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- [00:02]
A
Breaking news Today is Saturday, February 28, 2026. And today, the US and Israel have launched a major assault on Iran. This assault is called Operation Epic Fury, and it's taken place in the Straits of Hormuz. Global oil prices have already started to increase just because of the perception it's still too early to figure out what's really going on. My sources tell me that the US has now commanded airspace superiority over Iran. And Iran, I'm sure, understands that it cannot fight a long air war with the US I don't think we have boots on the ground. However, it is just way too early to tell. About 20% of all the global oil that's moved in the world goes through this strait. So expect when the market opens on Monday for prices to really spike, whether this has been contained or not. But the other thing is a lot of global commodities have moved through that straight. A lot of grain, soybean, wheat. And then the bigger thing for the world is fertilizer is ammonia. So this strait, which is located between Oman and Iran, is a very narrow waterway, and it's a constraint. And whoever controls this rate controls global oil transportation. Like I said, it's also a choke point for fertilizer and grain and other stuff. People, it's way too early to tell what's going on. We just wanted to make you aware. For all our service members that are out there serving right now, let's hope you stay safe. And for all my devil dog men and women that are out there, stay frosty, be safe, but it's the right time. Bring it now back to the regularly scheduled Oil and Gas this week. You're listening to the Oil and Gas this Week podcast with Marc LaCour and Paige Wilson. This is the show for busy oil pros who quickly want to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry.
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B
You're listening to Oil and Gas this week. This is the show for busy oil pros who want to quickly keep their finger on the pulse of the industry. Thanks for joining us for episode 397. Almost to 400.
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A
Almost to 400. And audience, we owe you a huge apology.
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B
Yes, we're very sorry.
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A
Yep. We realize we have not released episodes in a very long time. We've had hundreds of y' all reach out to want to make sure we're okay and make sure the show is still on. It's still on. What happened is, if you heard our last episode, we weren't feeling good. Well, we took the test and we got flu type A and it was bad. It took Paige and I out for two weeks. It's probably the sickest page I've been in decades.
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B
I've never had the flu before. I had Covid, and that was a breeze in comparison to what we just had.
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A
It's.
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B
Oh, my. You can hear it in my voice still.
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A
Yeah. And we're not 100% recovered, but we're on the mend. So thank you for all the people out there that reached out, wanting to make sure we're okay. We are. And we're going to try to make sure we take our flu shot next year or this year so that this doesn't happen again.
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B
I never want to experience that experience that ever again.
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A
Speaking of experience, do you want to know who has the number one podcast in the business world in Algeria?
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B
I will assume it's us.
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A
It is us. It's Oil and Gas. This week is the number one podcast in the business section, according to Apple in Algeria, which I believe is in Africa. So for all our listeners there, thank you for making us number one. It's really a compliment and a blessing from our listeners that as niche to show as this is, Paige, that we're able to make it number one in business in certain countries. Give us enough time, we'll be number one in the US And Europe as well. Reviews? We didn't get any, but. But we haven't released Episode in three weeks, so that's fair.
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B
I at least expected an angry one.
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A
News stories. Let's get into it.
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B
All right, first up, we have Novus Consulting announced the strategic acquisition of Magnum Forge.
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A
Yep. If you want to watch a video on this, if you go to our YouTube channel, this video actually, surprisingly enough, got 17,000 views.
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B
Wow.
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A
Of me interviewing the two CEOs, and we've known both of these companies. We know Kate from Novus and yeah,
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B
I've had Kate on industry leaders.
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A
Yeah. And they're just, you know, this is a great coming together of two companies that very complicated complementary businesses. You know, Novus is known for basically working on the upstream side of the house, help to gather data, get it back to the cloud, compute that data, and use it to help make smart business decision, among other things. And then Magnum is known for doing the accounting side, especially in upstream. So it's almost complementary to these two companies coming together. But we interviewed Kate on our YouTube channel, and then we also interviewed Russell, the CEO of Magnum, and they're just happy that they're coming together. This is going to make a very large company that's be able to help especially the Mid size and smaller operators from cradle to grave, literally from from Wellhead to your ERP system and reporting, you know, revenue splits and all that sort of stuff. So if you're in that space, go check out Novus Consulting. But congratulations to both those companies. I think this is a great fit.
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B
All right, next up we have Presidio Petroleum to go public via business combination with EQV Ventures.
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A
Yeah, so this is an interesting acquisition. This is a lot of it's being driven by shareholder price. Presidio expects to have a dividend almost immediately on this, which is really good. Which by the way, Presidio, I did actually throw some money your way. I own a couple shares now because I think this is so good. But the combination of the new companies and going public with EQV just makes 100% sense. If you open the link that's in the show notes, you'll see that Presidio for a long time has had a strategy of acquiring under management, under assets. So basically think of low production wells both onshore and offshore. And basically what they're doing is they're bringing their expertise in with this, with this acquisition to be able to get better yields at this next evolution of these low producing fields. And Paige, I think this is the beginning of a trend. I think you could see a lot more companies come back and look at a lot of these fields all over the world that the large guys stepped away from because the production numbers started to decline. And I think these new companies like this are able to come with new processes and new technology and actually make money at it. So all almost think of it as Shell was considered oil 2.0. Think of this as shell 3.0. When you're coming back to declining Shell fields and conventional reservoirs as well. Jerry Silver, the CEO of EQV made a great comment I love. He goes this transaction with the Presidio aligns with our vision to build a world class yield focused producing company. That's the secret. The yield focus. Congratulations once again. I think this is a great fit.
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B
Right on. Next up we have Washington prepares broad license to restart Venezuelan.
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A
Yeah, so with everything that's going on in that part of the world, one of the things is there needs to be an outlet for the Venezuelan's crude. And we've talked about this. Their crude is very heavy, very sour. Ideally it's good for making road servicing and roof shingles. It's good for other stuff too.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But the U.S. treasury is looking at releasing the license actually probably by the time you hear this episode go out. It's going to allow companies to be able to refine that heavy, sour Venezuelan crude. Now being able to restart the refinery and make money it is two different things. But getting, getting a restart is probably the most important thing here. There's a lot of stuff that has to be done before Venezuelan oil hits the market. There's years and years of infrastructure that needs to be repaired, rebuilt or built. There's a bunch of refineries. I think we'll get to that later. Another news story in that area that have been mothballed. And these mothballed refineries have to be brought back online. And unfortunately, the top experts in the world to do this type of work in refineries aren't in this part of the country, aren't in Cuba or Venezuela or Trinidad and Tobago. Mostly they're here in North America. So what's gonna have to happen is we're gonna have to get some buy in from some of the companies out there that do these turnarounds and planned maintenance so we can get our engineers and our parts and pieces over to Venezuela and the surrounding areas and get these refineries back up. However, just the fact that our government is looking to open a broad license to restart a Venezuelan oil production is good for the Venezuelan people. We will keep an eye on this.
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B
All right, next up, Kuwait seeks foreign majors help to develop offshore fields.
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A
Yeah, so you can imagine what's going on here. Kuwait is looking for international investment because why spend your own money when you get other people to invest money? And that type of joint venture has been done in our industry for 100 years. Right. You share the risk that way. And I think this is a good idea. Kuwait Petroleum Company. So KPC is looking for the, basically the super majors, the Exxons and shells and BPs and chevron for a little bit of help. They're also talking to international banks who make some investment too, which I think is really interesting because one of the things that they need is a very large pipeline project. And that pipeline project really needs an investment of foreign capital. Kuwait itself, the royal family there could actually invest in this. But you don't want to be 100% owner, even if you are the nationalized oil company. So having international partners is a big plus in this. So if they're able to build this pipeline, they're going to be able to move their crude that's in the ground literally all over the Middle east and bring it to market where they make the most money, which actually is super smart. So we're going to keep an eye on this one as well.
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B
All right. Iranian gunboats confront US flagged oil tankers in Strait of Hormuz.
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A
You could read this article links in the show. Note, like everything else, basically we had some Iranian gunboats get too close to a US flagged tanker. Also in that part of the world was of course the US aircraft carrier and its support ships. When the Iranian gunboats figured out what they were doing and who else was in the area, they basically decided maybe they should just slowly back away, which is what happened. Thank goodness nobody was hurt. Not a single shot was fired. Actually nobody was even threatened. However, the writings on the wall and these type of tensions are is going to lead to something and unfortunately it's probably going to lead to something bad. We are keeping an eye very close on this. This is one of those things that can affect crude oil prices instantly if some type of conflict breaks out. Now if anybody in the Iranian navy is listening to me, I strongly suggest you stop harassing US flagships. There's other countries maybe you can with but I really suggest Iranian navy to stop doing this. Especially since your air defenses are just about gone. I don't want to make this a military show but I'm not real worried about this. This is not a place to start anything, especially in the Strait of Hormuz.
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B
Yeah, yeah, no kidding. All right, next up we have Ecuador exits vaca murta with 1.1 billion sales to Vista Energy.
- [10:29]
A
I thought you would be able to pronounce that one of those words. You got them. All right. That's awesome. So this is basically Ecuador backing out of its onshore assets in Argentina. If you don't know, Argentina is probably the next big frack shell play that's going to be commercially successful. It's already commercially successful. They're still struggling with infrastructure and corruption but I think they're going to have their hands around this and it's going to make a difference. Ecuador is not really backing out. Argentina, if you don't know, Ecuador is one of the super majors old stat oil and so their core competency is offshore. You know, huge offshore projects, huge capex investments, long term project management on land. They have to be more nimble and it's just not their core business page. So what Ecuador is doing is they're selling all their assets in Shell plays in Argentina but they're keeping their offshore assets and they're also keeping some of their investments in some of the infrastructure like the pipelines that's, that's been built there. So I think this is actually a smooth move. I think, you know, Equinor's shareholder price actually went up when this was announced. And I think it should. Once again, this is just a company looking at its core business and then exiting parts of the business that are not core, that are actually still profitable, just not as profitable as they want it to be. And once again, you know, Ecuador shines offshore. Love those guys. What's going on in. In Argentina in their shell plays takes a smaller, more nimble operator. I think Equinor, this is smart.
- [11:48]
B
Yeah, right on. Thanks for your bout of confidence on my pronunciations. All right, next up, we have Texas upstream Oil, gas. Employment was steady in 2025. That's great.
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A
Yeah. And I know this sounds like a dated article. It's really not if you go back and read it. Basically what's happened is the Texas Workforce Commission, that's who tracks all of the employment in Texas, basically said during 2025, even with all the layoffs and. Right. Sizing and down, that employment stayed flat. Now that doesn't sound good. I think it's actually awesome. With everything that went on last year, the number of jobs that were cut for employment to stay flat in Texas means that as many people that were let go, unfortunately they had that many people that were hired. And that trend, people, I'm telling you, get through the second quarter of this year and that trend's going to accelerate. We're not gonna be able to hire enough people. So just hold on. It's coming. You just gotta get to the second quarter of this year. Now the other thing I found interesting is, is that the employment in 2025 was actually a little bit higher than it was in 2024. Not a lot is around 1%, but that 1% is statistically notable. I think by the end of this year, so say the third quarter of 2026, I think that change in employment by the oil and gas industry in Texas is going to be like 10%, which is going to be huge. So good article to read how the employment basically stayed flat last year and I think that this year is going to increase. Now you talk to some of the other experts out there and they actually bit more doom and gloom than me. I hope for everybody's sake that I'm right and the doom and gloomers are wrong. We'll see.
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B
Well, yeah, like you said, we'll see. All right, next up, exxonmobin Mobin. See, it's gone. It's all gone. Now. Exxon Mobil breaks ground on Baytown site.
- [13:35]
A
Yeah. So what's going on in Baytown, which is a long standing refinery, is ExxonMobil is adding the ability to increase output of what's called base stock, specifically Group 3 base stock. And you're going, what the hell is base stock? Sounds like make something you make soup with.
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B
That's exactly where my brain went. Soup.
- [13:51]
A
You probably wouldn't want to make soup out of base stock. Base stock is basically hydrocarbon molecules that have been cleaned and sorted. So the actual molecules themselves have been sorted and clean. Almost think of it through a sieve. And what happens is what you're left with is what a lot of people would call mineral oil. But it's a very high, very high viscosity mineral. It's over 120. And because of the hydro cracking, they go through to move all the parts in the parts and pieces of hydrogen molecule that are not complete. They get close to almost 100% pure, perfect hydrocarbon molecules. And this is where things like synthetic motor oil. So if you drive a car that asks for synthetic motor oil, it comes from this. It comes from group.
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B
Yeah, that doesn't sound very. Yeah, that doesn't sound delicious.
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A
Yeah, yeah. The reason this is important is what Exxon's doing, and I agree with them, is they're looking at the long term future globally. And they're seeing the fact that more and more internal combustion engines are requiring things like purely synthetic motor oil. I mean, the vehicles that you and I drive require synthetic motor oil. So they're getting ahead of the curve. By increasing the output of Group 3 base stock, they're gonna be able to furnish the raw feedstock for things like synthetic motor oil cheaper than anybody else. And they're doing it years ahead of anybody else. This is the standard operating procedure of ExxonMobil. They see opportunity a decade out. They do stuff their business now so that when that opportunity happens, they can capitalize on it. I think this is super smart. And by adding this capacity to the Baytown refinery, they're adding jobs. So it's kind of a win wind all the way around. Also remember this, no matter what brand of synthetic motor oil you run in your car, the base feedstock comes from the cheapest provider that can provide the quality. So even though you may be running Valvoline synthetic motor oil, I'd be totally fine that in it is the ExxonMobil base 3 stock. So even though this is ExxonMobil refinery doing this, I'm telling you, the product they're making here is going up in everybody's synthetic Motorola, because Exxon's probably going to be able to sell it cheaper than anybody else. Good for everybody.
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B
Yeah. All right, next up, we have refiner. Phillips 66 can process 250,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude.
- [15:54]
A
Yeah. So this is Philip 66, CEO, basically saying that they think they can process a quarter million barrels per day of Venezuelan crude. Their refineries, they have now in the US have that capacity. Now, in order for this to work, first thing, the price has to be competitive because they're not going to buy oil. It's too expensive. Second thing is they have to be able to buy it and ship it. We're not there yet, but we're getting close. And once we have ability to ship this around, this is one of the several refineries around the Gulf of.
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B
Why can't we. Why can't. What are we waiting on to be
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A
able to ship it? The infrastructure, they don't have the offloading terminals, they don't have the pipelines. That's what I thought. I've seen it and actually when I saw Venezuela production and refinery, this was in the late 90s, so it's been 20 years ago. So it's even worse now than it was when I saw it.
- [16:41]
B
That's crazy.
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A
So before the sanctions were imposed back in 2019, you had some Venezuelan oil being used in Gulf coast refineries. Sitco was one because they were owned by Petrovasa. But also Philips 66 and several other refineries in the Gulf coast of the US tapped into some of that Venezuelan crude. Once the sanction replaced, all that stopped, except what was going on with Chevron. If you listen to the show, you know that story. If not, go back a couple episodes. But here's Philip 66 saying, we're ready, Venezuela. Get it to us at a fair price and we'll turn it to products you can sell, which would be good for Venezuela. Like I said, we're just not there yet. But we're probably months away from it happened, not years, which is good.
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B
That's fantastic to hear. All right. Trinidad and Tobago in talks with Indian Oil to revive refinery.
- [17:27]
A
Yeah. So let me once again, you could read this article. Let me tell you what's really going on. So Trinidad and Tobago, they're right there next to Venezuela, Cuba, all that stuff. They're looking for help to rebuild their refinery. So Trinidad has, I think, two refiners. They had mothballed one, I guess, about five years ago. And that that mothball refinery is just sitting there now, that mothball refinery has not been well maintained. Let's be real, it was closed back in 2018. So it's been, what is that, eight years?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah. Everything's been sitting there rusting, corroding. There's a lot of inspection needs to be done, a lot of repair work needs to be done. But what they're. What Trinidad Tobago is trying to do, and I think this is genius, is if they can get the Indian oil company to help fund and use their expertise to restart this refinery, then they can buy the crude from Venezuela and refine it themselves.
- [18:16]
B
Huh.
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A
See how that works? They're literally just right down the street from Venezuel.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so they're trying to get somebody else to help them get their refineries up so they can capitalize. What's going on with the US And Venezuela now? Shell, as in Royal Dutch Shell and BP are both involved in this. I don't know quite the levels yet. This doesn't look like something that Shell and BP would. Would do a joint venture in. So I suspect that there may be bidding going on to bring this mothball refinery back online. And I suspect that it's probably the Indian oil company. Shell and BP are all bidding on this and we're gonna see who the winner is. And then if I'm right about that, once they get this refinery back online, it's going to be a way to fast track because you don't have the US Rules and regulations. It's a way to fast track getting hands on that Venezuelan crude and refine it and bring it to market and sell it and making stuff out of it. So I think bigger picture, this is really good, and I have to hand it to the politicians in Trinidad and Tobago to convince another country to spend the money in engineering time to rebuild your refinery so you can benefit out. That's genius.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Okay. Mozambique LNG announces full restart of onshore and offshore activities in Mozambique.
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A
Yeah, so you remember back in November of last year, they shut down this LNG train. What's happened is they basically went back in, they've done the construction they've needed, they've done all the inspections, and they've restarted both the offshore and onshore trains for this site. Right now I think there's about 4,000 workers going back to work, which is great. I mean, that's a lot of people that were 4,000 workers.
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B
No kidding.
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A
And then this LNG project, of course, is just going to help the people of Mozambique. Now, once again, we got to Keep an eye on corruption. But I love where this is going. And I really think this type of project shows the future of other countries outside of the Western world and how things like LNG can be a boom for their economy and also for their people. For their people. So this is a good thing. I'm glad this LNG trains back up and running. Not to mention the market right now. The price of LG is been going up. So the market right now, is this a good time for them to actually bring their liquidified natural gas back to market? Because they'll make a couple pennies more than they would have made if they would have kept everything running. So glad everything's up and running again. Glad people going back to work. Mozambique. Fingers crossed you that everything runs smoothly and that you keep producing LNG.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Good luck, guys. All right, last one. ExxonMobil to inject 100 million to transport stem education and Gaia.
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A
Read that number again.
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B
100 million.
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A
Exxon Mobil. You literally are writing a check for $100 million over next decade to teach STEM to Guyana's young people.
- [20:53]
B
That's awesome.
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A
That is wonderful. Right? This is the type of stuff our industry does all the time that nobody knows about. Trying to find this type of news articles is really hard for us because Exxon doesn't brag about what it.
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B
We have to go looking.
- [21:07]
A
Yeah. And so this is simple. Exxon's goal is very simple. They want to inspire the next generation of IANA's engineers and scientists by working with them while they're students and giving them the resources they need to learn. I can't think of anything more noble than this. I appreciate the fact that our industry does this sort of thing. And ExxonMobil, thank you. Hats off for this. You're making the world a better place, one young person at a time, and you're not getting anything out of it other than just helping. I love this.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. That's it.
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A
That's the end of our news stories.
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B
It sure is.
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A
That went kind of quick.
- [21:38]
B
Well, you talk pretty fast.
- [21:41]
A
Speaking of talking pretty fast, if you want a OGGN hard hat or laptop sticker and. And a temporary tattoo, it's ridiculously simple. Go to our YouTube channel. There'll be a link in the show notes, comment on any video, take a screenshot of it and send it to us. I actually have a couple in my inbox right now. Thank you all for those done that.
- [22:01]
B
I just sent some out. I sent something all the way out to the Netherlands.
- [22:03]
A
Out to the Netherlands. Oh, I wonder who got that one. If you listen to the show, you know exactly who got that one. He likes barbecue and he. And he's sight impaired, but he still takes pictures. Anyway. Go to Ogg YouTube channel, comment on any video, take a screenshot, send us a picture to marketingggn.com spelled exactly like you think marketing. Plus there'll be a link in the show notes and we'll send you an OGN hard hat, laptop sticker and a temporary tattoo. And when you get your temporary tattoo, there's a chance for you to win an OGGN shirt. So really quality swag. So go take a snapshot of your of your comment on any of growing our YouTube channel. This sort of stuff helps us. Also, if you haven't signed up for our two newsletters, the links are in the show notes as well. Paige. Both of our newsletters are sponsored for this entire year.
- [22:48]
B
Oh, that's awesome.
- [22:49]
A
So it's just free people. Somebody else is paying for us to do this. We have our monthly oil and gas events newsletter. So we take every conference and trade show in the world and we put it in a newsletter and put it in your inbox once a month. We don't charge you for it, especially for sales and marketing to people. It's very helpful. And then we have our weekly update which is funky fun recipes from the oil field. They make fun of me. You get suggestions on new podcasts that we're doing so behind the scenes.
- [23:14]
B
And then you get to learn about each one of our podcasters too.
- [23:17]
A
Yeah, so go sign up for both. Those links are in the show note weekly rig count page. Where are we?
- [23:21]
B
US is down 1 at 550. Canada is down 10 at 214 and we're at 1079 internationally. So we're up 14.
- [23:31]
A
Speaking of Canada, I'm flying out there tomorrow. By the time audience you hear this, I'll be back. And I'm not going to tell you why on this show, but if you listen to behind the curtain, I will tell you why. Because we're doing something we've never done before and it's cool. Speaking of cool, if you want myself or experts to come speak at your event, reach out. Happy to share details. I am booking up but would love to talk to you. It doesn't matter what it is a keynote, your car, meet your gun club. We have some experts somewhere that could bring some joy and fun and some education to your event. No matter what it is. First Friday Q& a. A you know the drill. You ask a question, go to oggn.com ogtw just go to og.com find all in gas this week. There's a page you ask a question. The link is also in the show. Note if we use your question on the air, you get a big shout out. Remember, the goal is not to stump Paige and I, but to help educate your peers. You listen to the show. It's been a lot and I'm tired. Ready to get out of here?
- [24:25]
B
Yeah.
- [24:26]
A
Remember folks, do great work. Pay it forward and we will see you next time. Time. Thanks for listening to oggn, the world's largest and most listened to podcast network for the oil and energy industry. If you like this show, leave us a review and then go to oggn.com to learn about all our other shows. And don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. This show has been a production of the oil and gas.