The On Again, Off Again War....It's Crude!

Join Tim and Taber as they explore energy markets, geopolitics, and industry insights in a free-flowing conversation. This episode covers oil field innovations, market volatility, and the complexities of international conflicts, offering a candid look at current events and industry trends.

Keywords

energy markets, oil industry, geopolitics, Iran, market volatility, oil field innovations, industry insights, oil prices, international conflicts, oil and gas


Key Topics

Oil market fluctuations and their causes
Innovations in oil drilling technology
Geopolitical tensions involving Iran
Impact of international conflicts on energy prices
Industry insights and industry-specific stories

Sound Bites

"The field tells a different story."
"Iran's actions will reverberate for generations."
"Market volatility is here to stay."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
02:05 Discussing Industry Innovations and Show Format
03:54 Market Update: Oil Prices and Rig Counts
12:03 Weekly Energy Market Recap and Key Events
20:02 Deep Dive: Air Drilling and Its Benefits
30:06 Historical and Modern Contact Lens Technologies
39:58 Geopolitical Tensions: Iran and Middle East Dynamics
50:07 Market Fluctuations and Future Outlook
59:33 Industry Challenges: Insurance, Regulations, and Market Impact

Resources

Blue Star Ointment - https://www.bluestarointment.com
Crescent Energy - https://crescentenergyco.com
Alexander Graham Bell - Invention of the Contact Lens - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_lens
Oil & Gas Industry News - https://oilgasnews.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do you know what sound it makes if a vinegar truck and a water truck collide? No. Douche. If you only looked at the headlines this week, you would know that I don't remember the rest of my line. I'm going to look down. Welcome back to Crude Logic, everybody. This is Friday, July 10th, 2026. And we are going to do what we call free flow Fridays. So anything can happen, any topic can come up, but we'll try to keep it interesting and focused on you in the industry. Let's get it started.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Today's market minute. Uh, West Texas is sitting right around 72, Brent's at 76, and natural gas is at 301. U.S. rate count's sitting at 580 for the week.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So that's the market update, everybody. Let's do a little bit of a recap of what we've covered this week. We've talked about one of the most infamous wells, the Hilltopper Schnick Cacker. What is the name of that one? Spindletop. Spindletop. Yeah. We've talked about spindletop. We've talked about wildcatting. We've talked about a lot of things this week. Today we're not going to talk about any of that. We're going to probably talk about Iran, because let's be honest, it's everywhere all the time, and it should be talked about. And then we're just going to kind of let this ride take us wherever we're going to go. And you guys are going to be along for it, or you're just going to leave and not subscribe and never watch us again. But until then, we're going to have a good time. No, I've heard of it. I've heard it's really dusty and loud and made this video on a rig.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Whoopsie. Hold on. Don't be standing near that. This is just making a connection. It's not. This is like normal having every every stand.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So it's not even. Holy crap, that's every time they make a connection?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, so they had a guy that stood there and washed the window off so the driller could see. Now watch when he picks it up. It stays blowing like that the whole time you're making the hook. Where is the I mean you're pushing the air down. Yeah, you pump it all down, and then when you stop and you make a connection, it's that's 208 pounds of 208 psi.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

So is it I've never drilled with air?

SPEAKER_02 2:38

It would like blow their glasses off all the time, and like it seems incredibly dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I mean what it was okay. So what would be the what is the benefit of drilling with air? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I'm kidding. Hell if I know. That was in the Barnett. In certain it was only in certain parts of the Barnet, too. I don't I don't remember what the original reason for because we were we weren't doing that for the longest time. That was like the second well we did, and we only did it in like the far south side of the Barnet show. And I was pretty new back then. So couldn't tell you why. Was that was that was that just an example video or was that your video? I made the I mean that's me filming it. That's uh not my YouTube channel or whatever. It's a it's the guy who's the driller on the rig. He works for um Crescent now. Well, I'm uh they have to figure out who it was, but yeah, he works for Crescent now, so I don't think he'd care if I said that.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

So let me ask you this. If you're drilling with air and you're drilling for gas, what is is the air keeping the gas down in the hole? Is it just air pressure that's keeping it down?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Well, so the yes, I think so. It's just pushing back on it. I was just air drilling. Uh man, I feel like maybe, but I'm gonna say no. So instead of like a motor where it spins when they pump on it, it's like a jackhammer and it just goes up and down. So the bit it's a different kind of bit. It's like a flat bit with the teeth on the bottom. And when they would do the mud motor test or the air driller, air motor test, whatever, they would set this set it on the um rotary table on like a piece of wood and kick it on for like a split second and it would like pulverize it.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

It's pretty where are the so is it just smashing its way through? I mean, there's no cuttings.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yeah, it just pounds it into sand. So on the at surface, when it's coming out, it comes out like just sand blowing out, and they have they have to put water back into it then so that it becomes mud and like will fall into the cuttings.

unknown 4:53

You know.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

And then they push the cuttings down with the jackhammer?

SPEAKER_02 4:57

No, no, no. Like they the cuttings the the they pulverize it down whole, they blow instead of circulating water or fluid, they circulate in air, so it blows back up to the surface. When it's at surface, it comes out like just shooting out the side of the where the shakers would normally be, just shooting out. Right. So they have to put water on it so that it like becomes a liquid again and goes into the pits.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I wonder how common that is today.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

It's pretty common.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Just trying to figure out what is the I mean, I can see it maybe being cheaper, but I think it's actually much more expensive. Really? Well, then that makes even less sense to me. I don't know. I've never done it.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

So the benefits of it is air drilling offers significantly faster penetration rates, longer drill bit life, and a reduced risk of formation damage compared to conventional liquid-based mud drilling. Air replaces heavy liquid muds with compressed gases like air or nitrogen. I do remember. I think that's why it's because it's nitrogen. Um drastically reduces bottom hole. But the reason we had to do the hooks like that when we did them is because if you turned off the the air or the nitrogen or whatever, and you let it you waited till all that pressure bled off to make a hook, it took like three hours to make a hook because you would the pressure would bleed off within five minutes or something. But by the time you made when you made the hook and you tried to turn everything back on, it would take it like three hours. That might be an exaggeration, a minimum of 30 minutes, usually up to three hours, to get enough pressure built up in the pipe to blow all the cuttings back up. So there would just be a bunch of cuttings that were like sitting down in the hole, and then they would, or they were all throughout the hole, and they would fall back down onto the bit and like pack the assembly off.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So what was what was the uh what's the TVD that we're talking about here?

SPEAKER_02 6:45

7,500 feet.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Wow, that's a lot deeper than I would have thought. That seems like that would take a long time to drill 7,500 feet.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Well, they didn't drill the whole, they didn't drill that whole section. I thought you meant like what was the de the TVD we were at, but they would only use the air drilling for the vertical portion of the well, and then we would do the curve and lateral, obviously, directional. Actual glass, and they would cover your whole eyeball. Like the white of it and everything. It was just round, but they would put they would pull your like eyelids up and stick the contact, it would cover all of inside your eye. I I didn't even know this was a thing. So while I was reading about it, I was looking up how effective they were, and they didn't really help you see any better. And and you couldn't wear them for more than an hour because they were so painful. So Okay. Anyways, while this guy was making one of these, I guess they used like some sort of a mold to put the glass in, and that was made of plastic. I'm not really sure exactly how this no wait, that's not what it was. It was the he was making them like I guess they superheated them in some sort of bowl and they poured all this melted sand, right, that becomes glass into this formed thing. And that's how they made the contact. Well, when he picked it up or dropped it, something happened and the the the lens came off, just a little just a little piece of glass came off. So and to see if it would work, he like picked it up and popped that shard of glass into his eye. And scientists are weird, dude. Yeah, he's like, this works so much better. So for an hour. Yeah, so he came up with the idea and he went and patented it because it worked so well to use a little thin piece of plastic instead of uh this glass. So today the cla the glass that he invented or that we use is plexiglass. So the first the second set of contacts after glass was plexiglass.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Then the plexiglass was like they last that lasted for like 30 years and it was pretty effective. He made like a really thin contact that we uh use today. This would be a beneficial use for regular glasses too. Apparently, regular glasses were used to be made of glass, which is why they call them glasses, and they were very heavy and very thick because the glass obviously had to be like, you know, concaved in a certain way for each prescription. So the glasses were first off really heavy and usually falling off people's faces. And if they got hit in the face with something, there was like a real risk that they would get glassed in their eyes.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Your protective glasses made you lose an eye.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah. So now glasses are also made with plexiglass. Thank you. Oil and gas.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

By the way, plexiglass is all obviously made of oil, so a little while back, travel back to a time a couple of months ago, um, we started bombing Iran, and then we stopped. And then we started bombing Iran again. Right. And then we stopped and we had an understanding, and then they started bombing again, so we bombed again. The war was back on, and then it was off. Oil prices went down and then it came back on. Oil prices came back up, and they started talking again, then they started attacking again. You're welcome. That is the US Iran war update. Later today, they're anticipating that the war will be over, and then by dinner it will start again. So keep your pants on.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Okay. Um I just looked it up, and it turns out uh you you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Historian?

SPEAKER_02 10:49

No. Expert, kinda. So the real reason that the truce fell apart, the Iranians decided to strike ships in the Strait of Hormos. We don't we don't really have a good history of people bombing our boats.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Apparently, we have the greatest deal in the works. If they don't sign it, we'll just bomb them to hell.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

We have spent billions of dollars now on just munitions alone. So I don't know. Who's we? Charles, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

You and me, brother. It's our tax dollars. And everybody else watching this, unless you're illegal, not a citizen, and you're cheating the system. It was it's kind of like Afghanistan, right? You would think that we could go in, wipe out Afghanistan. Now, if they just did an unbridled war, just go get them, boys. Here's all the tools, here, make the plans and bomb the hell out of them. It would be over in a matter of a week. But if we did that, we would we would use a whole lot of munitions. Um, I'm not sure what the stockpiles are. If it's anything like the strategic petroleum reserve, we've maybe we've used a lot of them. We're trying to to get to build back up, which this is a coincidence. Side note, um, right by my house here where I live, there is a massive up in I'm right at the base of the foothills, and there is a massive, massive Lockheed Martin facility. I don't know if it means anything, it probably doesn't, but I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before, there was there's a guy here who basically it's brilliant. He just listens to his damn scanner all night, and then in the morning he posts everything that he heard, and people follow him like crazy and and just posting so but apparently not the NFL. Right, right, yes, yeah. Uh he posted this story that I guess you know, a bunch of emergency vehicles went out to this facility. People out of the blue were complaining of being dizzy and and nauseous, and and you know, Lockheed Martin's a defense contractor, for those of you that don't know that. And I'm just thinking, okay, well, it could have been just, you know, maybe they had some chemicals or something like that. So, you know, maybe somebody didn't put the lid back on, and that could be and is probably what happened. But it does make a man go, hmm. Should I be out there, right? Right. Um, what is this bump on my lymph node? Yeah, you know, exactly. That's depressing as hell. But anyway, uh, I just thought that was interesting. Given our government's track record, fairly likely.

unknown 13:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

MK Ultra. Just saying. Uh, what were we talking about before then? Oh, um, was it Iran? Yep. Okay. Here's what we do know. We do know that this is gonna cause a fluctuation in the markets. That it's just gonna keep continuing. We we've addressed that pretty much all week on our episodes, that the market is not, it's going to continue to fluctuate. Up and down, up and down, who knows? It could go $100 a barrel again. It who knows what's gonna happen. Right now it looks pretty good, and we hope it all stays that way. But any agreement that is signed, not a memorandum of understanding, not a note from Iran's doctor, but an actual agreement that's signed, they're not gonna abide by it. It it does not matter who they put in charge over there. Because he, I'm just gonna make this point. I don't want to be this is not, I'm not trying to be political. I'm just saying Iran, the people of Iran rose up at the beginning of this year, end of last year, and they, you know, were pushed back and thousands were killed, and all that. And I understand, I'm not in that situation, but I understand how that could be a little discouraging. And you say, hey, I think we'll just do whatever they say. They've killed 50,000 of us. But whenever we started attacking, we're not blowing up Tehran. We're we're blowing up strategic targets. Now, it may get to the point where Tehran might be blown to hell. But what I don't understand and what I do understand at the same time, but mostly not, is there's thousands and thousands of people out mourning the death of this leader. I understand that they don't have weapons. I understand that a revolution or a revolt is not necessarily an easy thing to do. But you did it before we attacked. Why aren't you doing it now?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

That's the thing that doesn't make sense to me is throughout history, I'm like, why do we get involved in all this crap? Why don't we just let them deal with it themselves? And then somebody in the government will say, Well, they don't have any guns or weapons because their government took it, so they're kind of defenseless, so they need our help. And then they'll rise up like they did, and our government's like, now's a good time, let's go help them. So they go in and they bomb all of these people, or they do all of this stuff to finish off the revolt, and then the people are like, Oh, good, the Americans are here, and they just go sit on their couch. And it's like, well, why don't you get off your ass and here's a bunch of guns. You can have the guns. Just go finish what you started, you know, and they they don't want to.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Well, and whenever you you span across at least a couple of generations of people that have grown up their whole lives saying death to America, I mean, it's pretty easy to turn them back, you know, one bottom drops in their life.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

I don't understand uh we talk about this crap forever, but it doesn't make any sense to me. What who how does a country even exist like that? Not not I don't mean like in a literal sense. We all know that they exist and like it's the norm over there. But how does that give a country an identity? I guess is what I'm saying. Can you imagine if our country operated that way from childhood? We grew up being taught death to China, and that was just we all hated China because that's what they said to do. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Like it doesn't well that did happen, and but it was Russia. Yeah, I mean I guess you're you're right with the you mean like the com yeah, the communism and all of the Yeah, we grew up with movies like Red Dawn, where Cuba and Russia part together.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

I mean, yeah, yeah, you're right. But it's not you don't really I mean, even if the bad guy in the movie was Russian, I didn't really associate like every Russian's a bad guy. Maybe a lot of the population did.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Did you? I most certainly did. And then I joined the army. And and you know this, you you joined the the Marines. I don't know if they did this in the Marines, but in the army, every target at the gun range, well, his name was Ivan. All the plastic green targets, Ivan. Go out and shoot Ivan. So not only did it happen in childhood, but it got in the military. And back then, in I went in in '89, Russia was still, you know, they they had, I guess in 80, it was around 89, whenever they, you know, took down the wall and USSR crumbled, and that's why all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Like Nancy Pelosi and all these people are like, Trump's friends with the enemy. He's the enemy. And Trump's just like, I don't know, can we just get over this? You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah. This is next level in Iran, because in Russia, or excuse me, not Russia, in America, I can grow up, I can hate, quote, Ivan, and I can look around and go to the mall and hang out with my friends and and do all that stuff. Where they grow up chanting death to America, Americans drop bombs. If they don't say it. You know, like if you're the one guy in the crowd that's like, I don't know, I kind of like America. You're the guy that's gonna die.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah. And then we fix that problem by going over there and actually dropping bombs on their moles. And then they're like, and this is why we hate America.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Right. So it reconfirms. So the the regime is, I don't want to say smart, because you don't have to be smart to just threaten everybody with death all the time. You know, I mean, if you're willing to act on it and there's nobody there to stop you, and then you do act on it, it's kind of like I don't know. I kind of believe him when he says he's gonna kill all of us. Like, maybe I'll just stay in my apartment and watch reruns of Johnny Carson. I don't know what Trump's exit ramp is.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

The only solution, if you're gonna fight Iran, is to nuke Iran. All of it. There is no right.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

There is no country rebuilding through Yeah, there's no end to that war.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

You either annihilate everyone there or you don't go in in the first place. There's no in in between, no middle ground.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

It's kind of like if you're at, I'll say a bar, if you're at a bar and there's a dude across the bar who keeps yelling at you, telling you he's gonna kick your ass and he hates you. You don't know the guy, but you're like, Yeah, I don't want any problems. I'm just trying to have a beer here. Maybe your wife's with you, whatever. Maybe you're with a client and you're just trying to have a drink, and then this guy just keeps yelling, I'm gonna kick your ass, I'm gonna kick your ass, I hope you die. Okay, well, there's only so long you're gonna ignore him before you just say, you know what? Screw this, I'm ready for the fight. And that's kind of where I get with the Iran thing, the Middle East in general, you know, uh just the threat of war all the time. It seems like it's been looming. I mean, obviously, we're a country that is not popular with everybody. We're super successful because so there's a lot of jealousy. I people talking about civil war and all that. Well, that would be horrible for our country, and it was horrible the first time. But at some point, I just me personally, I get to the point where I'm like, screw it. I'm tired of talking about the fight. Let's have the fight. Indeed. You know? And so that's why I say, you know, whenever Trump attacked the uh nuclear facility or whatever, I was like, hell yeah, somebody's finally doing something. Then he started bombing them. Hell yeah, finally he's doing something. Or finally somebody's doing something. And then it's like, oh, okay, well, we're going to we've taken out their whole navy and their air force and blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. Awesome. But we still can't get boats through the strait.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

What? I mean, we we've annihilated. We that war would be over tomorrow. We if we did it, we we we could do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

But back to why Iran and why the markets are going to be fluctuating as much as they are, and that they're going to be fluctuating the same way the start and end of this war has been fluctuating. And does anybody truly believe if we don't truly break their back that they're going to abide by any agreements? The answer is no. In fact, these actions, which I trust in and believe in and should be done, you got to quit messing around with these people, their actions are going to reverberate for the next generation. And that's why they love this, because now they have a whole new generation that can hate America, which means we're going to continue to have volatility in the Strait of Hormuz and all that, unless their Arabic brethren can get them under control. But they haven't put them under control or gotten them under control for the previous five decades. What makes us think they can do it now? Because they lost a few buildings and a bunch of money? They still seem to be doing okay. I think they lost like a bunch of buildings. They did. And a lot of money. Yeah. But it doesn't why are why do they still why are we still talking about the Strait of Hormuz?

unknown 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

We shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

How are they preventing if they have no navy, how are they preventing uh boats from getting through?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Well, that's just it. It's it's really comes down to what we talked about yesterday with the things that are traded on, and one of those things are the psychology of the market. So the pending threat of something can affect the markets as much as the actual event. This is kind of being stemmed by just the threat, even though they have effectively shot at some of the boats, but these these companies, these insurance companies of these shipping companies, are they're not going to cover their losses because it's going to bankrupt these insurance companies. So that's why, in part, why some of these ships are staying where they are, because they don't have good confidence that they can get through the strait without either paying a massive toll or being shot at, or shot at, or sunk, or whatever. It's such a disaster. Check us out next week. We'll have brand new, fresh stories. We'll have some commentary on some headlines that are happening. Please like, follow, share, and subscribe. Give us some feedback. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next time.