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- [00:11]
A
You're listening to the Oil and Gas this Week podcast with Mark and Paige lacour. This is the show for busy oil pros who quickly want to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry.
- [00:27]
B
You're listening to the Oil and Gas this Week podcast brought to you by Navis. 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 401.
- [00:39]
A
Every delay in oil and gas operations costs more than time. It costs money, safety and productivity. The problem? Most teams are still working with outdated or incomplete site data. Navis helps you capture your facilities quickly and turn them to accurate, accessible digital twins your team can use from anywhere. That means faster planning, fewer site visits and better decisions on the ground. If you want to reduce delays and improve execution better visit navis.com tell them Oggn sent you.
- [01:06]
B
Yeah. Hey Mark, guess what?
- [01:07]
A
What?
- [01:08]
B
We got a response.
- [01:10]
A
We got a response.
- [01:11]
B
We got a response to one of our other listeners. Decided to call out our 35 year veteran from the UK.
- [01:19]
A
So is this a review?
- [01:20]
B
This is a review.
- [01:21]
A
Read it.
- [01:22]
B
All right. Five stars. Someone's nap got interrupted. I just read the novelette left by our 35 year veteran from the UK and I have to say that man needs a biscuit, a cup of tea and a long lie down. Sir, you wrote more words complaining about a podcast episode than most people write in their annual performance reviews. You cited the Iran Iraq War, Article 5, King Charles III and multiple draft dodgers in a review of an oil and gas podcast. That's impressive. Unhinged, but impressive. Meanwhile, Mark and Paige are over here putting out nearly 400 episodes of a genuinely world class content, building the largest oil and G podcast network on the planet with 4 million listeners. And this man's big takeaway is stay in your lane. Their lane is a six lane highway and you're on a roundabout. And speaking of lanes, can we take a moment to congratulate Mark and Paige, who recently got married? That's right, folks. The two most dynamic voices in oil and gas podcasting have made it official. Which means the industry now has its own very royal couple. Moreover, in King Charles, there's a new minarchy in town and it runs on crude oil, natural gas, and absolutely elite podcast energy. Long live the king and queen of the oil gas podcasting. Paige is an absolute rock star, co host, sharp, engaging and somehow manages to make downstream processing sound like the most exciting thing happening on earth. And Mark brings more energy, insight and real world industry credibility to every episode. Than most people can muster in an entire career. Does every episode only cover the things a grumpy veteran from the UK personally pre approves? No. And thank God for that. Keep doing exactly what you're doing. Mark and Paige, some of us actually enjoy the show and that's from a fan who actually has fun in the uk.
- [03:15]
A
So fan that has fun. Thank you for that.
- [03:17]
B
I've read this at least 10 times.
- [03:20]
A
The other thing is that that 30 year old veteran from the UK I've had about, not kidding, over 150 people reach out to me saying has he reached out to you because you want to listen to him on the balance. And so far for whatever reason he hasn't reach out. So 35 year old veteran from the UK, that's still an open offer now, next week, next month, next quarter, next year. Would love to finish our conversations on that show. However, because of all of our fans, including. Thank you, a fan who actually has fun. We need to get some news stories.
- [03:49]
B
Yep. Let's start out with what a UAE exit from OPEC means and why it matters.
- [03:55]
A
Yeah, so it matters because it's a destabilization of opec, which I think somebody predicted years ago on their annual update for oil and gas industry. A couple of things, if you don't know how OPEC works as a cartel and just like De Beers and diamonds, what they do is they control the price of oil globally by increasing or decreasing production depending on what's going on in the world. The UAE has just had enough and so they're stepping away in the political circles are calling this a win for the US political establishment. That's not what's going on whatsoever. UAE is just tired of having to work within the constraints of opec. And OPEC has many times had them decrease production which decreases amount of money they can make. Once they leave opec, which is right around the corner, they can produce as much as they want and sell it for whatever the market bears. Now why is that important to you and me, especially now with high crude prices and high price at the pump? Because as OPEC loses its power by its members leaving, then the free market takes over and the price of crude oil will drop. So it's good for all of us, actually even good for the industry. Iraq is probably extremely worried about UAE leaving because it means that they're holding a bucket of less money than they had before. However, right now I think Iraq has more pressing issues to deal with. But this is a good sign. This is something that needs to happen at some Point the free market needs to control oil and gas prices around the world. And right now it's really not. I actually think this is a positive thing.
- [05:19]
B
Okay, next up we have Woodside Greenpeace reach settlement and greenwashing case.
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A
Yeah. So basically Greenpeace Australia, which is known as Gap, I don't know why, because that's the county method, I believe. But Greenpeace Australia and Woodside Energy both have agreed to back away from their court cases. They both have agreed to pay for their own legal fees and basically they're stepping away from this lawsuit. And this lawsuit is based upon Greenpeace Australia saying the Wood Group misinformed the public on their impacts to the environment, especially around CO2 emissions. And if you get into this lawsuit, it is a lawsuit over technicalities. And literally Woodside had to go to their public facing website and change seven words. Seven words on the whole website. And now Greenpeace says, okay, that's enough Greenpeace. I think you have bigger things to worry about than seven words on a Woodside's website. I do realize that you want to take a win in public, but it looks like this is a stalemate. If you're a nonprofit agency that is looking to make the planet a better place, spend your resources and your time on things that actually move the needle. This did not move the needle. It is interesting that Woodside agreed to step away from the courts and they pay for their own legal fees. I think they just want this thing over with, probably court of public opinion. And after reading through everything, Woodside would have won this case if it would have went to court. So anyway, they both stepped away. It's the case is going away. Let's hope that Gap, Greenpeace Australia can do better things with their time and their resources.
- [06:46]
B
Next up we have Venezuela's Oring Oko Belt is an environmental nightmare.
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A
And it is, Paige.
- [06:53]
B
I've seen some of it.
- [06:54]
A
Yeah. And years ago I got to spend a little bit time in Venezuela, one of the refineries and is one of the scariest refineries I've ever been in. Stuff was leaking. You could smell stuff you weren't supposed to smell. No, I'm not kidding. Things were held together with clothes hangers and tape. It was horrible. And the thing about the heavy sour crew that Venezuela produces is that sulfur makes it highly corrosive.
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B
Yeah.
- [07:13]
A
So if you're not doing maintenance on stuff like wellheads pipeline storage facilities, it corrodes. And unfortunately, this part of the world is tropical and very productive to wildlife and Everything from tropical fish to crocodiles, dolphin, name it, and it lives in this part of the world. One of the things I'm hoping that happens with our intervention in Venezuela and the fact that President Trump is trying to get the super majors to invest, which right now they're not doing it, but because, number one, because this type of environmental risk, none of the super majors actually no company wants to take ownership of these fields where half or higher than half of the wells have just shut in. There's been no maintenance, no inspections, and Venezuela quit reporting on its, on the amount of seepage and leaks that they've had back in, I think, 2016. So we don't even have eye of sight into what has leaked, what's sitting on the ground, if they've even tried to clean anything up. So this is just a huge mess. Now, with all that said, our refineries in the Gulf coast love this heavy, sour crude. It looks like Venezuela is very open right now to doing a lot of work with the US which is good for the Venezuelan people. And even though the super majors don't want to make a significant investment because of the environmental risk, and also, quite frankly, they don't know what they're getting themselves into, at some point, we will start making investments and we will start cleaning some of this stuff up. But this is decades and decades of mismanagement and pollution to the environment in that part of the world. Those type of spills take a long time to clean up. Now this Orango river, which is what the field is named after, it's huge. It has tributaries, wetlands and swamps and all this environmentally sensitive area. Before we can do anything out here, we have to get some experts out there to actually do a survey and figure out what actually needs to be fixed in what order, and then we'll see about getting investments to fix it. But this is, this article, unfortunately shows our industry in the worst light possible. Now remember, this is Venezuelan's oil and gas industry and their nationalized oil company, Petrovasa, that did all this work. But still, it makes all of us in the industry look bad. This will get cleaned up and we need to do it.
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B
All right, next up, Russia reopens pipeline to Europe while cutting off Kazakhs to oil to Germany.
- [09:19]
A
Yeah, and if you read this article, Russia says they're having technical problems in the pipeline to Germany. That's not what's going on. This is a political slap on the wrist to Germany. And this is just basically geopolitical maneuvering by Russia. Now Russian oil has started to flow Again through the Dzuba pipeline to European Union after months and months of blockage in Ukraine. I've heard that blockage in Ukraine was of course military action by the Ukrainians, but that's coming to Russia. But I've also heard that it was also done by Russian to have an excuse not to float this oil. I don't know what the truth is there. Now Russia is claiming, like I said, that lack of technical passing is forcing Moscow to halt shipments to Germany. I don't believe that for a second. Neither does anybody else that knows what's going on because Russia historically has used its control of pipelines as the instrument of, let's call it, geopolitical pressure. Keep an eye on this. Russia needs the money, Germany needs the oil. Even though it's the summer here, you have to remember during the summer, this is when the US and Europe starts filling their stockpiles for the winter. Now, of course, the winter in that part of Europe is much worse than it is here in the US So they need much more oil and gas to keep their citizens warm during the winter that's coming. So we definitely need to keep an eye on this.
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B
All right. Colombia's oil industry eyes come back as $100 crude revives investment case.
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A
The Colombian oil and gas industry is not as bad as Venezuela, but it's close with not taking care of their infrastructure, not caring about the environment. And their production has went downhill every year since, I don't know, since probably 1990, let's say 2000 around there. They need high oil prices to make it even economically viable to produce. So in a weird sort of way, oil being above $100 a barrel or near $100 a barrel actually helps the Colombian oil and gas market. But their output is really weak. Their production of gas is about 600 million cubic feet per day. And then their supply of liquids is about a half of that. There's just a bunch of work that needs to be done here. Now they have a lot of proven reserves and it's actually high quality oil. But the lack of maintenance and repair, the lack of investment by the big super majors and all their engineering expertise has just kept Colombian's oil field basically subpar. And also you got to remember those Colombian oil fields are very mature. They're way past peak production. It's going to be interesting thing to watch. I do think that if Columbia can actually start producing more crude and making more money and might help them the country with some of the other issues they're having, once again, we'll Just need to keep eye on this one as well.
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B
All right, next up, we have Turkey says COP31 to focus on clean energy shift.
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A
What a great article to throw in here, 31. I thought it was going to be headquartered in Australia, but something happened. Now it's going to be headquartered in Turkey, which is an interesting move there. Turkey's environmental minister will oversee everything that's going on. If you don't know what COP stands for, its conference of parties and this climate summit has become in some ways a joke. You have all these nations, a lot of wealthy western nations, get together and talk about climate pledges and help. They're going to remove CO2 and help the environment. And they all fly there on private jet planes. The last one in Brazil, they literally destroyed part of the rainforest to build the road to actually get people there. And if you believe CO2 is, is man's activity and the increase in CO2 is affecting our climate, then you would want some countries to get together and actually do something, actually move the needle. And from my opinion, they have it. They get together, they talk, they don't agree on anything, nothing happen happens, and they get again, get together again the next year. So last year at COP 30, they had about 80 countries, if I remember right. They pushed for a pledge to develop roadmaps to transformation, transition away from fossil fuels, but in other countries were able to get an agreement for anybody else. Now, this is at a climate conference. If you can't get the countries at a climate conference to agree on cutting emissions, maybe once again, like Greenpeace, maybe you should take your time and resources instead of spending all this money on cop 31 in Turkey, maybe use that to help people. There's a lot of people out there that could use jobs. There's a lot of places we could increase food production. And in my opinion, the COP conferences not only are a waste of time, they're a distraction for some of the real stuff that we need to take care of on this planet. Good luck, turkey. Cop 31. I'm sure once it happens, we will report back on that. What's next?
- [13:35]
B
All right, Baker Hughes Q1 revenue beats estimates by $260 million as LNG orders surge.
- [13:43]
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Yeah, and the LNG orders is what's allowed this part of Baker Hughes to actually increase their margins and their gross sales. Bott firmly convinced that Baker Hughes is moving away from its traditional oil field services and focusing on lng, like in this case, digital solutions, things like hydrogen, carbon capture, that sort of stuff. Let's give it a Couple years to see if that pays off them. I don't actually think it will. However, numbers don't lie. They beat their revenue numbers by $260 million, which is not a small feat, which is actually pretty fricking amazing. Now that growth is driven primarily by their Iet segment, their industrial energy technology. And most of that money came from surges in demand for LNG equip. And all of that is offsetting the weakness of their typical oilfield services business, which Schlumberger Halliburton are major competitors there. It is interesting. They've won some major contracts in Qatar's LNG Northfield west project. They secured a five year service award from Petrobras in Brazil. Speaking of that, at the very end of the show we're going to have a surprise announcement about Brazil. Good job Baker Hughes. I am a shareholder so I thank you very much over delivering on what you should. Let's hope the future continues to go that way. We have a lot of good friends that work there. Good job Baker Hughes. On beating Wall Street's estimates.
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B
All right, BP's new leadership suffers shareholder revolt.
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A
Yeah, this is interesting. So at their general shareholder meeting, their investors rejected two resolutions that were supported by their CEO and their chairman. And they're also chairman of the board. The first one is they wanted to have allowed people to join the board's meetings virtually. And I actually agree with this. At that high, at that bigger company with this type of importance with making the right decisions, the board I think should have to meet in person. Now I do realize that sometimes things like health issues or travel issues may cause some type of restriction. So maybe there should be a caveat for that. But what they, what BPCO want to do is let anybody, any of the board members join remotely. And I do think there should be some rules around that. Now the other thing was climate related disclosure. This is really interesting if you know the history. BP was one of the first of the super majors to jump into renewables. That did not work out well for them long term. Their CEO had to make it about face. Actually there's been a couple of CEOs had to make an about face.
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B
No kidding.
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Yeah. And then what's happening is they're going back to their traditional hydrocarbon business, which has helped their shareholder price, which is actually really good. Once again, I'm a total transparency. I'm also a shareholder of bp.
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B
I just start putting people in here that aren't. You don't have a share in.
- [16:14]
A
No. Anyway, their CEO Meg o' Neill, I think, is doing a great job. However though, when the board went to vote her in, only about 82% of shareholders voted in flavor of electing her. Now that's interesting because usually boards vote pretty close to 100%. So when you have less than say 95%, there's some differences of opinion in the board, which is never good for a company, especially a public company. Let's see where this thing goes. I will say this much. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is one of the major investors and they are very supportive of everything that's going on. That tells me that bp, even though some of the board doesn't agree, is going in the right direction. From the outside looking in, I also think they're going in the right direction. What's next?
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B
White House extends shipping waiver to August
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A
yeah, this is interesting. So if you don't know this, there's something in the US Called the Jones act, which was a law passed in the early 1900s and basically anything that's carried in the water between domestic ports must be transported by US flagged and built and owned ships. So this has been a limit, this has been a constraint and a lot of people, including myself, think that Jones act needs to be overturned. So what happens is President Trump, Trump administration put in a waiver, the shipping waiver, so that other flag ships could move between our domestic ports to move oil, gas and refined fuels and fertilizer. And what he's doing is trying to keep prices down for the world, not just here at the US and so in this case, they added a 90 day extension to that shipping waiver and I think they'll keep adding extensions to the war with Iran's over with. Now the other thing that's interesting about this is some of the ships that have used this waiver has shipped other goods and that's where you get to this kind of gray area. So cargoes that are covered by the waiver, the waivers need to be enforced because certain things like electronics, parts and pieces shouldn't fall under this waiver. But certain shipping companies, I'm not going to mention them here, have taken advantage of that. Like any other law, there's always somebody that tries to take advantage of it.
- [18:07]
B
Well, that's why those laws exist usually.
- [18:10]
A
Yeah, I think this is a great thing. They've extended the shipping waiver all the way till August.
- [18:14]
B
Yeah. All right. Hormuz tensions heat up. Still going strong here.
- [18:19]
A
I could go through all of this. This is a really good article catching you up to speed. If you haven't been watching news. What's going on with Iran? Bottom line is we're in an interesting situation, in my opinion. I think Iran has two choices. They can either sit back and watch our navy basically escort ships through their strait, which means they lose their leverage.
- [18:38]
B
Yeah.
- [18:39]
A
Or they can choose to start hostilities again and start launching attacks. And if they do that, we know that both the US and Israel will step in and start taking out heavy important infrastructure. I don't know where this is going to go. I think Iran, I don't think. I know. Iran is fractured internally. There is no leader anymore. There's multiple factions trying to lead. That's why our current administration literally every day says that we've won and the war is almost over. Because they want to see who Iran is because they know it's not. And the people that say it's no, it's not are the ones which is pretty far. Yeah. This is just a mess. It's affecting crude and gas prices. And let me tell you something, if this war stops, the day you hear this, it will be at least six months and more likely a year to maybe 18 months for everything gets back to normal because there's be a lag effect and there's just no easy way around it. Price at the pump, no matter what happens, will continue to go up. We're getting ready to switch to our summer blend here in the US which is bad timing, but we have to do it. And so people, you're gonna pay more for stuff and it's directly related to this war that's going on. However, I think once we get through this and once things are settled, I think the Western world will never have to worry about this again. So is that worth the price that we have to pay? I don't know. We'll see.
- [19:50]
B
Yeah, I see where we're going with that. Yeah. All right, so next up we have On Bridge gets approval for 4 billion expansion.
- [19:57]
A
Hell yeah. On Bridge we need to do this right. This is on the west coast pipeline, I think right outside of British Columbia. This is add another 300 million cubic feet of natural gas transportation capacity. This is great. This is going to allow them to heat homes cheaper in that part of Canada. It's going to allow them to fuel electrical generation cheaper and to start exporting even more lng. And right now the world needs more LNG because the price is going through the roof. Because what's going on in Iran now, the construction of these new pipeline segments are going to follow the existing system. So if you live in that part of the world you won't see once the construction is finished, you won't see anything new. They will be adding additional pipe and additional natural gas compression. Then they're also doing some upgrades, modification to some of the existing facilities. This is a multi billion dollar investment and it's time and it needs to happen. And Canada should be one of the leaders in energy in the world and because of their politics and I'm not making fun of you, my brothers and sisters here we have it just as bad as you do. That hasn't happened and things are starting to change. So it's nice to see this long and proud history Canadians have in supplying energy to their people in the world. Seeing that actually come back forefront and actually happen. Good job Enbridge. Let's hope you get this project completed on budget and on time because the world needs needs it.
- [21:06]
B
Yep, Shell to buy Canada's Ark Resources in 16.4 billion cash and stock deal.
- [21:13]
A
Yep, this is Shell buying one of their neighbors in an existing field in British Columbia and outside of and also outside of Alberta. And Shell is just basically taking on a whole bunch of debt. This company has given a little bit of cash and this is going to add another 3 to 400 boe per day to Shell's production. That part of the world once again, it's good for Canada, it's good for Shell and it's actually good for ARC Resources. Good. They needed the cash. So win, win all the way around. And then finally, I want to talk about ExxonMobil Houston giving campaign. Hats off ExxonMobil. They've raised a record breaking 16 million which is the largest in the last 60 years. This is contributions that's come from ExxonMobil employees, their retirees, the Exxon Mobil Foundation. And this money funds multiple fundraising events. Things like United Way of Greater Houston, other charities that focus on education, workforce development and essential family services. Just love this. Exxon Mobile gets beat up in public all the time for destroying the planet. And we all know that listen, podcasts are not. But here's something they never talk about. And this is their Houston, their Ex Immobil Houston giving campaign. So thank you Exxon for helping underprivileged people lead a better life here in the Houston area. And I know that you'll continue to do this. And speaking of continue to do stuff, this is the week of otc. Paige and I will not be there. Ogg and team will be there. And podcast row, if you go by our booth, take, take a snapshot of a comment that you leave on our YouTube channel. Show anybody in our booth and they will give you an OGGN laptop or hard hat sticker and a temporary tattoo. If you're not making it to OTC, you could do the same thing. Go to OGGN's YouTube channel, comment on any video, send us a screenshot to marketing oggn.com and we will send you an OGN hardhat, laptop sticker and a temporary tattoo. Then later, if you stick that temporary tattoo on some person and take a picture of it and post it on social, we'll send you an OG and shirt. And if you're waiting on your temporary tattoos and your stickers, Paige is getting to them. She's doing those in batches. This is where I usually tell you sign up for the newsletters. You still should, but they've both been sponsored all this year. We have some bunch of cool stuff coming and remember I told you something about Brazil. So for those that listen all the way to the end, here's something. We're launching our first foreign language podcast. It's be focused on the oil and gas industry in Brazil and it will be done in Brazilian Portuguese. More details coming but expect to see that in about two months. Weekly Rig count page where are we?
- [23:35]
B
The United States is up 3 at 5:47. Canada's down 7 at 123 which is pretty typical for this time of year. Then we're down 22 internationally at 1036.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah. Expect to see the rig counts go up internationally as this war continues. LinkedIn company page go join it. That's where you get to find out first about everything. This is usually a point where I tell you, go check out our merch site. We have the number one merch site in the world in oil and gas, which we did. And the reason we don't now is our merch site window. So if you've been trying to buy anything from a merchandise store, our webmaster is aware of it, they're working on it. We actually think we got attacked, got hacked. Maybe we'll update you on that. But if we did get tacked, we're not going to update because we don't want copycats. But we do know our merch stores down and like I said, by the time you hear this should be back up. If you want myself to come speak at one of your events or any of our experts. I just got back from Colorado. I keynoted at the API Pipeline conference in Page. It had to be one of the best conferences I've been to and it least 10, 15 years. It was amazing. The quality of the attendees, the tracks, the other speakers that were there, the venue, even the food were all first class. So hats off API for pulling off a world class event. I really enjoyed myself and you made me feel very much at home. You treat me very well. So thank you for that. Ready to get out of here?
- [24:48]
B
Yep.
- [24:48]
A
Remember folks, do great work, pay it forward and we will see you next 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 Global Network.