Crude Logic
This is a podcast that highlights all things oil and gas! We talk to industry leaders, service-providers, and anyone who works within this industry. The two hosts have over 40 years combined experience in the industry.
Crude Logic
Innovative Lithium Extraction from Oil Wastewater & Invoicing Headaches
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In this episode, Tim and Taber discuss the latest developments in the oil and gas industry, including innovative lithium extraction methods, market updates, and industry insights. They also share humorous anecdotes and strategic tips for service companies.
Key Topics
Lithium extraction from oil wastewater
Market trends in oil and gas
Industry challenges and opportunities
Humor and anecdotes in oilfield work
Strategies for service companies
Takeaways
Oil companies are pioneering lithium extraction from wastewater, reducing environmental impact.
Market data shows a gradual increase in rig counts, indicating industry recovery.
Humor and anecdotes can make industry discussions more engaging.
Efficient processes and technology like iCruise are transforming drilling operations.
Industry insiders highlight the importance of speed and efficiency in service delivery.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Technical Challenges
02:55 Subscriber Growth and Analytics Discussion
06:00 Daily Podcasting and Content Strategy
08:55 Equipment and Recording Setup
11:58 Ad Review and Content Preparation
15:00 Market Updates and Industry Insights
18:01 Lithium Extraction from Oil Wastewater
21:11 Rig Count and Employment in Oil and Gas
24:01 Future of the Oil and Gas Industry
30:40 Innovative Lithium Extraction from Oil Wastewater
39:54 Challenges and Future of Electric Vehicles
46:49 Environmental Regulations and Oil Industry Dynamics
51:13 The Financial Burden on Service Companies
01:01:20 Future Directions and Closing Thoughts
Resources
Element 3 - Lithium Extraction Company - https://www.element3.com
Crude Logic Podcast - https://www.crudeloggic.show
iCruise Drilling Automation - https://www.icruise.com
Pumpjack Apparel - https://pumpjackapparel.com
We're going to talk about a couple of things. One of those things is going to be this new lithium plant. Apparently, there's a new factory that is extracting lithium from oil field wastewater. So I thought that was pretty interesting. I don't know how uh companies, oil field companies, are turning this into a profit, but I mean, obviously they are selling the oil field wastewater, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So so they just they take it to this plant, they pull the lithium out, they sell the lithium. What do they do with the rest of the water? Put it back in the ground, I'm guessing?
SPEAKER_02That I don't know what they're doing with the rest of the minerals and stuff like that. But apparently they can extract a lot of lithium uh from the oil-filled wastewater.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting, interesting topic. I talked to a guy, um, it's been a couple years ago. I haven't really, I don't know if his business succeeded or not, but he was taking uh wastewater and putting it into some sort of machine that that would spin it and you know, like drop all the bad particles out. Anyways, long story short, he was pulling all the salt out of the salt water and then purifying it and refining it and selling it as table salt to like Morton salt or whatever that whatever the biggest manufacturer of salt is in the country. So I thought it was interesting. Uh apparently there's a salt shortage in America, according to this guy, anyway. I don't know if it's true.
SPEAKER_02Going back to the ocean. Apparently sorry, apparently the ocean is all salt. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought too. I mean, literally, we have desert areas that are all salt.
SPEAKER_01You know, when he was telling me this, I was thinking, like, couldn't you just go to like the Dead Sea and just scoop it out by the you know, bucket load?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. There's there's probably some process that makes it extremely expensive to do because desalination apparently is really expensive. But I don't know anything about it. I'm not gonna get into it. Okay, Tabor, so let's get the uh market update for June 30th on this wonderful Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01Market update West Texas is up to 7026. That's up 1.4%. Brent is uh 73.56 at uh 2% higher, and natural gas is down to 317. Uh Baker Hughes' weekly rig report came out yesterday after our show. And uh we are currently sitting at 10 rigs more uh than we were before at 573 total for the U.S., 197 for Canada, and 1,046 internationally. So growth moving on up. Uh now that the the uh Iran thing is calming down, it seems like all the people who've been waiting to pick up rigs finally did, and I'm sure they'll be dropping them soon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure, because the Iran war ended yesterday, started back up, and ended this morning, and I think it's getting ready to start back up. We pretty much set our clocks to it.
SPEAKER_01Hey, don't worry, this is going to end before tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02So we are kind of flying a little bit more in the edge of our seat this morning.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. This is good. So the number of employees in the oil and gas extraction industry increased slightly from April to May. Anyways, long story short, more people are working in the oil and gas industry. There's way too many numbers in that article for me to tell you how many.
SPEAKER_02I mean, always a good thing, right? Like we we need this, uh we need this industry, and uh the good men and women out there need the work. So yeah. I mean, 10 10 plus rigs, you know, is well, I mean, you're looking at at least 10 people per rig, you know. Yeah, 10 people per rig. No telling how many service companies may win work. Um, so uh really what the number is.
SPEAKER_01I've never even really looked that up. Have you ever looked up what the number is? Like when they bring a rig out, what is the total net additional employer employment? Is that like I mean you gotta ten people on a rig at a time, really. I mean, it's five five five of the crew, directional crew, mud loggers, company man, times two because there's you know a whole other crew on the days off. Then you got the guys who build the pad. I mean, there's there's gotta be 50 to 100 people. Day and night shift. Yeah, it's gotta be 50 to 100 people easily with just one rig.
SPEAKER_02You think with just one?
SPEAKER_01I mean, they're not maybe not cons not consistent. I'd say 20 consistently with that rig following it. Like all in, you'd have got like somebody's gotta build the pad, somebody's gotta. I'm sure that the labor statistics board or whatever tracks that information. I've just never thought to look it up.
SPEAKER_02So I want to talk about this company called Element 3. Apparently, there is a new uh facility in West Texas Midland area where they're they're taking oil-filled wastewater, they're extracting lithium and and other minerals, but apparently the primary mineral that they're subtract or extracting from the oil-filled wastewater is lithium. I didn't know lithium was even in oil-filled wastewater. So I personally think that this is brilliant, and it also proves to the rest of the uh electric car greenies that you can't do this, people, without oil and gas. You can't do it without this industry. So cool your jets and quit destroying the thing that makes you feel so green and beautiful inside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good point. All that lithium. I mean, there's uh I can't remember the name of the company in South Texas, but there's one in South Texas too, that that's all they do is drill four lithium. And the I don't have you ever seen a lithium field where they drilled. I have nothing wells? No. So they have like it's pretty impressive. They only the wells are only like, I don't know, 300 foot deep, but they'll they'll drill like five wells in a day, and they just drill a well and they move over like 50 feet and do it again, 50 feet and do it again. So you go out there and it looks like little rows of corn, essentially. It's just like a row and a row and a row. It's pretty pretty cool. But anyway, they that way it's either that or they have to dig down, you know, and clear the whole land, like you see in some of these lithium mines in Africa or whatever, where they've got, you know, big heavy equipment out there, which of course is going to require oil and gas too to run giant diesel engines and stuff.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, but I mean the impact on if they can, you know, it says that they can what does it say? It says they can extract approximately one trillion gallons of wastewater is produced a year. And they can extract 250,000 tons of lithium. It's enough lithium to manufacture approximately five million electric vehicles. Double A batteries. Oh, okay. Five million nine volt batteries. Now, apparently it can power five five million EVs a year. Now, I personally have no use for EVs. I I they can have a charger on every hundred feet, and I don't care to have an electric car. I can fill my Jeep up in five minutes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm not gonna wait 20 minutes to charge my car.
SPEAKER_01Whatever happened to the, you know, whenever um Elon and and the whenever the big movement started and they had all these great plans, one of the things that Elon Musk pitched at a tech event one time that I saw was he envisioned a system where you could just pull into a gas station or an electric, whatever, service station, pull in, and like an oil change, they would drop your battery, throw a new battery on, and you just move on. And then it went to like I mean, that was like one year, and the next year is like, oh, it's $35,000 to have your battery replaced or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and in the first scenario, I don't see that changing. Like the price, the price is gonna, you know, that's the engine of the car, really.
SPEAKER_01The problem with electric cars for me is exactly what you're talking about. I can go fill up a car in five minutes and go and get a snack and whatever. If I if I have an electric car, I've got friends that have electric cars, and it's like 30 minutes they're gonna sit at the gas station and I'm already on the road and you know, get there two hours.
SPEAKER_02Right here, your next meeting. Yeah, I mean, it's just well, and you can't carry people get there, they're just not there yet, and it's I just I saw a meme one time of a Tesla driving with a generator on the back of it. Yeah, I've seen that. And I'm like, you know, a gas can weighs a lot less than a generator. I'm I'm just saying, like, you can't anyway. We we all know, like that we know who we're talking to here, and some of you may have electric vehicles. God bless you. We are proud and happy to announce today's sponsor for the Crewed Logic Show. Today's sponsor is Pumpjack Apparel. Pumpjack Apparel is Permium based and Permium Proud. These folks do embroidery, custom swag, and their own clothing line right there in the Permium Basin. You want your crew logoed up on location and looking like a real outfit instead of an outfit of mismatched freebies? That's pumpjack. Caps, polos, company stores, one off runs, they'll knock it out. So, if you want to support a local shop that actually understands the oil field, you can find pumpjack apparel at www.pumpjackaparel.com. Dress your crew like you mean it. Well, they're not traders, because that that that electric car is running on still predominantly running on uh lithium from uh saltwater. I'm not sure how they're gonna make the entire body of the car, the interior, the wires, the pretty much everything, uh and probably the battery. And some obviously they gotta have oil and gas to extract the lithium, or this is probably a new method that they're doing. But I do think it's ingenious because look, I everybody makes the assumption that, oh, well, oil and gas people don't care about the environment. Well, bullshit. We we want to hunt, we want to fish, we want to clean, we want to breathe clean air, we want all those things. And I would much rather have a gigantic reservoir full of fish than a giant gaping hole where they've dug for lithium. So if they can minimize doing that kind of scarring to the earth, I mean, and I I say scarring to there, like I the earth is the earth, right? Like I don't give any credence.
SPEAKER_01It's got a lot of uh historical rebounding.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's not a it's not a living being. Yes, it is a planet. Yes, we've got to take care of it, but we don't need to worship it. But anyway, that will that's going down a different road. But my my point is that just to this lithium idea, I don't know how it could have been around this first time I heard about it, so you know, on me for not being Mr. News guy. But the lithium extraction from the water that's already being taken somewhere, and I'm sure the water's I mean, I know the water's used for other purposes. Like companies have been extracting wastewater from locations, but doing it in this way is just really inventive. I mean, I don't think it's a good idea.
SPEAKER_01Not only that, but it also, you know, I mean, a lot of the you called them greenies a minute ago, but for the longest time, everybody was complaining about fracking and it was causing earthquakes. And all of us in the industry, we all know like there are legitimate concerns with oil and gas practices causing earthquakes, but it's not, it's not fracking, it's the injection, right? So the saltwater injection, water being recycled to make lithium or extract lithium is decreasing the amount we have to inject back into the ground. So it's it's helping the environment twofold. That's the that's the biggest complaint I've ever I've always had with all these anti-oil and gas people, is that they don't even understand the science behind the industry and what we do to keep they don't want to understand it.
SPEAKER_02Those people are gonna hate oil and gas no matter what. So lithium, good idea if we're not having to mine for it. If we can take things that we're already using and do that, that's more efficient, that's good. The oil companies can benefit from those efforts also, and everything is good. So, something a little surprising in Colorado is that they approved a well near the Aurora Reservoir. Now, people in Colorado, especially the Denver area, have been fighting for many years to shut down oil and gas. All the Libby Libby Greenies are fighting it like crazy. And so they've tried to sue for different to stop different projects. They failed at that. So they tried to they're trying to stop individual permits they approved for the Aurora Reservoir, and everybody's up in arms about it. And honestly, I'm surprised that it got approved with the the current uh governor, Jared Pulsmoker, and uh he he's individually destroying Colorado. And if you live here, then you already know what you know. So that's that's an interesting development. And uh it's chalk one up for for a win for the oil and gas industry. So uh humanity for humanity, for humanity itself. I think we've done a good job of covering all the boring informative stuff. Hopefully it's informative. Let's talk about disputed invoices where all these operators give you a certain time frame to pay or to for them to pay your invoice. Yeah. And you you know this is as mean when when we worked together at Halliburton. Yep. I think it was 60 days for a lot of our accounts to get paid, and on like day 58, they kick it back because there's a problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You have to you have to turn the invoice in. And I mean, it's different for each one, but like you have to turn it in within X amount of days of doing the work, or they're just like, oh, that didn't happen at all. So you gotta you gotta get it in first within that time frame, and then they they wait until the very end of their payable, like if you're like you said, 60-day term, they'll wait till day 58 or 59, and they'll kick it back and say, Oh, you forgot to put put a comma here or whatever. And then you you give it back to them the next day, and they're like, Okay, it starts the 60 day clock over again.
SPEAKER_02They're they're literally financing their operation on yeah, and then we and then we wonder why service companies go tits up all the time. Yeah, exactly. It's like, guys, we had a really good year last year. We had work every day of the year, yeah. And now we haven't been paid for anybody. I can't pay anybody because I didn't spell something right on the invoice. I'm just saying that I'm sure that there's a good business. I mean, hey, that benefits the operator, right? Congratulations. But we've got to do better on not putting so much of a burden on service companies because whether any operators want to admit it or not, now lucky for them, there is a plethora of service companies. New service companies pop up all the time, so they have their pick of the litter. Yeah, but they can't do any of their operation without any number of subcontractors for that project. It seems sort of counterintuitive to make and then they get upset about prices. Well, I'm telling you right now, if you're making me wait 60 days, yeah, I'm gonna make it worth my while. But then again, you can't be competitive. You can't compete because somebody else is gonna come in and go, oh, well, yeah, I'll do it for that price.
SPEAKER_01Even if I'm not gonna be able to get the PS anyway, man, because you get like I go in there all the time and I I'm friends with my competitors when we were at the same events. You know how it goes.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you're you're there because you guys are in the same boxhole, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, so what'd you bid on this? And then they'll I mean, of course, they're not gonna tell me exactly what they bid, right? But like we we know what our roundabout, what each other's prices are. I can go into an engineer's office, give them a bid, know for sure it's the lowest, and they'll come back and they'll say, Oh, well, you know, you guys came in the lowest, and we always drop the lowest two bids, so you didn't win the work. And the next time you go right in the middle and they're like, ah, well, you know, you didn't win the work because you don't have any offset. It's always a reasonable.
SPEAKER_02Why do they drop the top? Why do they drop the bottom or the lowest two bids?
SPEAKER_01They drop Is that just standard policy? For so I won't name which operator, but one of the operators here in the permeant, it is their standard. It's uh if you're their concern is if you have the lowest price, then you're pricing yourself too low to maintain your fleet and keep things going. So they they think it, you know, lowest price equates to service quality issues, so they just drop you. But um, they drop you from the bid process until they do it again, which they do every six months. So um, but it's not really the I mean, you know, for directional, for instance, on the motor length, it, you know, the length of the motor changes the stator and and rotor configuration. It adds a foot, so they call it a different stage. So size matters. Yeah, size matters, but yeah. Um, anyway, the you know, it's like a it's like a minor change. You can have a motor that's exactly the same as a vendor, another vendor's, and the engineer will say, Well, we don't we don't want to run yours because it's 0.01 inches different or 0.01 revs per gallon different or whatever it is, it's really just a way to say, I'm gonna use my best friend and you're not getting the work.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, look, it's their operation that's their money they're spending. So they have and should have complete control. I just feel like you could pay a little bit faster. We appreciate everybody that's tuning in. Please, uh, if you if you've tuned in and listen, please tell somebody else about it, share it with them, follow us and subscribe. It really helps out the channel. We're super appreciative of that. Um, this is this is something that we've committed to and that we want to make a good product. We want to make sure that everybody likes it. But uh, we're really excited about the days to come. Tomorrow we have more stories, more updates for you. So until then, stay safe, keep drilling, and remember it's only logic if it's crude logic. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00We built this land with busted knuckles and calendars. This is crude logic. Welcome to the show.