Paige Lacour (3:51)

Yeah, not only that, we're getting into the summer blend.

Mark Lacour (3:54)

We're switching to summer blend, which has everything to do with air pollution or lack thereof. And that also causes price to jump at the same time. So just a lot going on. But just hold on, people. Unfortunately, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Paige Lacour (4:06)

All right, next up, ConocoPhillips beats profit estimates for Q1.

Mark Lacour (4:10)

Don't make fun of me when I say this, but in total transparency, I'm also a shareholder and y' all killed it. ConocoPhillips, thank you. $2.3 billion in adjusted net income. $2.2 billion net income. That's just for the first quarter. Q1. Now, the figures fell because they had lower prices coming out of the Permian, especially around natural gas. Net profit also dropped from that same quarter, same three month period, but they're doing very well. And they're also still paying their organic growth from lower 48 states was more than offset by the downtime. And then what's going on in the Middle east of course affected this as well. It's amazing that ConocoPhillips was able to deliver another quarter this strong financially and also operational performance. Their HS&E record is stellar while at the same time they're doing extremely well financially. Cash is looking good, short term investments looking Good. They're producing 2.1 and 2.2 million barrels or equivalent per day, which is pretty damn good. And then the cool thing is, especially for everybody in the upstream service companies, capital spending Is increase to 12.5 billion, including investments in the Permian. Now that just means more jobs to the service companies. That means more hydrocarbons to be found, moved and brought to refineries. Good stuff. And once again, hats off to conicophillips. Every single employee there. Thank you for beating revenue estimates.

Paige Lacour (5:26)

You're a little biased.

Mark Lacour (5:28)

You say that anytime. I praise any company more than once.

Paige Lacour (5:33)

Can't help it. All right, moving on. Global Data identifies top oil gas themes for 2026.

Mark Lacour (5:39)

Yeah, it seems like I've seen some of this before in some of its predictions, but it's the stuff that you would think. So if you're thinking about themes in the global oil and gas industry, it's the same thing. So things like geopolitics, supply chain tariffs, inflation, regulation, deal making, 3D printing, cybersecurity, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, quantum computer robotics. Who is this company? Global Data. This is what Globe identified as things that are happening in the oil and gas industry now and will continue to happen to be important to the business in the future. I agree 110%. We're becoming more and more high tech, we're becoming more and more efficient. And for the first time for as long as I've been in this industry, we're seeing a change in negative public perception, especially with that generation Alpha. Yeah, so this is just all good stuff. So if you want to get some data for your next PowerPoint presentation, if you're doing an investor pitch or whatever, check out this news article. The other thing that's really interesting about what they're going here is they're talking about the long term tightening of the energy markets because of what's going on. The Straits of Hermus. Something I've been saying for a long time, even if the war ends now, it's probably going to be 18 months for everything get back to normal. And not just the oil and gas industry, but all the other commodities that are moved through Those narrow straits. Grain, fertilizer, petrochemicals. Even if the US Iran signed a deal today, it'll be six months before it'll see a break at the pump and it'll be like I think at least 18 months before things get close to normal. So that means there's a lot of opportunity for companies that are selling services and technology and oil and gas energy to make us more efficient, to make us run cleaner. And a lot of infrastructure investment, especially in pipeline because this straight, this constraint in the straits can't be allowed to continue on. So all good stuff. Check this out if you want some hard data to be able to explain to your peers or like I said for your investment pitch deck.

Paige Lacour (7:23)

All right, next up we have Tazeez secures $28.5 billion in agreements to expand UAE's chemicals infrastructure.

Mark Lacour (7:32)

This is a good article. This is the UAE signed a long term agreement spanning offtake, feedstock and sales across its petrochemical portfol, polyol, including methanol, polyvinyl chloride, ethylene dichloride, vinyl chloride, monitor, caustic soda, salt, natural, blah blah blah.

Paige Lacour (7:48)

I was like, are you gonna keep going, dude?

Mark Lacour (7:50)

The funny thing is I almost didn't graduate college because I struggled with organic chemistry. And I took that class three times and I had to have a Z.

Paige Lacour (7:56)

Oh yeah, they were gonna name a building.

Mark Lacour (7:58)

Yeah, I was there for so long. It's a true story. But I struggled with it. I had to make a C in it. And then the last time I took the class I actually passed it and I still to this day think the professor felt sorry for me or was tired of seeing me and gave me a C. However, I've really learned to love organic chemistry. I got an oil and gas industry. So let me break down what's going on here. You could read this article. It's a great article talking about almost $30 billion in investment to expand petrochemical manufacturing. UAE. We talked last show about the UAE leaving OPEC. This is what else is going on. For the entire history of the Middle east. They made all their money from their upstream operations. They were able to produce crude, extremely cheaply, high quality crude and they just sold it on open market. OPEC was formed in the 70s. I give you the backstory on that later if you want. But they formed basically a cartel to control prices, control supply, you then control price. But what a lot of Middle Eastern countries are realizing, number one is they can't only have the upstream part of the value chain. They're missing out so what this is UAE capitalizing on the expansion and need for more petrochemicals. As the world moves forward through time, more and more aggregating societies. Think China, India, parts of Vietnam. That is basically a farmer's life where your family is your workforce, and you farm or ranch and you hopefully grow enough food to feed yourself. And if you're lucky enough, you have a little bit extra you can sell for cash. By 2050, these people will be living in cities and the need for petrochemicals would tend to explode in growth. So the UAE is capitalizing on that part of the value chain. They don't just want to produce crude anymore and sell the open market. They want to capture the downstream part of the value chain, which is genius. And there's other Middle Eastern countries doing it too. This is just read through this. You want to see how much money is being invested. Think about what it takes to produce 200 million metric tons of dry caustic soda. That sounds very marginal, like it's not a big deal. Caustic sodas used in a lot of applications. Now they're producing the feedstock, which will help bring the rest of rolled up to modern standards. You're going to see much more this. You're also going to see this actually expand a lot in China. So what's next?

Paige Lacour (9:52)

Next up, we have automatic pig valve launchers enabled simplified pigging automation for remote pipelines.

Mark Lacour (9:58)

So this sounds like something a bunch of college frat boys would do. Launching pigs out of some device for all your animal activists. And by the way, Paige and I love animals. We love pets and we also love to eat them. Maybe that was too much.

Paige Lacour (10:10)

Not the pet part.

Mark Lacour (10:11)

We don't eat.

Paige Lacour (10:11)

No, we don't eat the pet.

Mark Lacour (10:12)

But anyway, if you don't know what a pig is, a device start off as purely physical, physical, mechanical device that they would think of a cork in a cork gun. But they would run it through a pipe to scrape the insides because insides would get contaminated with paraffin or with corrosion, rust. It would restrict the flow. And they learned to actually take a big piece of metal that's almost the same inside diameter as a pipeline, run it through a pipeline to clean it out in order to seal that piece of metal. It had leather washers on it in the beginning. Then that eventually changed to rubber washers. But when that pig came down the pipeline because of those sealed washers, it sounded like a pig squealing, which is where it got the name pig. Now, what's so amazing about this is this automatic Pig launching is something that is done in areas where there's a lot of access. Think pipelines that run close to cities where it's no big deal to send somebody out in a truck. Do it now. These pigs were launched in the pipeline horizontally, exactly like you would think they would stop operation of the pipeline, stop flowing, whatever. And by the way, this doesn't just apply to HydroCorp pipelines. This applies to sewage, clean water, palm oil, whatever. They stop production. They open up the pipe, they stick the pig in it, close the pipe, they pressurize it, run the pig down the pipe. What this is, imagine a vertical tube above the existing pipeline, and they have multiple pigs in there that are stacked with a door between each one without stopping production, like they had to do in the old way of moving those liquids through the pipeline. They can drop these pigs in the operating pipeline, and you fast forward 20, 26, it's no longer dumb metal with leather washers. These pigs are smart. They're measuring, using X rays and magnometers, the thickness to look for eventual integrity issues. They're looking for corrosion. They're looking for microbial action. They're taking video. It's amazing how high tech these pigs are. Now, by doing it automated, they can actually set these automatic pig launchers out in places where there's not close to cities so you don't have to send a person anymore. So think of it as what we've done with drones, where we're using autonomous vehicles to inspect stuff. Now we're using the equivalent as a pig where people don't need to be there so people aren't put in harm's ray. And these automatic pig launchers can inject these pigs in a pipeline when it's needed. This is actually really cool. I know it sounds boring.

Paige Lacour (12:16)

You know pig is an acronym, right?

Mark Lacour (12:18)

What does pig stand for?

Paige Lacour (12:19)

Pipeline Inspection Gauge.

Mark Lacour (12:21)

Did not know that. You taught me something. I just knew why they made the noise. But this is great, and it's great for pipeline integrity programs. As we move forward in time, we're going to have less and less issues with pipeline integrity. Think pipelines leaking because the changes in materials, the changes in technology, and our ability to do stuff like this. I love this. I want to see more of this.

Paige Lacour (12:40)

Absolutely. All right, next up, we have Trump signs order authorizing oil pipeline project, partially reviving Keystone xl.

Mark Lacour (12:48)

All right, so not really reviving Keystone xl. This is gonna follow a different route. And if you don't know what happened, Keystone XL was an infrastructure project to bring that heavy crude From Canada down to our Gulf coast refineries, which we love that heavy crude, the pipeline is the safest, cheapest way to transport it. Unfortunately for everybody in Canada, in the U.S. that Keystone pipeline project became a political item infrastructure project. And our last President, Joe Biden 2021 basically killed the pipeline using the excuses of environmental opposition and indigenous tribes didn't want it. So when that happened that that constraint was still there. And so multiple pipeline companies basically built built pipe not along the same route as Keystone, but doing the same thing, pulling that heavy Canadian crew down to the Gulf Coast. And so that that constraint, which Reed's money is not really there anymore. So even if we relaunched Keystone pipeline, they wouldn't probably build it because it doesn't make fiscal sense anymore. What we're talking about here, which is a shame. Yeah. What they're talking about here, reviving the Keystone XL. Once again, it's not going to follow the same route. It's going to be a different route, but we're actually going to permit everything so we can actually use that route, make it really quick to build this pipeline infrastructure which both the Canadian oil sands people need and our Gulf coast refineries need. Now some of that previously built pipe that was used for Keystone XL will be used, but some of it's going to be moved. And this is great. We need more of this. This could be about a 700 mile pipeline to transport, like I said, the heavy Canadian crude through Wyoming, Montana and through all the states to bring it actually to the refineries in the Gulf Coast. Now Canada is aware of this White House permit that we're issue and they're supporting it 100%. This is in a time where we probably could have a better relationship with our Canadian brothers and sisters in the north. So this should be a good favor trade agreement with the US And a great infrastructure project. Remember, that pipe doesn't build itself. So this is jobs.

Paige Lacour (14:40)

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, next up, we have booming US Energy exports draw scrutiny as domestic fuels prices bite.

Mark Lacour (14:48)

So you can read through this and I want to fuss at you hydrocarbon processing, which is where this article came through. This article basically is saying that as we're exporting energy and instead of say energy, let's say what it is, hydrocarbons, crude oil, natural gas. While we're exporting that a lot of people think that's the reason the price is to going, going up with a pump. And it's not people. You have to understand how this business works here in the US Every place in the World is different. I've said this a million times for our new listeners. I'll say it again. The crude that we produce, the majority of the crude we produce here in the US is a light, sweet crude which is ridiculously easy to refine. It's not a challenge. You basically just boil it, same way you distill whiskey. The crude that our refineries are set up for is heavy, complex crude which we don't produce here in the us. We get that from Venezuela, from Canada, from Middle east. And it's very complex. It takes a certain amount of technology, proudness to refine it. We're one of the few countries that can. So that's the oil that. The crude oil that we like to refine. So the fact that we're exporting our crude doesn't affect the price of the pump at all. The fact that we're exporting our natural gas in the form of LNG also is not affecting natural gas prices. Because we have so much natural gas in this country now somewhere in the future, if we don't come up with other ways to stimulate wells for natural gas, it may affect natural gas prices. But that's a long way out in the future. Future. Just understand that when you see articles like this, it's not really true. The reason the price of the pump has went up is, number one, the perception of what's going on in the markets. Number two, the war in the straits of Hormuz has restricted our ability to get that heavy complex crude. So of course the end pro, one of the end products of in crude is gasoline. Now it's only affected the US just barely at the pump. It's affected Asia Pacific a lot. And it will continue to affect the US and continue to grow even if the war ends today. You could read through this, just understand that hydrocarbon processing actually got this one wrong. Shame on y'.

Paige Lacour (16:34)

All. It happens. All right, next up, ABB introduces Unification X to enable seamless control room integration.

Mark Lacour (16:42)

Big shout out to abb. They're one of our sponsors. We have a lot of fun with them. We were in New Berlin. Was that last year?

Paige Lacour (16:48)

Yeah.

Mark Lacour (16:49)

Actually shot our first video episode of this podcast.

Paige Lacour (16:52)

I know, abb, we're due for another one.

Mark Lacour (16:54)

We're actually due for several of them.

Paige Lacour (16:56)

I know.

Mark Lacour (16:57)

Why is this notification? Is it because ABB is a sponsor of oggn? No, that's not why this article made. It's never why our article made it.

Paige Lacour (17:03)

No, it's because Mark's a shareholder.

Mark Lacour (17:05)

Actually, I'm not. I'm not an abb. Please abb, don't take that the wrong way. Pre pandemic pipelines and refineries and a lot of other big industrial operations have a control room where people sit in there, they're called operators and they control it. But more importantly they look for danger. And if something bad is getting ready to happen, they can shut it down so people in our environment and local communities stay safe. Safe. Those control rooms were intentionally, physically locked down. There was no Internet connection anywhere, There was no phone connection. It was physically walled off on purpose. This way it was impossible for anybody to hack a control room. You would have to actually have a key and a code to physically get in there. And then hopefully your co workers would recognize that you weren't one of them and stop you. It was a very safe way to do it. When the pandemic happened, all of a sudden we had to figure out ways to run those control rooms remotely because of COVID So old control rooms had to try to retrofit and put in communications. Opened up doors for bad guys like hackers. And in today's hacking world, it's not bored kids from Miami, it's state sponsored hackers from China, from Russia, some of the smartest people, some of the best equipment in the world. And that was a danger to our infrastructure and to our people and to our environment. So what's going on here is ABB has introduced a product they call Unification X which allows them to seamlessly replicate virtually control rooms anywhere in the world. Extremely secure. They've had the it, their IT and cybersecurity teams attack this thing over and over again. They've hired third party hackers to try to attack it. As far as I know, nobody can actually get into this, so no cyber threats are available. And IT has support for multi use setup, which means you could replicate virtually a control room that might be physically in Louisiana, you could replicate it in California or Rio de Janeiro, Brazil or Tokyo, Japan. And all of this makes things better and safer and it standardizes things so it makes it easier to train the operator. So it's a huge step forward and control room integration. And I have to give hats off to ABB when you need something that's rock solid in control rooms around, especially around heavy industry like refining, they're one of the leaders out there and this is just a great solution. Good job abb.

Paige Lacour (19:10)

All right, from entry to elevation, the Global Women in pipeline forum at PTC 2026.

Mark Lacour (19:16)

Yeah, and our friend Jim Watkins wrote this. Haven't talked to Jim in A while

Paige Lacour (19:20)

I haven't seen him. I usually see him at conferences.

Mark Lacour (19:22)

Yeah, we haven't run into conferences. Anyway, bottom line, pipeline industry, as much as I love my fellow pipeliners, is a very sexy industry to be in. A lot of people don't know the benefits of working in it. They don't understand what we do. And traditionally it's been an all male job and it's just been that way since I've been in here. What's cool about this is now we're starting to see more and more women, not just in operational roles in the pipeline industry, but in leadership roles, which I absolutely love. If you go through this article, they're talking about the number of women that are entering the pipeline industry, the advancements they're getting and the benefits of having a diverse culture in the pipeline industry itself. There's a quote here from Carolina Riis of Nova Transportation Di Solita La Brazil. And basically she was credit for job rotation bringing more women into the pipeline by rotating them in with their male colleagues, which eventually allowed her to accept a leadership role. And like she says, I love this quote, if you're not visible, you're going to fail. So if you don't have women in the pipeline industry, you're going to fail trying to get more women in it. Read this article. They actually mentioned a book in here which interested in reading more about this in deeper detail. It's listed at the end of the

Paige Lacour (20:28)

article, which is awesome. And if there's any leaders out there that want to come on industry Leaders podcast, please reach out to me.

Mark Lacour (20:34)

Yeah, actually let's go back and say it. So if you have any leaders in your company and you would like some exposure on our network pages, show oil and gas industry leader leaders which is sponsored by IFS she's looking for. And this has nothing to do with her working for us or us being married. Her show's on my personal playlist. If you're not listening to her show, you're not getting the insights of what leaders in this industry are doing. Listen to her show. And by the way, once again, if you have somebody that you think would be a good interview, reach out to Paige.

Paige Lacour (21:02)

All right, next up, we have lawmakers propose Stop Climate Shakedowns act in Congress.

Mark Lacour (21:09)

My life just keeps getting better and better. So you can read through this. But basically what's happening is a couple of senators in the US Congress have introduced legislation to stop environmental groups for throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what would stick, which is hurts our industry because we have to fight this stuff in court. Now. The thing that's really threatening to the oil gas industry is some of these environmental groups want to be able to retroactively penalize companies for things like climate change. I don't mean to laugh, I really don't. But it just. It's got gotten utterly ridiculous. The Stop Climate shakedown act of 2026 would shield U.S. energy producers from these type of attacks, which would preserve American jobs and allow the federal government to actually enforce things it needs to do. Think of EPA before 2010. And energy security is national security. And it also affects our welfare and our prosperity. It would also override any state energy penalties on the states that are not oil and gas friendly. I think this is a great idea. Radical environmental groups have waged a coordinated campaign against our industry for way too long and we're starting to fight back. And I love the fact that we've introduced a bill at the federal level to basically just stop this type of abuse of our legal system. Please let this thing be passed.

Paige Lacour (22:22)

Yeah. Yeah. It looks like Cruz and Hageman are the authors. I think my favorite part of this article is that I'm proud to lead this bill to stop the abuse to protect American jobs, lower energy costs, and defenders American energy dominance.

Mark Lacour (22:36)

Yes. And when you hear American energy dominance, you have to understand we export energy so we help other countries. It's not just about us. There's not a lot of countries out there that do that.

Paige Lacour (22:45)

Yeah. All right, last one. Galveston Bay Refinery team helps make a first time homeowner's dream come true.

Mark Lacour (22:51)

I love this quote from the first time homeowner Donovan Smith. I can't believe it's here. It's still surreal. Earlier this year, Smith received the keys to a new home through the Bay Area Habitat for To Humanity. That was basically a marathon. Employees actually built houses. If you don't know what Habitat Humanity is, it's not just marathon. There's a lot of volunteers that do that.

Paige Lacour (23:10)

I've done it a couple times.

Mark Lacour (23:11)

I didn't know that. See, that's fantastic. We need to do more of that sort of stuff. But when the mayor. The quote here is, when the marathon volunteers show up, we know we get things done. And just what a great thing to build a house for somebody that needed a home, that couldn't afford to do it themselves. And so our industry stepped in and partnered with the community. And Paige, this isn't the first one they've built. They have 30 more they're planning to build in the same area. So Hats off to Marathon. Once again, take your employees. Volunteer for this. You didn't pay them to do this. They did it because they're trying to make the world a better place. I love this.

Paige Lacour (23:43)

Yeah. And they made a $150,000 commitment, which is great.

Mark Lacour (23:48)

All right. Speaking of great, if you want one of our great laptop or hard hat stickers and a temporary tattoo. Pretty simple, right? Go to our YouTube channel, comment on any videos, send us a Screenshot to marketing ggn.com that's marketing g.com and we will send you OGN hard hat, laptop sticker and a temporary tattoo. Then, if you put that temporary tattoo on yourself, your child, your wife, a stranger walking down the street and take a picture of it and post it on social, we'll send you an ogg and shirt. Really easy thing to do is to help us grow our YouTube channel. Speaking of helping us grow, sign up for our two newsletters. We have our oil and gas events newsletter where we put every conference and trade show and all gas event in one place. It's free. Put it in your inbox once a month. We never spam you. And then we have our Sunday update, where you see a little bit of everything, including recipes. In the oil field, we help homeless animals find their forever homes. They make fun of me and other members of Hoog to sign up. Speaking of making fun of stuff, Paige, what's the weekly rig count?

Paige Lacour (24:45)

I don't know what kind of segue

Mark Lacour (24:46)

that was because I'm not suspecting what it is.

Paige Lacour (24:50)

Okay, we're up 3 in the United States at 5:47. Down 7 in Canada. 123, which is pretty typical. Down 22 internationally at 10:36.

Mark Lacour (25:00)

Okay, I shouldn't have made that segue because that was better than I thought it was gonna be. So I'm gonna leave it in there. I'm not gonna make an editor's remove it because I made a mistake, because I was wrong. Lincoln Company page. Best place to find out what we're doing. Which, by the way, legacy Street Team members, people that joined our street team. I don't know how many years ago. That was a long time ago.

Paige Lacour (25:17)

Probably three or four years ago.

Mark Lacour (25:18)

We realized we let the ball drop on that. We didn't take care of you. We were relaunching the Street Team.

Paige Lacour (25:23)

I don't think we knew exactly what we were doing back then.

Mark Lacour (25:26)

We didn't to be very. We started growing crazily fast, and we just couldn't keep up.

Paige Lacour (25:31)

Yeah.

Mark Lacour (25:31)

But we feel bad about it and we want to make it right. We now have a new director of our Street Team. We're changing the name to the Ambassador Program. He and his team will be reaching out to you. We're doing a survey to understand what you want. Please, if you're a member of the Street Team, give us a second chance. Respond to the survey and I promise you this time it will be worth your time and you'll be part of the OGN family. First Friday Q& A is right around the corner.

Paige Lacour (25:53)

I think you forgot to mention that it's also the cousin you didn't realize you had.

Mark Lacour (25:57)

I wasn't going to mention that because that's going to leave me on the microphone for another five minutes. Hey, we'll say it from behind the curtain. If you want to hear how our street team directors relate it to me, listen behind the curtain should come on right after this merch. Our Me Merchant Store. Our webmaster just now got it back up today. Today is Tuesday, May 5, May 6, whatever Tuesday it is. So if you haven't been able Tico Di Mayo and Taco Tuesday, they'll never happen again on the same day you haven't been able to buy our merch. That should be fixed now. If you want myself or any of our experts to come speak at your event, deliver a keynote, let me know. Happy to share details. First Friday Q& A is right around the corner. That's where you write in a question and we answer that. Remember, the goal is not to stump. Paige and I. The goals help educate. Ready to get out of here? Yep. Remember folks, do great work, pay it forward and we will see you next time.

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Mark Lacour (26:57)

the oil and gas Sam.