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Oil and Gas Upstream
The Power of Natural Gas: Louisiana’s Role in a Clean Energy Future with Senator Mary Landrieu | EP 340
00:20:36
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Oil and gas production is the union of natural systems with advanced science and complex engineering. Smart people across the globe create this remarkable place we call Upstream. And each day brings a new challenge. This is the Oil and Gas Upstream podcast where we look at how these systems come together and learn from the people who make it happen.
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Welcome to Oil and Gas Upstream. I'm Elena Melkert, your host. Some of you know me as the former Director for Oil and Gas Upstream Research at the US Department of Energy. I retired from the doe, founded Energia Consulting, and joined the Oil and Gas Global Network as a podcast host. We're recording live today here at SARAH Week, Day three, and I have a very special guest. Before I introduce our guests, though, I'd like to give a shout out to our sponsor, ifs. I IFS can help you maximize efficiency, reduce costs and enhance asset reliability with IFS software designed to support the unique needs of the oil and gas industry. Thank you for joining us today, former Senator Mary Landro of Louisiana and co chair of the Leadership Council and Advocacy group.
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Yes, actually, I'm a former United States Senator. I served, had the great privilege and pleasure of serving 18 years in the United States Senate and all those years on the Energy Committee and chaired the committee the last two years. Now I'm with an amazing firm, Van Ness Feldman, that's been around for a long time. We do a lot of energy advisory work in D.C. houston, New Orleans, etc. But I'm here really at Sarah Week on behalf of my one of my favorite clients. It's Natural Allies for a Clean Future. A Clean energy future. Natural Allies is a relatively new, robust, strong coalition of natural gas pipelines, natural gas producers, exporters that are telling a very important and timely message to the American public and to our global audience as well. And that is that natural gas is basically the workhorse of the energy system in the United States and could be for the world. It's available, it's reliable, it's cleaner than coal. Not every country, of course, has the assets that we have in America and Canada and in Mexico, in North America. But we are blessed to have natural gas. And so as a former Democrat in the United states Congress and 34 years in public office in Louisiana and America, my job, given myself, is to talk to Democrats about how we need to embrace natural gas along with renewables, along with new technologies like geothermal. Of course we're advancing our nuclear assets in America, which is great. Finally. So. But natural gas plays such a significant role in giving us the power to power our manufacturing base and giving us the power to move our electric grid to keep lights on heat and cooling.
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Oh, absolutely. And your message just resonates with me. And I so appreciate you joining us today. And you gave me permission to call you Mary, and I very much appreciate that. So, yes, you've spent a long time as a energy advocate and a long career, but a lot of people outside of Louisiana may not be familiar with some of your work and some of the things that you feel strongly about, especially for young women who might be considering office of some kind. Can you talk about your trajectory for your career? And then we'll move a little bit more into some of the other things. I have some questions for you.
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Absolutely. I'm happy to. And I'd love to talk a little bit about my career and then a lot about Louisiana. But I started, I was elected when I first, when I was 23 years old.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Many years ago. I graduated from LSU with a degree in sociology, thinking I'd be a sociology social worker. Ended up helping a friend of mine in a campaign. I came from a political family, so politics was maybe naturally in my blood. And my, My father was in your comfort zone? In my comfort zone. And my dad was the mayor of the city. And so. But I never thought I would be in public office, but I always was a natural advocate, hopefully of good things. So, anyway, got elected to the legislature at 23, served eight years, ran for state treasurer, served eight years, ran for governor and lost, and then ran for the United States Senate and won. Held that seat for three years. In all of that, was married, had raised two children. It was interesting trying to learn to be a United States senator and a mom at the same time. Girl Scout mom at that. That's where we met. And it was not easy. I would not say I recommend it, but it was quite an adventure and quite a journey. And happily, I'm still married to the same man. So my marriage, our marriage survived. And the kids are doing great. They have launched 34 and 28 year olds. So I would recommend it. But I'll tell you this in a more serious note. The politics, the political system that I entered back in 1990, actually 1979 is when I first got elected a long time ago, is completely different than it is now. It is, sadly, much more polarized, much more vicious and much more cruel. So if you're thinking about getting into public office, you need to have very tough skin and an ability to really, if you want to be effective. I said if you want to be an actor in America, go to Broadway. If you want to change the world, then go to Washington or go to your state capitol and work hard for policies that help people's lives change. Better health care, better education, better resource allocation, better energy systems. It's different. And it's part of it is just the nature of American politics that's gotten very polarizing and bipartisan. And then part of it is the Internet that I think maybe sometimes brings out some of the worst as opposed to the better. Yeah, yeah.
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And we could talk forever about that. But I really want to talk about Louisiana. We're in Texas here for SARAH Week, but Louisiana is a really important state for our energy security. Talk about the contributions.
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Absolutely. Look, I've been so blessed to represent such an amazing state. We're not the wealthiest state, we're maybe not the fanciest state, but our people are really very happy people. We have the most amazing culture. And I'm from New Orleans, but Louisiana is almost more European than it is American. And I say that in a very positive way. We have such an influence of Spanish and French culture, Caribbean culture, African culture. And we really are a global. We're more global than everybody knows about New York, everybody knows about California. But Louisiana is a very international. We're a huge port right on the mouth of the Mississippi River. So right. Right now in energy, I'm proud to say that Louisiana and Texas are taking it up quite a few notches. And we are the Gulf coast of America leading this energy transformation. Advanced energy. It's not transformation. Advancing the new energy system of the future based on our phenomenal hydrocarbon resources, oil and gas, we will have them for a long time. People talk about a bridge. It's going to be a long bridge. But on top of that, we're building wind, onshore, offshore solar, we're building geothermal, we're building hopefully advanced nuclear. So it's a more robust, versatile, but at the core of it, which is why I represent natural allies and so proud to represent Louisiana, which is a huge producer. Natural gas is what's holding this together and what's making this transition possible. So that has been my message at Sarah Week and I'm of proud, proud to say that Chris Wright basically says not only is energy life, but natural gas is the workhorse of this whole system.
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Absolutely. As we've seen in recent times, in recent issues. And lng, the growth of LNG worldwide, sourced in the United States, Louisiana, it's so important. And we talk about energy addition as a way to address energy Poverty because little girls who don't have access to sustainable electricity can't hope to have books to read at night or computers or be able to advance from poverty into making a contribution.
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Nobody makes this argument better than our current Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who I have a great deal of respect for. And I don't agree with all of his political positions, nor do I agree with all of President Trump's. But when Chris Wright talks about the evolution of human history and the important role energy, he says, is not a sector. Sometimes business people think of us as a sector. We're not a sector. We are the foundation on which every other sector is built. We are the foundation of the health care sector. We're the foundation of the education sector. We are the foundational element. Without energy, you cannot have a modern society. And what modern societies mean, Eleanor, as a woman, you know this is that women do not have to spend 12 hours of a day hauling water or carrying wood on their backs. That is not why God created us. We are not, you know, animals of burden, beast of burden. We are human beings with brains and talent, and any country that doesn't recognize that will never advance. And so energy does a lot of wonderful things, but one of the things it really does is, is it frees up women from routine tasks. Like when you have a washing machine and you have, we have a modern cooking stove, you don't have to burn dung and wood. And so Chris Wright is so great about that and he's helping people in America because I'll tell you one thing about our country. We have become very lax in this country. We have taken so many things for granted. And wealthy people and middle class people in America are so used to things like warm showers and air condition and they just touch of a button and everything is just so convenient. It's such an amazing economy that people lost sight of what creates that and it is energy. So talking about Louisiana, I am proud to have represented an energy powerhouse that drills more oil and gas than almost any state in the union. Of course Texas and of course our other states, some of our other states do as well. And then we use more natural gas. We use more energy in Louisiana for our industrial base than any state in the union because we have such a huge industrial base. So not only do we produce enough energy for all of our homes and residential, but we produce enough energy for our big petrochemical industries that then send products all over the world. So we're very proud of that. And yeah, so it's been fun to be here at saraweek. And yeah, our governor's here, our Secretary of Economic Development. We've had the greatest influence of investments in Louisiana in the last two years. Billions and billions. I think the number is, I think the number is something like $38 billion that's on the books for investment.
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Yeah, I love when you're talking about the fundamental nature of energy to the lifestyle that we have and the lifestyle that people want around the world. But as you say, there's a cost in the notion. Part of that cost is workforce. And oil and gas isn't exactly the most glamorous thing that people because of their reputation, but it's a very technologically sophisticated arena. And do you want to talk about the workforce?
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Absolutely. Listen, the workforce issue has come up for all of our listeners. It's come up in almost every session I've been in, like with a little bit of alarm, like the demand for energy, the demand for electricity is increasing for the first time in 20 years substantially in the United States. We're reassuring our manufacturing, building, new supply chains, AI, etc. So the increase in demand goes up. We have to have more gas, more, more solar, more nuclear. The workforce is not here in the United States to do what we need to do. So we need to get our community colleges and our colleges and community colleges, our high schools working better together. We need to get our labor unions and our non labor contractors really working to encourage young people to come into the field. And when I say we want to attract young people, come join an industry that's trying to produce energy to lift people out of poverty and reduce emissions. No young person wants to go into a job that's just drill baby, drill into hell with the planet. They're not going to do that. So you can forget trying to recruit them. What you need to say to them, which is the truth, is come join our industry. We want to help reduce poverty in the world, make energy more affordable for everyone and lower emissions as we can. And young people will come in droves. Engineers and scientists and workers and welders will come in droves to that kind of industry. So it's our messaging that has been off. We also have been attacked without mercy by left wing environmentalists that want to mistakenly think they can't. But they must. They actually believe they can destroy the oil and gas industry. It's just almost a joke right now. They don't understand how molecules and electrons move. They don't understand how the world is made. You should read Dan Yergen's book about it. He can Tell you, you and there are others how the world really works, but they've spent 30 years and a lot of billions of dollars of philanthropy trying to convince people the world can operate without fossil fuels. And it's just a lie. So what we need to do is work with the fossil fuel industry with hydrocarbons to do the best we can and lower emissions and then build, like you said, add wind, solar, batteries, et cetera, advanced nuclear, geothermal and help the world to build an energy system that everyone can be a lot more energy independent, not just the U.S. and that's fair. That's fair.
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We want people all over the world to be the best that they can be and make those contributions. People are basically good and they want to do good and they want to offer and share, but if they don't have the opportunity, they're just basically just surviving or being even oppressed. That's not using all the blessings and gifts that you've been given.
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Absolutely, yeah.
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When I talk to young people, people or girls about what I do as a petroleum engineer and my career here and the like, I say all of energy is a very technically sophisticated arena and any major you want to major in, there is a place for you in energy because as you say, it underpins all the other sectors of the economy and we need all of the contributions that can be made. So don't just think that this is gushers and.
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Exactly. It's so funny when people talk disparagingly about the oil and gas industry. You always see the derrick spewing oil. That was from back teen 40s in Pennsylvania. When you. I've taken some senators and members which I spent a lot of time doing, taking members from other parts of the country out on offshore rigs. The first thing they say to me once they get up in the helicopter is, oh my gosh, how vast is this gulf? The second thing they say when they land on the platform and get out of the helicopter is Mary, I had no idea it would be this clean. I feel like I could eat off the floor. And so when you're drilling at high world standards now, I'm sure that there are some sloppy operators out there around the world and I hope the law catches up with you. I'll just say that. But in America and in most of the advanced world, these drilling operations are high tech, extremely safe, very good paying jobs, extremely well paid, well paying jobs. And people just don't realize that because I think they can't. Of course people can't see pipelines by their nature. They're under the ground, they see the transmission line. So people understand, okay, that's my electric line and it comes to my house and they, but they don't see the pipelines, they don't see the offshore rigs and they really don't get up off in oil and gas fields. Regular people, all of us do, we're working the business, we have to educate everyone in the world a little bit more, a lot more on energy in all of its forms.
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Yeah. Mary, we're almost out of time. Is there one last thing you want to share with people? We have a little bit of time.
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I would, I'd love to, I'd love to talk a little bit. Natural Allies, which is a coalition I'm here to represent, was started by actually quite famous, now is getting more famous every day because yes, yesterday Alan Armstrong got appointed to the United States Senate. Alan Armstrong for years led Williams Company, which is 150 year old company, Pipeline Company, one of the most respected in the world and in our nation. And Alan was appointed by the governor to fill the unexpired term of a senator that left for another appointment. So Alan started Natural Allies many years ago with other companies like Enbridge, TC Energy, Qantas Services, we have labor unions, manufacturers, American Clean Power, all partners. And our mission is to help people in America and around the world as we can. But we have limited budget and reach, but to educate policymakers in America, governors, congressmen, all leaders about the benefits of natural gas and its importance to support the build out of renewables and again partnering in every way we can with other forms. But we have really been too negative in this country against fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, which is cleaner. And of course we're going to need oil for a long time and we need to preserve some of our coal assets. We've eliminated many of them to meet climate challenges. But we have to keep our mind on affordability. And that's why natural gas is affordable. And I'll tell you how affordable it is. It's the equivalent of point, it's 40 cents, the equivalent of diesel. So diesel in America is selling right now over $5 a gallon. Natural gas is coming in at 40 cents compared to diesel. That's how cheap natural gas is pipeline gas in the United States. Now it can be expensive elsewhere because other countries buy it on the spot market or they don't have it. So they better figure that out. They can get relatively cheap gas from us if they do long term contracts, not spot, not short term. They can get really cheap gas from us but they also need to figure out their own mix and maybe get gas from resources closer. Not Russia I don't think and definitely not Iran. But there are places around the world where you can get resources.
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Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Our time is up. Marylandau, former senator of Louisiana and representing here at saraweek Natural allies for a clean energy future. Thank you so much for joining us.
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Thank you so much Elena and God bless.
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Thank you. Thank you and thank you everyone for listening. This is Elena Melkert, your host. More next time.
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