomes. You know, you are making decisions when you're not making a decision to to do something like that. You're making the decision to not do the thing. So if I could wave my magic wands, you know, that would be it is have more, I guess, conviction on the things that we think are good ideas and you know, maybe just have a little bit better thermometer on what deserves to be, you know, scrutinized more and more and what is like a knockout, you know, slam dunk, you know, go get it done kind of project. Yeah. It it it's tough, you know. And so like I know why we do that, uh, but then again, you know, I wish I could, I wish I could change it, you know, some days.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Yeah, I completely understand. I I think I've seen it so much when it comes to decision making, and you know, there's so much data anymore that goes into every decision because we have access to it these days compared to where 20 years ago we didn't. So today, you know, we've got all different angles. We've got the financial, we've got the you know, the long-term investment, the return on payout, like all of those things that go into consideration and all these decisions. And, you know, lots of times we have too much to go through anymore before we can make that decision. And uh, especially with all the AI tools that are out there and everything that we have and the software that we can utilize, uh, you know, like you mentioned, you know, that you're able to utilize today and the refineries and you know, being able to look at different things that will pop up. And I I see it a lot more, especially in the younger generation coming up where they struggle to make a decision and kind of be able to be at any kind of sense of urgency with that decision. It kind of just slow and gets drug out. So I completely agree. I I've seen it, seen it so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

I remember that time well as yeah, you you I mean, that was a good lesson, you know, to loot back to an earlier question is uh, you know, what's like a hard lesson that you learned is you know being decisive and you know having conviction, you know, and and being able to rely on on the things that you've learned and and those sorts of things. Like I won't share all the details, but I came in and I was very I was very confident, you know, that this was the problem with our process, right? You know, hey, we've got this thing, like we need to be running this reactor a little bit differently. Let's go do it. You know, and I call up the operator and go, hey, I would like to try this thing. He goes, you know, if we do this, like it's gonna trip, you know, or something like that. And I was like, let me call you back, you know, and just totally backed off on you know, on what I thought the right answer was, you know, and then had to, you know, withdraw the data and got wrapped up again in it and all those things. And eventually, you know, three days later, after I had, you know, basically mulled through the data and you know, talked to my boss twice more and all these things, I go, okay, like I think I'm ready to try it now. They tried it and that's fine, you know. And you know, I've also had plenty of experiences where I called them up very convinced in my in my theory and they said, you know, that's gonna, you know, do something, I go, do it, you know, and they were definitely right. So, you know, but uh yeah, it it can be a really tough lesson to learn of of when to be confident when you've got, you know, when you need to ignore some data, those sorts of things. It it comes with a lot of a lot of reps and you know and experience too.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

So yeah, one of the things that I always tell the younger generation coming into the industry is that anybody that's successful in the industry has a sense of urgency. So if you're coming into the industry and you know, you can't make decisions a lot, and you know, as an engineer, of course, you're making tons of decisions today. And there's tons of people that are gonna go to you for answers. And you have to be able to make a lot of decisions and you know, not be hung up sometimes on, you know, the data and just, you know, go with your gut, right? And and kind of own it. And I think that's one of the things too that anybody I've seen and the great engineers that you know are able to make decisions fast and be responsive and have that sense of urgency and admit when they fail and you know keep moving forward. I think that's extremely important. And especially with all the the AI stuff now, you know, when when I talk to people in meetings and they're like, Well, I don't really know the answer. And I'm like, Well, let's let's lay it out and let's you know kind of talk to it. And then most of the time that that thinking part and that process of elimination and all those things kind of fall on the suit in their brain and try to get their thinking hat on, is what you know my teachers used to tell me in schools, put your thinking hat on. So yeah, well, I definitely appreciate you jumping on today, Jordan, and I definitely appreciate what you've done in the industry and being able to be a leader, of course, too. That's one thing that's important. And, you know, one of the reasons we like to, you know, have guests come on here is to be an inspiration to the next generation that's coming out, uh, that's gonna be engineers and you know, work in our industry and be able to find a career that's gonna be able to be sustainable and take care of their families and you know, provide you know, a source of energy for the world eventually one day as we continue to export oil and gas. So it's exciting to you know be able to meet with folks like yourself that works in different roles throughout the U.S. And it's it's exciting too to see that you know, as we're able to do these kind of shows like this, hopefully be a positive light on the industry and of course to be able to promote you know all the good things that we do too out in the U.S. So I definitely appreciate your time. One of the things, Jordan, that we like to do for all our guests that come up just when you get a chance, if you can just shoot me an email with your home address. Uh we send a care package out. Uh it's got some Midwest compressor swag on. Uh, the girls usually send them out for me just whenever you get a chance. If you can, you know, shoot me an email with your home address. It's just a thank you for coming on saying, hey, we appreciate it, and we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to jump on with us today.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

So yeah, of course. It was my pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, buddy, and you have a great rest of your week, and uh, we'll talk to you soon. All right, sounds great. Thanks, David. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

This has been another great episode of Under Pressure Compressor Talk by Midwest Compressor with your host, David Abshire. Until next time, keep pumping.