The Future of Energy: Insights from a 45-Year Industry Veteran

In this episode, Doug Sandridge shares insights from his 45+ years in the energy industry, covering oil, gas, and nuclear energy, and discusses the importance of education, regulation, and diversification for a sustainable energy future.

Key  Topics

• Energy industry career longevity
• Importance of energy education for policy
• Nuclear energy benefits and misconceptions
• Regulatory and legal challenges in energy projects
• Environmental stewardship in oil and gas
• Energy diversification and sustainability

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 afternoon. This is David Abshire with the Under Pressure Podcast. Today we have Douglas Sandridge with us. Doug, thanks for being with us today. Great to be here. Thanks for asking me. Well, Doug, you've spent more than 45 years in the energy energy industry, starting as a petroleum landman and working across Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. So looking back, what originally attracted you to the industry and what kept you engaged for nearly half a century?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Well, you know, I hate to be crass, but the the the true answer was at the time when I was in college, I was attracted by the the excitement of the industry, but also the the salary, the the money I was able to make. I went to the University of Oklahoma and did not intend to be in petroleum land management or petroleum engineering. I didn't plan to do that, but I did do a lot of summer jobs. All my summer jobs were working in the oil and gas industry. So I started out as a as a pumper and a mechanic and used to work on old Ajax engines and change the oil and all that sort of stuff, and then got promoted to a workover rig. And I eventually, you know, earn earned my way up to the Derrick and and then worked on drilling rigs. And so once you kind of get a taste of the excitement of working on a on a drilling rig and uh you know seeing yourself, you know, make make real create real vast right there with your own hands, it's pretty exciting. And then of course, in most cases, you you can be very well paid for that. I can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yeah, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

No, that's okay. Sometimes my mic needs to be adjusted. So one of the things I think that attracts lots of younger, younger folks into the industry coming out of college or coming right out of high school is definitely the salary. You know, especially working in the oil and gas business, you know, it's something that really brings in the the younger kids and attracts them and gives them an opportunity to change their life. So you've worked in land, regulatory affairs, project development, education, and adequacy. Which part of the industry has taught you the most about how energy projects actually get built?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Gosh, you know, I I don't know if if there's one that does because they they you've got to be proficient at all those things. I mean, if you're gonna be successful in this industry, you can't just be good at one thing. And uh, you know, when when I got out of the industry, got into the industry, you know, 45 plus years ago, we didn't talk much about environmental issues. Um your decision to drill a well is where's the best geologic location, where can you find the location? You talked about the economics of the well, but you very very seldom talked about the environmental impacts. Well, of course, the world is uh different place now, and uh you have to have understanding, appreciation, and respect for the environmental aspects. So uh you're not gonna be successful if you don't, you know, pay attention and be proficient at the regulatory side. You gotta be uh you you work in a lot of regulatory environments, each state is different, land environments are different, the legal aspects are different by state. So I don't know that I could say any particular one of those uh was more important than the other. I mean, you really gotta be proficient and have expertise in in all those areas, to be honest. But that's partly what makes it so interesting because you're not just kind of cubbyhole, you're not on an assembly line where you're putting MMs on top of a cookie or something. I mean, every single day is a different challenge and uh you never get bored.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

That's one thing that, you know, in the oil and gas industry, I've seen in every position just about hill from the bottom to the top, everybody has to wear lots of different hats to be successful. And if you're able to put on those different hats every day, it definitely keeps your career challenging and there's opportunity for growth, which is exciting. So you mentioned that one of your current projects in northern Colorado has been ongoing for more than a decade. What makes developing an oil and gas project today so much more complex and then most people realize?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

You know, it's back to this environmental aspects. We have a lot of wildlife issues, wildlife concerns in Colorado. Uh, we also have some plant issues as well, you know, endangered species, plants like that. But mostly it's challenged by the need for good management, good stewardship of the wildlife. So we have we're restricted in what times of year we can drill, we're restricted in where we can drill, we're restricted on noise. So I think wildlife issues for us are are a major concern. They really impact almost every decision. In addition to that, you know, nationwide, the U.S. is produces the cleanest barrel of oil and the cleanest MCF of gas. We have very strong environmental issues really across the U.S. Colorado is kind of a next level. And Colorado is has extremely harsh and very strict regulations, air quality regulations. You know, we have no flaring, no routine flaring allowed in Colorado. You have getting air permits and staying in compliance with both the federal and the state environmental laws regarding oil and gas production are very challenging. Um, but you know, we can also be proud to say we're we're very responsible in how we produce those hydrocarbons.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

I can't hear you, I'm sorry. What about now? Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay, great. I think sometimes my mic may go to sleep. Sorry. No, that's okay. So one of the things is, of course, I completely agree. We was talking about this earlier this week with some other engineers, and one of the things that they discussed was, you know, how clean a a barrel of oil is out of the U.S. and the cost to make that barrel of oil, right? To get it to sell. So that's something that, you know, it's to be extremely proud of for our, you know, for our industry into an MCF of gas as well, right along with it. Uh just being able to manage that cost compared to other countries that, you know, China or Russia or wherever they may be, Saudi Arabia, and what it costs them to bring that barrel of oil or that gas to market. I mean, we're really, really efficient at it, really good at it in the United States. So I'm definitely, definitely proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, and I'm also it it's really perplexing. I I know energy is a very complicated industry, and it's very complicated even for those of us who've been in the industry for 40 plus years. But so I understand why the average individual and the average politician doesn't necessarily understand all the nuances, but it's very perplexing why a state like California would be s make it so difficult to produce their resources. I mean, California has tremendous oil and gas resources. I mean, there's some people, and I'm not a geologist, and so I can't say, but there's some people who think that California's oil resources and shale resources could rival Texas, could be as big or bigger than Texas. And yet there's hardly anything being done in California because of regulatory issues. And those regulatory issues are driven by this misconception that, well, if we just don't drill for it here, that that's better than drilling for it. And the the reality is California has to import most of their energy, natural gas and crude oil. And you know, some of the I don't know what the percentage is, but I I I gather it's pretty high. A high percentage of the gasoline and refined products that come to California, since California's run most of their refineries out of the country, they get the refined products from overseas, and a lot of that comes from India and China and Iraq. And, you know, there's pretty credible reports that oil from Russia is being sold to India, you know, sanctioned oil, and it's obviously not produced in a very efficient and clean manner in Russia and being transported to India, and then it's being made into gasoline and then sold to California, and then you gotta pay a lot of money and create pollution to ship it from India to California. And somehow the people in California think that's better than just producing their own barrel of oil, and it's just perplexing that nobody's smarter than that.

unknown 8:14

Gosh.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

What about now? There he goes. Okay. So that I completely agree. I think that's one of the things that lots of people, you know, don't understand about the industry, and especially like you mentioned about California. Unfortunately, we've seen it more and more where the majors have moved out, where Chevron just recently moved out and left, and you know, obviously they're not going to support that state and that economy to where you know they're gonna you know pay tax money and put back into the state if they're not gonna support the industry. So good for them. Kudos for them. I I agree completely with all the regulations that we've seen come out over the last 20 years. You definitely have to be on your A-game to be able to produce, you know, oil and gas at a profit, right? And I think that's one thing that lots of times the news don't cover. You know, they just see the big numbers from the oil and gas companies and they don't realize the cost that goes along with that as well. And to survive in this industry, you have to be able to evolve with the trends and to be able to stay profitable and create new ways to be successful. So I completely agree. So one of the one of the things that really stood out, the key to the better energy policy is better energy education. Why do you think that connection gets overlooked so often?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Well, gosh, I guess people naturally assume that they they know what they need to know. And so decisions are made, they don't realize how co I mean, our industry is extremely complex. And then if you kind of add on to the oil and gas industry, which you and I know fairly well, but you add to that wind and solar and geothermal and electricity and all of the other peripheral energies that are now interrelated, it's an extremely complex industry. I mean, when I first got in the industry, oil and gas industry, really you just you didn't think about anything other than oil and gas. You didn't think about how it how it's affected by wind and solar and electricity and so on and so forth. But now all of our energy systems become so complex and interrelated. And yet the average person, we're not teaching this in school. We're not even really teaching it at university. And then for all the people who aren't at school or university, that they they they have no idea. They don't you don't know what you don't know. And so if you got if you have little knowledge or you have bad knowledge, then you're going to make bad decisions. If you're uh a citizen, you're gonna elect, you're gonna elect poorly. You're gonna elect people who don't know what they're doing. And if you're a politician, a legislator, you know, one of your public servants, and you don't have knowledge, good knowledge, then you're not gonna be have the capacity to make good energy policy decisions. And so, you know, I've always said better education means better policy. And so it starts with you can't get mad at these people that make bad policies if they don't know if they don't know. Now, I mean you can blame them a little bit for not being better educated, but the reality is it starts with education. We all need to have a better understanding of energy. And if we have a better understanding of energy, we will make better policy decisions.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I completely agree. I think that's one thing that I've seen over my career where, you know, from the education piece and all the way to the politics piece, the politicians are educated and understand and have a a good perception of what the real world is like and and what it takes to produce the oil and gas. There's definitely a better relationship there. And unfortunately, there's been a huge disconnect. And I think too, that's luckily for myself with my daughters that are working for me now in the industry, they've understood that all of their life. So it's just common knowledge. And they didn't get taught that at college, right? They they learned that in the house, so which is which is great because you know, dad was the first one to stand up and promote, you know, oil and gas. And I I think it's funny, you know, talking about Colorado, which I love, of course, and it's a beautiful state. My son, when he first went to college at the University of Northern Colorado in Freeley, I met some folks when we were moving into the dorms, and they asked me what I did for a living. And I said, I work in oil and gas. And you would have thought I shot the dog. Yeah, it's actually I I was like, and I and I explained to them, of course, what what I do, you know, and and what we do is to help the environment and to help create clean energy and you know be able to sustain for the future. And trying to explain it to them, it was it was a challenge because it's the only thing they heard was oil and gas, and they thought, you know, I was a bad person. And I hated that, uh, of course. So once I've had some experiences like that throughout my career, I've really, really tried to challenge myself to be able to, you know, create a positive impact wherever I can go, especially to the younger generation that's coming out. So you said that most people take energy completely for granted. They flip a switch, never think about what had to happen to make that possible. When did energy education become such a passion for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

You know, I think it it's always been somewhat of a passion because I grew up in the industry. My dad was in the industry, and he made he complained about the same things we complain about now, that people don't know enough about energy. Uh, people aren't educated, people have make bad assumptions about oil and gas, unknowledgeable, uneducated value judgments about oil and gas. So I I've I've heard it and seen it most of my life. Unfortunately, when you're young, you don't really have a passion for doing those kind of things. You're you're interested in girls and making money and you know going to the football game or whatever. And then as you get a little bit older, you tend to get wrapped up with your family. If you're gonna do a good job raising your family and you still have a 50 or 60 hour a week job, you don't really have much time for anything beyond that. I mean, if you're gonna do a good job at your job and do a good job raising your family, then there's not time to be passionate about energy uh at that time. But once my kids were out of the house, I got a I got my MBA in energy, my master's in energy uh late in life after, you know, while my kids were in high school. And so that kind of reignited my interest in education. And then shortly, right about the same time that I got my MBA, my University of Oklahoma came knocking on my door and said, Hey, it's time for you to stop taking from the university. It's time for you to get back, and we want you to come start teaching some classes. And I thought, yeah, you're probably right. So it really reignited once I got my kids out the door and I started realizing what a fix we're in, what a mess we're in. We we have so such a complex energy, complex energy and environmental issues, and we just aren't doing a good job managing them. And again, it starts with better education, and so I had to put my money where my mouth was, and I had to start, you know, making an attempt. So I started doing a lot of public speaking, a lot of podcasts, and uh teaching at several several universities. So that's that's how it really got started. Can't hear you. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

No, it's okay. So as long as alongside your oil and gas for you become a strong advocate for nuclear energy, what what first convinced you that nuclear needs to be much larger part of the energy conversation?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

You know, I think I'm not one of those people who grew up thinking, you know, was scared to death of nuclear energy. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and we had a Cold War going on with Russia, and you know, we did bomb drills where you, you know, got under your desk in case there was a nuclear attack, like that was going to really do something. But so I grew up in that era, but I never was one of these people that disliked nuclear energy. I I mean I always thought it seemed like it had so much promise. But again, as a young person with family and a job, I never really had time to advocate for other other people's industry. And then, like I said, once I got my master's in energy management and my kids were out of the house and I started thinking more broadly about energy, you know, like I I had mentioned before, you when you're in the oil and gas industry, especially when I started in the 70s, you really just think of yourself as an oil and gas person. You don't think of yourself as an energy person as just a small part of the of the energy world. You're just oil and gas. But after I I uh went back to school and I started thinking more holistically about energy, um, you know, how does oil and gas tie in with coal and and nuclear and uh all the different energy sources? And then on top of that, you've got to layer in the concerns about the environment. And it just became it began to emerge to me that if you're gonna try and you know address these environmental concerns and you're gonna try and maintain wealth and prosperity, I think you're probably going to need to develop more nuclear energy. I I guess case in point, you know, nuclear energy is virtually carbon-free. There's obviously a little bit of carbon footprint as you build the plant, but operating it for 80 years, you're basically it's a carbon-free operation. And I would see these communities like across the US and in Europe and in Korea were shutting down nuclear power plants. And I think they're already paid for, they're very affordable, they're very safe. And we hear like a state like New York closing out Indian Point Power Plant, and in the same article, you hear them talking about how important it is to reduce carbon emissions, and yet at the same time, they're getting rid of a nuclear power plant, which is probably their best source of low-carbon energy. And so I thought this is so hypocritical. I mean, what are these people doing? They can't be serious. I mean, you can't be serious about climate and be closing down nuclear power plants. I mean, the the the two are incompatible. And so I kind of got at that time, I thought this is just really silly that we're shutting down perfectly good nuclear power plants because what was the reason they were being shut down was not because they were unsafe. They were uneconomic because they were being pushed out of the grid by wind and solar. So we're forcing wind and solar onto the grid, creating a market condition where the nuclear power plants only operate intermittently. And if you operate a plant that costs you billions of dollars, you can only operate it intermittently, it's not going to make any money. So then the the owners decide we're going to shut down the nuclear power plant. So we're shutting down perfectly good, safe, affordable nuclear power plants, basically virtue signaling. And you can't have it both ways. You can't complain about the environment and carbon emissions and not and the same breath and then at the same time be shutting down nuclear power plants. So I became very actively involved in trying to save nuclear power plants. So that's really how I got into nuclear advocacy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

One of the things that, you know, people don't understand about energy is, you know, diversification is a good thing. And with nuclear being a clean source, of course, like it is, it's it's something that we're going to need in the future. And why not go ahead and sustain it today? And like you said, it gets very political when you know they start bringing other tort uh types of energy into the industry, and especially when they're not reliable or renewable. And you know, it's one of the things that the political side were, I think Trump said it best the other day. He goes, China makes the windmills and they don't use their own windmills. But in the United States, we're buying their windmills. So I think that's solar panels. And their solar panels.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

And they're made, they're made using uh coal-fired power plants, and they're you they're made using slave labor. And so how good do you feel about yourself building solar solar panels that are made with slave labor and coal? Is that really is that really make you feel good?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Right, exactly. You're exactly right, and I think that's one of the things too that people are not educated very well on, and it's not talked about in the media. There's just so much that's neglected by the public opinion that you know these things don't get out. And once they get out, and the perceptions all of a sudden start to shift. And luckily, right now, on the political side, it becomes to the forefront when all of a sudden gas oil and gas jumps up, you know, a little bit, everybody's talking about energy again. And so right now is the perfect time to have these kind of conversations and explain to the youth that are coming up that are gonna be the next generation in the industry and let them know why it's so important to you know to focus on certain things coming up to help you grow and expand and have opportunity to be sustainable. So it it's it's fun to see uh the oil and gas getting talked about right now where it's not obviously ideal for a war, but anytime there's opportunity to speak on oil and gas and talk about you know U.S. energy independence, it's it's really great. So you've argued that nuclear succeeds because it balances reliability, safety, affordability, and environmental performance better than many people realize. What do you think the biggest misconception people have about nuclear power today?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I think there's two two things. I mean, there there's lots. I mean, if anyone has done a worse job of advocating for their industry, if if anybody's done a worse job than the oil and gas industry, it would be the nuclear industry. I mean, I know a lot of people in the oil and gas industry, when they get criticized, they get beat up in the Wall Street Journal, they, you know, the the nightly news, they just put their head in the sand. They just walk away. They don't feel like they need to set the record straight. They just say, they need us, that they'll get over it. And we don't do a good job of uh reforming the conversation and making sure the record is correct. Nuclear industry has done the same. They're they're just terri. They've been they have been historically been terrible. Now they're getting better, and we have a lot of young people who are doing a really good job of bringing forth the a good and truthful conversation about nuclear energy. So I see that changing right now. But the two things that I hear the most when I hear concerns about nuclear energy are safety and quote unquote waste. So I'll talk about both of those. First of all, safety. You gotta be you gotta be concerned about safety, no matter what you're doing, whether it's hydrogen or hydro hydro or geothermal or oil and gas or coal. You have to be concerned about safety. So we don't want to minimize you know the importance of safety at at any turn. But by having said that, That on balance, nuclear has the best safety record of any energy source that we use. And we've had a couple of unfortunate accidents over time that have been conflated and inflated. I'm not going to say they weren't serious. I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about them. But for instance, Three Mile Island is the one nuclear accident we've had here in the U.S. Yes, we had a partial uh meltdown of a unit at the Three Mile Island plant. And they uh fortunately the safety measures worked as planned, and that meltdown was contained. And so we heard about it. There were movies about it, there's all these stories about it. But the reality is no one was seriously injured and nobody died as a result of that accident. We have 30 or 40 people, thousand people a year die of car accidents, and yet we we never have people die of nuclear accidents. So we have allowed them, the opponents of nuclear energy, to frame this as something unsafe. It's not unsafe, it's the safest energy we have. I'm not going to say that no one will ever die, but what I can say is in the U.S., there's never been a death, not one, from a commercial nuclear power plant. And that's in 70 plus years. And I like to, this is this is kind of hokey, but I use this sometimes when I'm talking to people about safety. And I say, you're more likely to be shot by your own dog than you are to die of a nuclear accident. And that, and of course, they look at you like you're an idiot. And what do you mean, shot by your own dog? And what do you mean? Well, what I mean is, is you no one has ever died in the US from a commercial nuclear accident. So that means that it is completely safe. It has been. We don't have any deaths. And yet, despite that, every usually once or twice a year, you'll see a news story about somebody getting shot by their own dog. They leave a loaded gun laying on the floor, the dog comes prancing in and steps on the trigger and shoots the guy in the leg or whatever. So the reality is set as ridiculous as it sounds, but it's really true, and I think it does get people's attention when you say you're more likely to be shot by your own dog than you are to die of a nuclear accident. So I think safety is the one issue. The second issue is the so-called nuclear waste. So in the US, most of our nuclear power plants, you take uh some re-enriched uranium and you run it through a nuclear power plant, say for a year or 18 months, the plant operates without shutting down for a year, 18 months. And then at the end, they take out those fuel rods, and people, some people incorrectly call that nuclear waste because what's happened is you've got a fuel rod that's still radioactive, but it uh it still has about 95% of its nuclear um power in imbibed in the in the in the fuel. In order to use it, you need to recycle the recycle and reprocess the fuel and use it over and over again. So it's really not waste, it's really an asset. But I believe I'm I'm not an expert on this, but probably I think in the 70s and probably Jimmy Carter passed the legislation, I think there were some misplaced concerns about nuclear waste being processed into products that could be used for nuclear weapons. And so basically, whether it was right or wrong at the time, the decision was made in the U.S., we're not going to reprocess all this fuel. So we use the fuel. As we use it, we only use about four or five percent of it, and then the rest of it just gets put into a container to be stored as quote unquote waste. Now, most places in the world, they don't do that. France doesn't do that, England doesn't do that, I don't think Russia does that, China probably doesn't do that. They take the product that fuel and they reprocess it and reuse it and reuse it and reuse it until it's gone. So I think there's a huge misconception that we have to stockpile of all this waste, it's not really waste, it's really an asset that needs to be reprocessed and reused. And even if you didn't, the amount of waste that we have created in this country, being the largest producer of nuclear power in the entire world, producing 20% of the electricity in the United States for 70 plus years. Notwithstanding that, if you took all the so-called waste, which is not really waste, but so-called waste, I like to call it partially spent nuclear fuel, if you took all of that waste, you could fit it all inside a football stadium. Well, you can't fit all the oil and gas waste, all the coal waste, all the windblade waste. I mean, you you couldn't you couldn't re you couldn't place all of the waste from one coal plant into a stadium, and yet we have done a really good job of securing, and it's such a small amount of waste, and it and it's so safe and so secure that I think most people don't realize how safe it is, how secure it is, and how we should be reprocessing it, reusing it. So I think those are the two misconceptions that we could probably need better education on to convince the public that uh these are not these are not problems. Now, to be honest, probably about 60% or 65% of the U.S. population is supports nuclear energy. So it's not like most everybody's anti-nuclear, but the few people that are, those are the two issues that usually come up that I hear about.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

So I agree a hundred percent. It goes back to the education part. And when you start talking about waste and what it takes to produce energy, and nuclear is definitely on the minimal scale, and you know, it does not get talked about enough in the in the in the world today of energy. I think I think lots of times too, you know, like you mentioned, 65% of the folks in the US do support nuclear, and that's where of course too, that a generation that was probably not exposed to it. So they never had any, you know, didn't hear the the negatives about it as a child, and you know, today it's definitely kind of changing, especially to uh, you know, all the jobs that are related to the nuclear industry. Right here in Amarola, Texas, of course, we've got the Pantex plant just right outside of town. And Amarola is known as Bob City, uh Bomb City. And I think about all the thousands of jobs of the folks that live in this Amarillo area that are supported by the nuclear energy. So I I think it's something too, just like any kind of clean source of energy, it gets taken for granted and it don't get publicized if it's not anything sometimes uh promotable, especially or intentionally promoted. Sometimes I think it don't happen. And unfortunately, it just gets something that you know don't get taught in school lots of times either. I think I mean if you if you look, I I remember when my kids were in elementary school and they were talking about different sources of energy, and I I wanted to come up there and speak, but I think my son was maybe in third or fourth grade, and he of course did not want me to, but they had little maps that they had to cut out different types of energy and uh glue them down, Elmer glue them down to a piece of paper. And I remember one of them was uh a windmill. I was uh, you know, a little bit, you know, upset about that, of course. And you know, I was thinking to myself, this is this is what our education system's teaching our kids, and they're thinking this is where the majority of electricity comes from or power comes from in the U.S. So that stuff early on definitely definitely goes a long way with their mindset.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

So Yeah, there let me say one more thing real quick. You know, one uh one thing that people don't realize is that people that live in nuclear communities are almost universally supportive of nuclear energy. So there have been many studies in the states and in Europe, and they almost always show the same thing, and and that is the closer you live to nuclear power plant, the more supportive you are. So that seems counterintuitive. You might think people who are way far away from nuclear power plants might support it, but if you're next to one, but the reality is is they create such stable energy and such stable jobs, I mean, generational jobs. Nuclear power plants where a father worked there and then their son worked there and then their granddaughter worked there. These are generational jobs and what these power plants provide generational jobs and wealth for these communities. They provide stable money for roads and for schools. And so as a result of that and their safety record, the truth is that the closer you live to a nuclear power plant, the the more likely you are to support nuclear energy. And I think that's a really important message.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

I'm look at there it goes. That's one thing I think too, that you know, lots of folks, they just if they've never been around it and never seen how safe it is to be around it as well. Uh, I've worked in several nuclear plants when I was younger when I got to travel around the U.S. So I got to experience all the safety protocols and all the different things that go into it, uh, just to even get inside the facility just to, you know, look at something. So I I think too, that's one thing that hopefully over time we're able to, you know, educate, like you said, and just you know, explain to the youth and let them know that this is going to be an alternative in the future for us. So one accomplishment you highlighted wasn't a single project, but it was simply staying continuously employed and relevant in an industry known for booms, busts, and layoffs. What's the secret to building a 45-year career in the business that's volatile?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Boy. Well, make yourself indispensable. I mean, to be honest, it's just the simple things. It's it's you know, I'm no genius here. This I and I told my kids the same thing. If if you can show up for a job and be on time and not be a nuisance and not be a gossip and just do mediocre work, you're better than 90% of the population. I mean, honestly, it it it's you just have to do the basics. Be honest, have integrity, don't be a problem at the office, don't be a rumor monger, work hard, show up when you're supposed to. And if you could do all of those things, you're gonna set yourself head and shoulders above almost everybody else. I had somebody recently that I knew that was laid off from a company, and it was a younger person. And I said, You need to finish strong because the reality is, and when I look back at my career, this is true. The reality is almost every single job I've ever had, I either was recommended by by someone else for that job, or somebody that worked for me or worked or I worked for, or it's somebody that somebody was called and said, Hey, did you know this guy when he worked at XYZ Company? And they'll say, What was he like? And they say, Yeah, he was great. He always worked hard and never caused any problems. So your reputation is everything. And if you if you recognize that you're not going to get your next job, or it's gonna be very difficult to get your next job, if you've burned your bridges behind you. And so I told this young person, I said, Look, you've worked here for four or five years and you've worked hard, you've done a good job, and you're very well respected, you're getting let go because you know the company is having to lay somebody off and and or that position is no longer needed, or whatever the reason is, it's it's but you have gained the respect of all the people you've worked for. Now, if you if they if you're gonna leave in two or three weeks and you stop coming to the office and you slack out and take long lunches and don't come in until 10 and leave at two, you have just undone two or four years. You spent four years creating this this image of who you are, and then you've undone it in a couple of days. So I I like to tell young people, as hard as it is, you're mad that you got laid off, or whatever the case is, finish strong. Prove them, prove to them they were wrong for laying you off. But the mainly what you don't want to do is damage your reputation. So you you've got to have high uh you have to be honorable, you have to have good ethics, you've got to uh take the high road every time, even even if it means possibly losing your job, you just can't always have to do the right thing. And that's sometimes hard, but that's the way you stand employed for 45 years.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Lots of times that unfortunately the younger generation is not aware of, and what happens when you know careers do come to an end. And you know, I told my kids the same thing, you know, if you can show up on time and be there and be punctual and you know, do your job to your best of your ability, I was like, you're going to advance and you're gonna get more opportunity, and it's gonna be up to you to prove to everybody, you know, that you're gonna be able to be a good asset to the team. And I think too, that's one thing I heard Nick Saban say at best one time. He said, you know, uh, if nobody misses you when you don't show up, you're you're not you're not part of the team. And so uh he didn't say it quite that nicely, but yeah, there was a few other words that went along with it. But I'm a big Nick Saban fan, so uh I I definitely like a lot of the motivational speeches that he puts out there and when he goes and talks to people at other universities and stuff about leadership. So I I think that's spot on. And you know, in our industry, that's one thing that if you're willing to go the extra mile, it goes along with everybody that's part of the the project, whether it it it can be anything. And I think too, I've seen it more and more, especially where I'm at today, because obviously I came in the industry with nothing, and I've been able to grow a business into something, and it's all been based off relationships and my name and what I'm willing to do and what my team's willing to do to you know to sacrifice along the way to for the everybody to be successful, just not one person, but everybody involved.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

So yeah, I got one other small piece of advice for uh for young people since we're hoping some young, some aspiring, good young people, but uh I've had twice this year people come to me, very important people, people um, you know, with really high responsibilities in a company. And in both cases, these people were leaving the job to take another job. And they said, Yeah, I think I'm gonna give my two-week notice next Monday. I'm like, what are you talking about? A two-week notice. You're a VP, you're uh you're a senior person. A two-week notice is for the hostess at Cracker Barrel. If you're a hostess at Cracker Barrel, you should give your employer two weeks' notice so they can find somebody to replace you. If you're an executive or a VP or even a senior petroleum engineer, you're more valuable and you're more important than that. And that is not inappropriate. You should not walk in and say, here's my two-week notice. You need to say, you know, I'd like to leave as soon as I can, but I can give you four weeks, six weeks, whatever you think it's going to take to make an orderly transition. If you don't do that, then you're starting to tear down your reputation by uh thinking it's more important for you to get out of there on two weeks than it is to make an orderly transition with somebody who's probably invested a lot of time and money in you. So if you're a young person and you're in the oil and gas business, unless you're the janitor, you probably need to get more than two weeks' notice, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

I think that's one thing that you know our youth needs to hear. And we have folks lots of times that go to give their two weeks' notice in. And when they do, usually within a week, they're like, I'm just gonna go ahead and not come back. And I would be willing to bet that, you know, it's becoming more common, unfortunately. And it's across the world, right? Where the generation right now sometimes they don't understand the the capability and the impact of them leaving a position like that, what it, you know, the ring flow it causes for the people on the other side as well. So I I completely agree wholeheartedly. So when you look across the energy industry today, what do you see as the biggest obstacle preventing projects from moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

That's a big question. And it kind of depends where you are. If you're in China, you don't really have too many problems. You just decide what you're gonna do and you do it. You don't have right-of-way issues, you don't have environmental issues. I mean, if uh President Xi says I'm gonna build a 2,000-mile power line, well, by God, they're gonna build it and they're gonna tear down whatever houses are in the way, and there's not gonna be some sort of long committee or environmental assessment or anything like that. So it depends where you are. But I presumably you're talking about in the U.S. And in the U.S., I think we have there's been so much talk the last two years about regulatory reform, but we have allowed ourselves in, you know, with good intentions. We don't want projects to be done in a willy-nilly fashion that is not respectful for communities and then people and environments. And so we don't want projects, you know, just fast-tracked like that. But in the in with the very good intention of doing that over the last 25-30 years, we have we have gradually made it so difficult to get almost anything done. And we've allowed the legal system, has allowed, you know, frivolous lawsuits to delay projects for sometimes decades. You we tried to buy an oil and gas lease in 2019 in Colorado, and the Bureau of Land Management did a nice job of doing an environmental assessment before they even offered the lease. And then when they offered the lease, they offered a lot of different restrictions. You can't do this, and you can only do this during certain months of the year, and you can never do this, and a road has to go here, and you can't drill here. So they had obviously done their homework. And the minute that we paid our money to the federal government for this oil and gas lease, several environmental organization organizations stepped up and filed lawsuits. And the reality is they they knew they had no basis for the lawsuits. They're frivolous, they had no real basis for it, but in doing so, they delayed those leases being issued for seven years. And eventually the courts are like, you got nothing. You got nothing. This is frivolous, and they throw it out, but they throw a wrench in into it. And so this is one example of how we've allowed our what were really well-intended safety measures to make sure that we do the right thing for communities and the environment. We've let them get out of control. And these these judges and these courts should have dismissed those frivolous lawsuits three months after they were filed, not seven years after they filed. So regulatory reform, legal reform is necessary. It's just practically impossible to build a new power line, a new pipeline. We don't, it's not like China where the president of China can just tell everybody to get in line and we're gonna do it. You have to deal with all the communities and you have to deal with um a lot of different agencies, federal and state agencies. And so honestly, regulatory reform and permitting reform is probably the the biggest thing we got to do. All right, I can't hear you. Can you hear me now? I can. I can't see you, but I can hear you now.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Sorry about that. It dropped out. Let me get it going again. Every now and then it does that. Let me find it here. Okay, there it goes. All right. Well, so you know, one of the things that, you know, we like to ask all our guests, and this is the last question for the show, is you know, if you could wave a magic wand and fix, you know, one issue across the industry tomorrow, you said it would be regulatory re reform, not eliminating oversight, but making the process more efficient. What would a smarter approval process process actually look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 40:34

I think, at least on a federal level, if we could have some better coordination between different departments. I mean, if you want an approval and you have for let's say a pipeline project or a power line, let's just get out of our business so you want a power line, and you've got to have the approval of the Bureau of Land Management, and then you also got to get fish and wildlife. You got U.S. Forest Service, and then you got some state agencies that want to get their nose into it. And it's a lot of redundant work and a lot of, and of course, the problem is it's not just that it's hard for the oil company, but it costs more money, and then when it costs more money, it means that you're you're passing those costs on to the customer. So ultimately the customers, the customers are the ones who who bear the cost. So, you know, it'd be nice if we could find a way to get more coordination between all of the stakeholders and entities so that we're not doing an environmental assessment for five different groups and doing the same sort of studies, wildlife studies, or whatever it is, over and over again for different groups. So I think that would be, you know, on a on a macro scale, I think that could help the larger projects. And then I think obviously legal reform, where we are just not tolerating frivolous lawsuits and not letting let not letting people for the cost of filing a lawsuit to shut down a major project for years and years and years. We have to have le legal reform, which will require these these judges and these courts to throw out frivolous or or compel them to deal with it in a timely fashion. So I think that's two big things.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

There it goes. I think there it goes. Yeah. Falls asleep. I completely agree. I think I think the more and more we're able to work through the political side and streamlining energy, you know, it definitely speeds up the process. And we all know that, you know, with the changing environment of politics every two to four years where it's, you know, regul new regulation comes out, somebody has a new idea, and we're starting all over again. And I think that's one of the things that hurts our country more than anything is that every two to four years we have to start over with a new group of politicians that has not been educated along the way. So the lobbyists that are coming in to their office and giving them their agenda to try to push whatever they're wanting to push. And unfortunately, it slows down, you know, the energy in the youth in the United States for every project. And, you know, we've seen it more and more probably over the last 10 to 15 years than we ever have in our industry where, you know, I think about the days where, you know, when Rockefeller first started out, and you know, he could just send some guys out, they drill a well and they get the oil and put it on the tanker and send it down the railway. And in today's, you know, way of doing things, you know, it would have taken him hundreds of years to get to that point. And I think that's one thing that, you know, we know gets taken for granted, unfortunately. And if we're able to move fast, and I know there's tons of red tape that gets involved with lots of it, but hopefully, um, you know, as things evolved and we're able to educate and get in front of the right folks and talk and and you know, be able to have our own folks in the in the Washington and even in the other state capitals that understand the energy and what it does for the economy and what it does for the states at a local level. I think it's extremely important. And I I think about you know, New Mexico is a good state that always comes to mind because you know, New Mexico in the political side is so anti-oil and gas, but that's the majority of its tax dollars come into New Mexico is from oil and gas. And I know the major producers over there unfortunately are, you know, they're in a position now where they're making all this money and supporting the state that's trying to shut them down. And it's it's hard to swallow, I think, too. It's you know, all of my friends that own production in New Mexico and you know, all the tax dollars that goes to that office that's trying to shut down their energy and their their livelihood, uh, you know, it it's tough. But I'll say the more folks you know can promote oil and gas and energy in general and the independence and you know, being able to put a positive impact on it and be able to talk about you know the positivity of what it's done for you know people's careers and and lives. And you mentioned jobs like you're a second generation with your dad, you know, being in the industry before and being able to, you know, walk in a footsteps to set yourself up for success. And same way with my daughters as well, too, that that's in the industry now and just being able to see them flourish and know that they're gonna be the leaders of tomorrow. So I definitely, definitely appreciate your time jumping on today. One of the things we like to do, Doug, is you know, for all our guests that come on the show, if just when you get a chance, if you can uh shoot me your home address via email, uh what I'll do is uh have the girls in the office, we send a care package out just saying, hey, thanks for coming on. You know, it's just something we like to do, and of course, too, uh it's just something that you know to show appreciation too for your time out of your business schedule. So I definitely, definitely appreciate your time today and thank you so much. All right, well, let's stay in touch, buddy. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna stop this.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

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