What The Funk?

0:00 Let's go, baby. What the funk is back. I don't think I've been behind this microphone in, I don't know, five or six weeks. It's been hectic, the end of summer, the start of school, lots of

0:11 other commitments, you know, the deal of podcasting sometimes can take a backseat. Unfortunately, but for back, we got JB Bendik, the man himself out of Pittsburgh. We finally got to meet last

0:25 week on a phone call, felt a real kinship with JB. I think he knows a little bit about my business. I understand some of his various businesses. So we're going to get into all of that. But JB

0:37 Bendik coming to us live from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today. And the question I'd like to ask all of our guests, JB, is who are you? Who is JB Bendik?

0:49 Well, I want a great interview question. So much for, of course, you know, thank you for the for this time to get with you and I appreciate your, you know, your candidness. And I think if I

1:01 was to spin that for the first question on who is, you know, JB Bennett, I think it more goes towards like my, my why, you know, it's a lot of people out there like Simon Sinek. I think it's

1:11 like, I'm Simon Sinek. He put a lot of stuff on, you know, a person's, you know, why. And basically over, over the course of my, of my life, my career, I've faced a lot of different

1:20 challenges. And my wife has really come down to bait, to find better ways of doing things. And there's no better place right now within the energy, oil and gas, heavy industrial complex, as I

1:34 always call it, for that. So my why is to further the future, I call future-proofing energy and heavy industrials, is to take all of them, like the heavy technologies that are out there and

1:47 connect them up to legacy assets in companies, ways and means, and really get them to merge and to adopt so that everyone in the whole ecosystem can truly. benefit. And

1:59 I started doing this years ago, my consulting role, almost about coming up on my seventh year anniversary. And what I've seen, I've been way ahead of the curve on that. You have driving these

2:09 conversations ahead of time before they've really started to snowball. And now they've really snowballed and they're coming to fruition and it's really justified my why as to as to who I am and who

2:18 JB is. And so I get excited about new technologies. I get excited about companies that want to improve their ways. I want to be around for another 20 or 30 years. So my why is to connect both

2:29 those all those brand new technologies, all those legacy assets, bring them together so that they both can survive and really make the energy and heavy industrial whole complex really work and

2:39 thrive. So that's my why. Hopefully that kind of gives you better ideas for us who I am. On the sidelines, I love racing. I love stuff within NASCAR, pretty much stuff with Informula 1. I like

2:51 anything that goes off that technology side that requires absolute precision for milliseconds count. People say, how can you watch cars going around in circles all the time? And as the mechanics

3:01 behind that are incredible. Same thing with golf, I can always always improve my golf game. But the precision on that to take something from 400 500 yards and put it into size of a cup that far

3:13 away and everything that plays into it, you know, Oh, golf's not a sport either. I was like, yeah, you try and walk in 18 holes and 90 degree weather. So I just love the challenges. I love the

3:22 mechanics of it. But I that also on top of that on the side, I also do stuff within country music as well. So I have, I have that little little segment, as far as me too. So hopefully that gives

3:36 you a really good, good explanation. I know that's a long airplane, but hopefully that gives you something to kind of build upon. No, there's there's a lot for us to dig into there. And I

3:45 appreciate that insight. You're in Pittsburgh today, right? Yeah, that's correct So. my I broke out in the energy field about 13 years ago. You know, it all runs together. I have to keep

3:58 thinking in the new county years, like how many more years into it. Yeah. I got into political science out of college and I did some banking and heavy investments and mortgage banking and some real,

4:11 you know, Wall Street stuff and that led into commodities. And I was a commodities broker and at the time, a lot of people in Western Pennsylvania started coming to town. I always called them the

4:19 oil boys looking for energy. And mostly it was driven a lot by range resources and the time when range resources was very almost unheard of. And then you really come up here and punch it holes and

4:29 really proved up resources underneath the Marcella shell. And I got to have conversations with, you know, you be out in commodities, you're out trying to meet people, you try to get investment

4:37 money, et cetera. And so, you know, they come to town and I pick their brains. I knew all the financials, I knew the politics, I knew how to run the paper and everything on the background, but

4:44 I never knew how to dig a hole. And so I was very curious. I'm always curious. I'm always asking questions. I just absolutely love learning. and got to know him over over beer talk. And I'm not

4:56 a non, I'm not trained as an engineer, but I wanted to go dig a hole. Well, about a year into it, I got to know a lot of the guys and I got a vouch and they got me into Halliburton five years

5:07 after that. I mean, I gave 120 hours a week, everything. At the problem in my life, at the time. And ever since then, the last 13 years, it's all been within the energy sector, but that's how

5:18 I got the break in Pittsburgh. And I got down to Permin as part of a reload package with, within Haliburton, I spent five, five, four, you know, four years, day in and day out down there. And

5:28 with family and I have nephews now and I have, you know, parents, I'm very blessed, they're still here, but they're aging, they're getting older. And so as a result, I need to be more

5:39 centralized. So I kind of shot call, if you will, from Nashville, just because it's central, 'cause, you know, Texas, speaking of Houston traffic, you know, everyone's like, why don't you

5:47 move to Houston, live there? I was like was I, well, like, well shit, if I did that, I could at one meeting probably. a day 'cause I'm being five hours of traffic trying to get from one end to

5:54 the thing. I mean, it's almost pointless sometimes, depending upon where you live in Houston. And then same way in the Permian, if you're out there in the Permian, I'm single and not married,

6:03 no kids. There's nothing really bad, not much to do on the weekends. And it takes you a day, you gotta hop into Dallas. It's five hour drive. I mean, time in my line of work is very, very

6:15 important. And so I need to find somewhere where I can balance out the fit in the knees of my family and my, but also get in the text. So I kind of hub, if you will, in Nashville, and I'm able

6:24 to then fly to Pittsburgh, for family in Chuck Call and do all my business up there. And then I can also fly, you know, into the Permaine or in Houston. It just gives me a lot more access. Plus,

6:36 it's fun. It's a great list of booming city last five years on Nashville, man. I'm telling you, when you see that, and so let me tell you this. I meet more people from Midland in Nashville than

6:47 I do randomly. in like Midland, Texas, honestly, I bumped in people all the time, like over here from from Midland, you partner where that's that. And I'm like, Oh boy, sure do, sure do.

6:59 That well, that's great. And there's huge differences between the Marcellus shell and the Permian basin. Right. So what, what a, what a shift for you, right? I heard some political science,

7:10 you're working at, you say, Haliburton. Yeah, I was with, with a big red. That's, yeah, those are the ones that gave me my, my break, if you will. Nice. And you're up in Pittsburgh.

7:21 You're doing the whole Marcellus thing, finding all kinds of natural gas up in the Appalachia. And then boom, we need you to go to West Texas. We're going to transfer you down there. Talk about

7:30 some of the differences, whether it be the technical differences, the terrain differences, the cultural differences between the Northeast US living just outside of Pittsburgh and then going all the

7:43 way out to West Texas and what was that like both from sort of a a technical standpoint.

7:51 So

7:54 over the time that I spent in the in the in the permit, one thing that I truly, truly took for granted to well up in Pennsylvania were trees and hills. Yeah, yeah. And now that sounds so like,

8:05 okay, like a stupid reply, but it's something like, you know, being up here born and raised in western Pennsylvania, you kind of get, you know, get used to. But I love the thing about Texas.

8:14 I wanted to get to Texas for the longest time, because my lifestyle, the culture, everything was around Texas, more lines than technically Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania politics. See,

8:24 Pennsylvania and western PA area kind of lines more with Ohio, West Virginia, you know, in North Pennsylvania. But most of politics within Pennsylvania is driven by Philadelphia, in New York, in

8:35 Baltimore. It's kind of like two different cultures, different states with within one. And so when I got to anywhere in Texas, especially in Midland. I mean, it was kind of like a rite of

8:45 passage. I think anyone within the oil. truly to be in the oil field should be exposed to the Permian at some point. And so I was honored to get, honored to do that. It was, it was definitely a,

8:56 you know, culture, you know, I'm going to say culture shock because of being the outsider. So when I got down there, it was like 2014. And this is, you know, everything was blowing and going.

9:06 I mean, if you had money, there was, there was work to do. The, the problem was being an outsider was, I mean, most respect, because I have a lot of, I have a lot of permitting friends and

9:16 contacts and in relationships that, you know, still there and so call on. So I mean, I have to preamble this with, you know, I don't mean it's any, you know, any rude way. But at the time,

9:26 it was very unwelcoming, you know, for the, for the outsiders. And that might be due to the number of people like myself that were coming down there and, and just hammering. But as you get, as

9:36 you get to know the people there, you know, they always say that they're very well, they, they are the people of their, they're good. And don't get me wrong They're nice, good, hardworking,

9:43 God-fearing, tough, you know,

9:47 SOBs. coming from outside that nest, as I called the good old boys club,

9:54 they don't trust easily to let you in those circles as far as business. I think that comes from previous booms and busts where people come in all the time, drive up their resources, take up all

10:05 their businesses, then a bust or something comes, then they leave. They're kind of like pillaging, if you will. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about this, and they won't come

10:15 on to say that, but I think this one is serious about the

10:19 permit and who they are, but the thing that drove me really crazy was going between the Marcellus, Pennsylvania is also with the politics of it, has very tight regulatory procedures. So it takes a

10:35 lot longer to get well as permitted if there's certain HSE issues to move a bucket of water, you have to have a permit I'm compared to what I see on West Texas made in the car called the cowboy wave

10:47 doing things Now, that was, I was pretty, pretty, pretty eye-opening again, again, more appreciation for the way that Marcellus does because of the, of the, for the landowners in, in doing,

10:57 being able to go back and redo well paths and, you know, you don't find, once a well is done, you don't find any poly anywhere. I know West Texas, I can find, I can find poly in the side of a

11:05 road, you know,

11:07 and again, that goes back down to, I think, just the overall, you know, history in the history of it. But here's, here's a connect for you So the whole founding of oil was up inside of what is

11:20 now oil city or Titusville. That was what the Drake was, was built. That's right. And so, so people have forgotten that, and I, I used to, I used to break a lot of conversations with this,

11:29 you know, when they say, Oh, you don't know anything about oil. And I said, well, guess what, permanent won't be here if it wasn't for Pennsylvania.

11:37 And I, and how many people, and there were people in, it's still in this industry have no idea where it actually truly started from. And they say, Oh, no, it was, it was the city. It was here

11:46 in Texas in 19, it was a spoodle top. It was a Santa Ana, and I was like, No. I said, That's not where the technical first one was. And I got a lot of credibility from, you know, dealing with

11:54 people, you know, that way. And it kind of broke some ice, a lot of conversations, and I think they appreciated for, you know, from there. And a lot of the original money came from

12:03 Pennsylvania, as well, for some of the very early fields back in the day. They put the money into it and stuff of that nature. So anyways, to lay my plate on this one, I would say that the

12:13 people were very, very welcoming, there, but to see both sides of the regulatory environment where it's a lot more stricter versus a lot more unrestricted, is very, very interesting. And I think

12:25 looking forward on the technology side, I think, especially with not to spin us on sizing activity and things of that nature that's going on in the amount of water that's going on, I think. And I

12:34 hate to say this, but I think if RRC and if service companies, operators, don't unite around them and improving. their actual resourcefulness. I think that not just the state, the RRC will step

12:47 in. I think that the actual federal government's gonna step in like USGS, I think that these earthquake activities start kicking up over towards the 50. I think the powers of the federal government

12:56 are gonna start kicking in and that that's gonna have a major ripple effect on how things are done. And so I don't know how I got on that

13:06 one, but that's one thing that I've seen as far as, difference, as far as the regulatory environment and forceability within Texas and Pennsylvania. And I just, I kinda got saying that that's

13:19 possibly gonna happen. I hope it doesn't happen, you know, but there's the size of activities that's been increasing and now in South Texas, you know, in Florida and they have not been, even

13:29 though they're curtailing the inflows on SWDs and you can finger point on, you know, different things on who's to blame and stuff like that. But there's a causality, there's a correlation,

13:35 there's a causality in the

13:38 pro-telling back, the injection rates and it's still going up, up, up, up. something's not adding up. And I think once structural integrity happens where all of a sudden buildings start falling

13:48 or there's a true safety issue to structural, I think the USGS and the feds will step in and override the actual

13:58 RRC at some point out. Hate to see that happen. And people that call me crazy for thinking that. But I think it should be something on someone. I think from a risk standpoint, companies should

14:06 seriously be considering that, especially if they are truly like ESG. But then what do they do, right? So I mean, SWD for my listeners that aren't familiar, salt water disposals, you're

14:17 effectively putting back wastewater into the ground, right? That you're initially pulling out of the ground. What then would operators do that are in the Permian basin with that water?

14:32 It's a huge opportunity.

14:36 I believe that a lot of the water, and let me give credit over the past, you know, companies have truly stepped up in water management. They put huge recycling facilities together. They're using

14:47 more, I always say, I call it recycled water. Everyone and then she said, Oh, it's your used water. Put, you know. Frakish water, what are any more - Semantics, semantics. Semantics.

14:59 They've really put a lot of infrastructure together to capture that back and to treat it and to take out a lot of the solids and to try to use that in their Frak jobs instead of using fresh water So I

15:10 certainly give them an incredible amount of credibility for doing that because it's a very expensive capex. But there's also a lot of hands in the pod, if you will, especially on endist and no

15:22 knock on SWDs, but there's a lot of even landowners and operators and service company. Everyone's got a piece of the pie when it comes to SWDs and there's a lot of money flowing around on injection,

15:33 per barrel, and I think that the huge, Again, going back to when I said about Pennsylvania hills and trees and in the green grass of it, I think it's a huge, huge opportunity. If there's a way

15:45 from an economical standpoint to take a lot of that produced water and actually treat it to the point that it's absolutely, you know, agri-grade, if it's down to a true potable grade, to literally

15:57 you could build, and this is a whole other topic for another guy that might be on this little tangent, but if you start, because Texas have to change on its own, its drug laws and marijuana and

16:07 things of that nature, but if you took that use from an agri stop, you know, great, and you wanted to run interference against Mexico, and you know, the drugs that are crossing the border, and

16:17 marijuana, all that nature, and you want to get into the medicinal marijuana, there's no better places for as far as West Texas, because if you could reuse that water, because you got vast lands

16:26 that are air-made that go with water, you know, again, that's a whole another topic, I raise a lot of eyeballs when I bring that up, but that's That's something there that you can use for, you

16:37 know, for me. reading the areas. And I think to a lot of ranchers, depending upon if they have production on their properties, I think a lot of ranchers are concerned with aquifers too, the

16:47 amount of fresh water that's being taken out of their resource on this. There's something I read in New Mexico where one of the aquifers, I haven't followed up one, I guess it went dry somewhere in

16:57 New Mexico. I don't know if it was in the Delaware portion of it or not. But basically, they sucked all the water out of the aquifer. And all the worries, they're even worried about full collapse.

17:07 I read it a couple of weeks ago, I haven't dug into it. I don't know if you've been worried about it or not. But that chatter is getting around. I've talked to a lot of ranchers, you know, and

17:13 you'd be surprised how many are really, truly concerned about the fresh water extraction from a long term basis. Well, I mean, fascinating. Good insights and interesting to think about because

17:28 you're talking about an area that's effectively desert, doesn't have a lot of water, yet you're pulling a lot of water out of the ground, and then putting it back in, how can that be treated and

17:35 then reused interesting. interesting thought process. So when did you leave Midland? What year you said you got there 2014 and then what happened? You were there for a while. Where'd you end up

17:49 going? When'd you leave? Yeah, so timing, by the end of 2019, I decided I needed to get somewhere a little more central. Well, this is at the end of 2019, but I don't know how 2020 happened,

18:01 right? So

18:04 my time, my exit at the time, was to, at least for the next year or so, 'cause I had a project going on in country music in Nashville. I've always had a place in Nashville. So going back from

18:16 Midland on the weekends, things to do, as I said earlier, I was looking for things to do. So on my escape, I would always be going back to Nashville. I have a lot of friends that are producers,

18:25 music, singer, songwriters, publishers. And so I was always weakening there, if you will, or going back and forth. And so I already had a place in Nashville. And so I just basically said,

18:36 doing day to day end of 2019 because I had a project coming up that we were pitching to one of the major networks to have at least for the beginning of 2020 there just because of my time and

18:46 everything kind of teed up on the consulting side that I didn't need to day to day be and be in midland and so the timing kind of really worked out well to the point where,

18:58 well I should say, unfortunately 2020 happened and I don't want to downplay that in any way sense or form. So I have there in 2020, well guess what, the whole project all of that, everything shut

19:10 down, production shut down, torrent shut down

19:14 and I talk about like a double win. So all of that was occurring and so I basically have, you know, hub there in Nashville, you know, since then, and if I need to be back in the midland or any

19:24 parts of Texas like I ever just said, I fly in, but my full nexus is all in Texas. I just stay at my place in Nashville and I fly to Pittsburgh and I'm here with family. My grandmother is 89.

19:36 She's you know, got dementia or some things going on there. I don't mind sharing with public on that. And so I needed more up here. So I have the flexibility and I'm blessed in that sense that I

19:45 can be, I can basically move where I need to be, whether it's for business, you know, work or for family, but I keep it between, you know, the, you know, Tennessee and Texas and Pittsburgh.

19:56 And so anyone that's out there was so funny is, I help a lot of companies from up here that want to break out into the Permiques, I've been through the ringer down there I help them, and vice versa,

20:05 because it is, it is two different worlds, but these two plays are critical as far as anything on the energy side. There's no, I mean, I think there's 30 billion cubic feet per day on the

20:15 Marcellus. There's 11 to 12 billion cubic natural gas, associated gas coming out of the Permian. I mean, that right there is a huge chunk. If there's any type of cut off from there from an energy

20:25 standpoint, it would wreak havoc on not just the United States, but the whole world. There's just a lot of overlapping similarities, You know, they purchased, you know, cab it. there's now

20:35 talk with self, you know, chatter with Southwest, you know, Southwest and, um, just thank you. Thank you. Just to speak. And then, uh, there's one other one that was rumored, um, dev,

20:45 you know, dev and what was it? Devan and Crown Rock or Devon and Marathon. There's a lot of whispers. And I think the big one, obviously, that fell recently with, uh, uh, pioneer and, uh,

20:58 that's on like we're going to see some consolidation, right? And it's, it'll be fascinating to see where this goes. A lot of people have the belief that consolidation is a good thing. Um, I have

21:11 mixed feelings on it, right? It's always tough to see some of these companies go away and disappear when you develop a relationship and kinship with the people that work at those companies. And

21:20 then all of a sudden they're going out and trying to find a new job, but it's the nature of this industry. It's a highly inquisitive industry. And it's very finance driven that you're going to have

21:30 people looking to reduce cost and consolidate wherever it makes sense. And it kind of leads me to another question that I have for you is, where do you see the oil and gas industry heading in the

21:41 next, say, five to 10 years? You mentioned ESG, it's a topic that we can't really get around. I like to refer to it as sustainability, not greenwashing anything, but how can we create an

21:52 industry that is a more sustainable industry as we look toward moving toward the future without any level of greenwashing to it? But I'm curious, like, what does oil and gas look like in five to 10

22:03 years? Is it going to be exactly the same as it is today? Are we going to see more companies leading into the CCUS space? Are we going to see more hydrogen? Are we going to see less drilling in

22:14 the US, more drilling? Just curious sort of what your view is on it, because I know you're fairly well researched and you've lived this space in different basins. I want JB Bendix take on where

22:25 oil and gas is going in the next five to 10 years.

22:30 I think the next five to 10, 10 years in a short run, yes, you're going to see some consolidation by the majors, mainly the fancy words they call it as high grading, where they're looking for

22:43 tier one acreage. I think, and let me give my words here so don't, you know, get off the too many different technical changes. I think in the last couple of years, post post COVID when people

22:55 were, you know, we're coming back and all of a sudden we want to want the negative on paper and just cause massive. I mean, you know, people film bathtubs and pools with loyal Thursdays. And I

23:05 thought it was a joke, but I mean, there is literally, there are some people like asking to dump pools out at the time. I kid you not. Like, I was like, you got to be chit me on now. You know,

23:14 and so what happened is, you know, companies got serious about being profitable, which I've long said I think is important because, you know, a path to profitability. is critical because when

23:24 you're profitable, you don't need to do as many concessions, you don't have to squeeze a service company, service companies don't have to pay cheaper labor, and everyone at the end wins. Both

23:32 service companies, vendors, and operators, and there's a pain, have to have profitability, but profitability should never be greed. And I think when we both get too far apart on greed, that's

23:42 when things get messy. So I think consolidation is going to happen now because a lot of egos are hurt after pioneer, I think, in reactions, because a lot of these - I mean, again, this is my

23:55 opinion. I think a lot of the senior decision-makers that some of these operators,

24:01 they don't want to lose their grip on their power. I hate to say that they don't want to be acquired. They want to be the acquirer. Or they want to position themselves that no one will want to

24:12 acquire them. So they do financial engineering. They load up on debt in some way. Or they play around with acreage to the point where nobody wants to, wants to chew on them per se. I've even gone

24:23 back on the Oxy back in the day with Anadarka, and I said the reason they point out for poison pill is the legal term that they use in banking and stuff, but I still think Oxy poison pill themselves

24:35 when they did Anadarka because they knew that there was probably sniffing around to be acquired and they didn't want to be acquired. I know it's an unpopular opinion. Interesting. So when they

24:43 choke on that,

24:45 you saw, look at their stock. I mean, their stock has not done what it's supposed to do I mean, Carl, you know, I can't got involved and he kind of backed out a little bit now. Now most of the

24:54 stock is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, you know, which, you know, he's slowly, you know, the majority, not the majority owner, but the significant. I think he's above 25. Now I think. Is he

25:03 really? Wow. Yeah. I think he's above 20. I think he's approaching. I could, again, please, I mean, don't call me. I mean, this things are always moving. It's somewhere around, around

25:11 that. So what's, what's happening is I think some of the, you know, these consolidation is going to happen for number one is to hydrate their tier one inventory to the point that they are

25:22 not have to go out and source. They basically can say, okay, listen on a PUD development schedule. We know that these resources are here, they're proved up now and on the back end, our financial

25:30 look real tight. We don't have to drill. You don't have to produce on them. If you want to do it much more, you know, continuous acreage, we can do longer laterals. You know, technology has

25:39 pushed the longer laterals, you know, up to two, three, sometimes even four miles long. We don't need as many rigs, we don't need any service companies. We can turn on the taps, you know,

25:48 within a year or two, you know, by our production schedule, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the consolidation is going to happen in the short term. I think those that don't want to be acquired

25:57 are going to do or going to overpay for some deals that they're going to hate.

26:05 And again, you know, I put this out there. Look at Chesapeake. Look how long what Chesapeake did. When I broke out in the Marcellus, we did a lot of wells for Chesapeake. We even saw this part

26:14 of rigs that set records at the time in the Marcellus as far as how fast we were drilling and things of that nature. Nice And then Chesapeake, Google, Google, Google. and suck that on, and then

26:24 what? They slow the window bankruptcy, they come back out, now they're selling off assets, and now they're talking about digesting Southwestern. And you sit there like, dude, haven't you

26:34 learned anything like it's

26:37 to what? Like,

26:39 and so that chowder on the Southwestern side, and if you look at their financials and dig into them, now why is that? Is it

26:47 consolidation in the more sell us? Because there's pipeline constraint. So up in the more sell us, you did cut There's no more pipeline to get to market. So now people are trying to get their

26:56 resources together so that they can consolidate and get scale to get to market better. No one's really talking about that. That's another story for another day on that one. But I think about here's

27:06 what's gonna happen. It's two to five years, I think, as they start to, again, do these acquisitions across the capital. It's very expensive. There's gonna be a huge opportunity in about two

27:15 years for people that are smart now with a higher prices can build up cash, especially the markets and the tires. because there's gonna have to be carbals. I think companies are gonna sit down and

27:24 go, Holy moly, we have way too much acreage on here. The least costs are on these. We're never really gonna drill these. And that's when all on the down low, you'd have a lot of, you know, I

27:33 call them, you know, I think they're running out of titles, but you know how companies will go get like a 250 to a billion dollar private equity investment and name their company after an animal.

27:44 Like, every night's not like, you know, some animal energy company. I think they're, I mean, they've gotta be running out of names of the animals Like, I mean, and so you'll see that pop up

27:53 and they'll start buying some of these acres. And you're gonna find out, is the number one investor or strong investor in that bigger company is also the private equity arm is the one that has the

28:05 money to do the carbon. It's just so, how things move, man. It's so connected. When you really dig into it and you ask a lot of questions, I think there's gonna be a lot of carve outs and

28:13 they're gonna have a company that comes out and all of a sudden, 500 million dollar investor capital, boom And they get it hard for 3 billion by the company that they just - you technically carved

28:22 out of, like you said to me. So I think, yeah, short term, it's gonna be painful and consolidation. Medium term is gonna be carve outs. And then I think the whole world production needs oil. I

28:34 don't buy one bit into less oil down the road. I think where we'll one to two million barrels every year on year in world production growth. And I think as the world destabilizes right now, you've

28:46 seen Hamas and Israel, you're starting to see Ukraine, China and Taiwan, you're starting to see destabilization across the world. I think people are going to want to start sourcing energy from

29:03 truly

29:06 free countries that have more political stability, which is going to be a lot of the US, Australia, those neighbors. And I think that hasn't been fully digested yet And I'm rambling on again, but

29:19 I think - time will prove me wrong on this one because I'm not sure when this is going to air or not. But I think Israel will probably take kinetic action against Iran at some point. And I think

29:30 they're going to hit some of those oil terminals because the sanctions are not curtailing the black market oil, which is out there to know what to talk about. And the black market oil is funding a

29:38 lot of this geopolitical destabilization. And I think if you're kinetic, it technically means you have to take physical action. So if they take kinetic action and they actually attack, not so much

29:48 the fields, because I don't want to destroy the production, because the role needs a production. I think it'll be more of like the tankers or the export terminals, because it's not a direct attack

29:55 on actual production facility. If they did that, if someone did that, 120, 140 barrel oil, SPR is drawn down to 270 reserves. People really can't touch that now, because they're worried about

30:06 the salt caverns caving in.

30:09 I'm going on. Sorry about that, Jeremy. I am a lot, dude. So please cut me off. And I've had the Celsius this morning, which I'm really going. So just a happy breaks, Jeremy, happy breaks.

30:19 I like it, man, that this is what we do on What The Funk. I wanna get it all. And before we get too far away from it, according to my friend, Google. Warren Buffet owns 2665 of all the

30:31 outstanding shares and Occidental. I'm not sure how up to date that is, but it's even more than 25. So you were not that far off. Yeah, I think the, it is worth talking about with the situation

30:43 in the Middle East, you know, I'm Jewish and it's been a very difficult few weeks For me, personally, for a lot of friends and family, obviously, and you just hate to see what's going on over

30:56 there. It's, you know, we live in the US, which is obviously a generally peaceful place and the conflict over there is just complete and total opposite. But this is an oil and gas-centric podcast

31:09 and the geopolitical nature of what's happening there is also something interesting to observe, right? With Iran saying, oh yeah, we're involved in this too And then does Israel take action?

31:19 there, does the US. get involved? What could this do for oil prices? I tend to agree. The lack of stabilization, I'd say, on the geopolitical landscape internationally is something we have to

31:33 pay attention to. And I would imagine that oil prices will continue to rise as there's a level of uncertainty. You also mentioned the SBR. That's something worth keeping an eye on, too. I believe

31:45 Biden kind of drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. You could question whether that was a good decision or not. But nonetheless, there's just not a ton of oil in the reserve right now for us.

31:55 So we're heading into a very fascinating time within the oil and gas industry landscape. Then, you know, if you kind of pay attention to the news as well, right? You've got the Toby Rice's of the

32:07 world going out there saying like, let's unleash natural gas. Let's unleash LNG. And he probably has a point because there's just such a glut of natural gas. here in the US, especially in your

32:18 neck of the woods where you're literally sitting right now. So how does this all play out? It's gonna be something interesting for us to keep an eye on. To pivot a little bit, I see the screen

32:29 behind you. It says Navitas, I believe that's one of the companies that you own, run, represent. What do you guys do? What is Navitas?

32:38 Yeah, so how I say Navitas and the Navitas organization, if you ask Google, it's just so it's Navitas I call it Navitas, I call it Navitas. I've gone into systems saying like, how do you really

32:50 pronounce? 'Cause it basically means energy. So it's the energy organization. And that's just my consulting arm that I put out there. And I truly want to hopefully continue to grow it. But in

33:02 essence, my company, that's with the umbrella that I operate underneath for advisory work. And anything that touches into the future proofing of energy is where we go. I've pivoted a lot over the

33:13 past,

33:15 I'm being an entrepreneur, really finding the market where you fit in the market and what you do. And basically, I get retained and I go out and I work with two types of companies. I work with

33:29 companies that have operational challenges within energy and heavy industrials and they'll bring me on and I'll go out and I'll obsess and I'll do an audit on all their operations and I'll say, Okay,

33:37 listen, here's an action plan, here's a roadmap of where I think efficiencies can be driven and here's the step-by-step, which one's a low-hanging fruit and if they, we kind of will let down,

33:48 once we do that, then this is where I'm different to all these other consulting companies that are out there, I will then go out to these emerging technologies that solve the problem, you know,

33:56 because we fix the process first, we identify the problem and then I will present solutions to the client in that sense so that the choice that they make is there. So a lot of these consultants out

34:06 there today, they go out and they bring in all their solutions and they throw it down and make them, again, the work where they choke on it. companies to kind of choke on and say, This is the

34:15 best way. There's no other option you're going to use this one. I like to bring in some options that I know can solve it for them and let the owners and the key decision makers choose that solution

34:25 and that way that adoption is there. And so you don't have as much churn and burn down the road when all of a sudden you don't have the buy-in because people didn't feel included I so do And. that

34:33 and then I also go to these startup companies because I'm so involved in this world as far as startups and high technologies and advanced technologies, stuff like NHG, I will do some consulting work

34:42 for them on the go-to-market strategies. And I think that's where we at times overlap too because you help a lot of these companies go out to market. And the hardest part with that is I have so many

34:54 conversations and I've been into this market so long. Sometimes some of these companies on the go-to market on the startup side, they think their solution is the best. And you're like, man, I

35:05 could tell you some stories where here's what we're wrong with these other companies and but you can't really tell Unfortunately, you can advise them, and again, I'm about choices, and a lot of

35:17 the times there's a lot of different pushback in the market on that. I think there's a lot of opportunity for these companies that are out there to really penetrate these markets. But again, just

35:28 like operators and service companies, there's a disconnect between these technology companies and these, I call them legacy assets, which means they've been doing it for so long, that they don't

35:40 bring on any new innovation. And the really spin this whole thing, back to the new business organization, everyone's talking about AI right now, I was talking about that five years ago.

35:52 And there's the amount of stuff like that I'm writing on either from certain intel briefs that I gave to a high level confidential conversations that I have. The plethora of innovation that's about

36:04 to hit the market over the next couple of years is mind-blowing with what's going to be coming out. I just hope that a lot of people are at least trying to have conversations on saying, okay, are

36:16 we leaning mean or do we have the best operations and processes in place and what's our go forward plan and a lot of companies out of force out there do not have a go forward plan. They can't look

36:25 past the quarter in the next three months not saying you have to implement it. I just hope that people would say, hey, listen to where we are and this is our here's our quarterly plan. Here's our

36:34 next one to two two years and here's our next five years because the pace of innovation is truly amazing what's out there and I'll defer back to you because you go out and you rep these on within your

36:48 futures, funk futures company, I don't know if you see the same thing, I mean we could disagree on this but I don't know if we kind of gel on that but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because

36:58 you're into it more on the day-to-day sell side of it. I started off that way I got away from it just because of the amount of expectations. For me, it just wasn't manageable, and so I kind of

37:10 back-tracked and pivoted and got into the consulting side a bit more than the consulting side. So I'd love to get your thoughts on it. Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, funk futures at its core.

37:22 I generally don't pitch funk futures too much on this podcast, but nonetheless, I'll jump into it. We do contract sales, fractional interim sales leadership, a little bit of marketing, as well

37:33 as recruiting, mostly for energy tech companies. When I launched this business about three years ago, most of the companies we were working with, I would put in the traditional oil and gas tech

37:44 ecosystem. We've seen a lot more sustainability tech start to come into the market. The biggest challenge I think is just simply the sheer number of solutions that generally to the operator sound

37:58 the same. Like, if I look back on the the course of my career, call it almost 16 years now and. oil and gas tech, if you just had a piece of technology kind of early on in the shale boom,

38:11 especially software, you were gonna get business because there weren't enough solutions yet in place and it wasn't an overly competitive market. Well, that started to shift really, probably 2016,

38:23 2017, 2018. You start to see a lot of technologies come out that are pushing production optimization, route by exception, analytics,

38:34 some of the AI starting to come into the space, some more OCR and then all of a sudden there becomes this inundation process where you're an operator and you're like, okay, a lot of these things

38:45 sound similar. Do we already have something that kind of covers this particular workflow or should we be going out to find it? And it starts to create a situation where I think operators develop a

38:57 healthy level of skepticism around, man, so many of these solutions sound similar. Like, what makes sense for us to look at? Should we just go to an established vendor and see what they have? Or

39:07 should we embrace some of these newer technology companies that are coming into the space? So for me, as I talk to new companies that are looking to expand their footprint, primarily in the US, a

39:17 little bit in Canada as well, with their tech, for me, it's really important to say, okay, what is the market asking for right now, right? So having a consistent dialogue, not just on the

39:30 consulting side, but directly with operators, with IT leaders, with operations leaders, with CFOs, right? With CEOs and COOs of small, medium, private and publicly traded oil and gas companies,

39:43 to understand what are their challenges, because you just can't push solutions on people, right? There has to be some poll coming from the operator as well. My view is that there will be a lot

39:55 more around the modeling and efficiency and emissions-related reduction. In the oil and gas space, that's going to come fast and furious. And we'll start to see who the key players are in that

40:09 universe. I also think from what you said, AI, not just in the back office, but also in the field, is going to become something that is really an emerging space in oil and gas. And also just

40:22 leveraging any level of efficiency and automation that a company can latch onto. We've seen that kind of lead up to this point But I think the leading operators will be the most tech-centric

40:35 operators, and that's something that will be fascinating for us to play out. The bigger companies obviously have an advantage because of scale that can reduce their lifting costs. There's a lot of

40:45 benefit for them, and they can be a little bit more creative as far as solutions that they adopt. But if I'm a really small oil and gas company, if I have a few hundred wells, if I'm in a more

40:56 obscure basin, maybe somewhere in Michigan or somewhere in South Texas,

41:01 I would really lean into what can technology do for me because as you know, JB, finding resources is difficult right now. Whether it's somebody to go out and weld something, to paint something,

41:12 to go from well to well and just be at least operator, there are just simply less of those resources now. So then what do you do? You look for ways to supplement that, to replace that with

41:21 technology. So I said a lot, it was my turn to kind of word vomit, but nonetheless, I think definitely on the sustainability tech side on the artificial intelligence side of things. We are going

41:33 to see companies leveraging data more and more in what should be a really fun time to be in the energy tech world. So that's kind of how I've seen things shift and evolve. But you asked me this

41:48 question in two months, like my answer could be completely different. I mean, that's the pace of technological change in a commodity-driven industry like this There's an appetite right now for

41:59 technology.

42:07 oil prices dropped 30 that appetite may disappear. It certainly hit the nail on the head too, before again, the massive inflation that happened in the economy, mainly due to a lot of government

42:15 spending.

42:17 I used to have a saying that you want to be profitable as an operator at the time,

42:25 35, you want to BE, I'm starting off with profit, you want to BE, break even around 35 a barrel of oil So at the time, prices were moving back up towards around 70. And I was like, I mean, if

42:33 they could really hone in on all that out the door, landed 35, I didn't give her a take a dollar here, a dollar there. But they're getting around 70, again, a dollar there, here or there,

42:43 that's a hundred percent dollar for dollar, they're again, being profitable. 'Cause I remember that at the beginning of the conversation, I said, it's important that everyone be profitable 'cause

42:50 profitable means everyone gets paid and pay checks are people.

42:54 Now that's really changed. I think the new dynamic is not even 70. I'm thinking 85, 90 is the new 70 range. Even though they say, oh, it's commodities and go back to my commodity broker day

43:05 saying, oh, it's a commodity to the airport. It doesn't really get into inflation. I was like, well, the constant attack on resources across the world, going green and on everything on EVs and

43:17 net zero by 2030,

43:20 2050 and oil, all that type of stuff I think a lot of people are not having sober conversations, and I think going back to your point on the ESG or sustainability and emission side, you're seeing a

43:31 lot of different companies pop up, in the last couple of years on tracking and recording those emissions, whether it's using drone technologies in LIDOR, whether it's using

43:42 sensors, infield sensors, and it's going in the cloud and how do you track measure? Because what's gonna happen, I forget the data, I think it's somewhere next year or 2025, they're gonna start

43:51 being fined because the IRR, the legislation they passed. If you go past a certain threshold, there's a certain dollar amount that you're gonna be paying in fines in

44:02 order to do that, and credit if I'm wrong, you have to be able to track and record those. Whether it's enforceable or not, that's gonna be a whole 'nother deal. But the way I look at it, the

44:10 whole sustainability thing is the fact that, why would you want, as an operator, why would you want to be losing your own resources and not capturing and having that go to market? Why would you

44:20 want it to bleed off?

44:22 And it's detrimental also to the, it's not just your resources and operator, that's the resources that whoever is the least holder and the people that have different smaller percentages and division

44:32 order analysts. So pushing forward, that's just, that's being efficient. You want to get every molecule, you want to capture every molecule, not because of the environment, it's because you

44:43 want to capture every molecule. But we don't talk about that. We can do this finger point and crap And I don't think it does does anything I think on all sides at the end of the day need to have a

44:54 more sober and be more reasonable with everything. Everyone's a hothead. Even myself, I can be a hothead too, but at least, I usually, back when up by date and not by feelings, I always say

45:07 facts over feelings. We can all disagree. Everyone can be disagreeable, but we have to be professional in our approach and have sober conversation, but there's so much emotion involved in it these

45:16 days, and it gets to be cloudy And I think that information technology is certainly there, that's not going to be going away. It should be because it's just the environment. It should be because

45:24 it's a molecule, it's a resource, and we should be stewards of it. We need to be stewards of the resources that we have. But I think on the AI side, what's going to happen is there's, I always

45:35 say, TID, truth and data, and I think the AI is going to start revealing a lot of stuff that people, you know, unfortunately, are in denial that they do not want to face But I also think, too,

45:45 the problem with the tracking of emissions is from a liability standpoint

45:52 Now they can go and they can sue. Now there's a claim. Now they can tie it up and leak out. And that's the other problem too. Again, there's gonna have to be some sober conversations on liability

46:04 and insurance. It's 'cause, you know, there's, storage companies are pulling out now. They're not even underwriting or insuring operators. And well, guess what? If you, yeah, service

46:13 companies, I mean, that's probably another topic for another day. People can't get into like, you're talking about manpower logistics and

46:19 having drivers, truck drivers and haulers. Because of nuclear verdicts that occurred. Now, entrants trying to get in. It'd be their own carrier or part of a carrier. Cannot get insurance to

46:31 actually be able to get a truck to be able to fit the need for the services. Because we have such nuclear verdicts. And nuclear verdicts are basically where, you know, there's something very

46:42 substantial occurred. Whether it's environmental, it could be a loss, unfortunate loss of life And not worth, you know, five or 10 million, you know, to, to. make whole, and I use those

46:52 words lightly, they're a hundred million dollar verdicts. There were ones that, the point where now insurers are gonna say, you know what, we're not gonna even insure this, we're not even gonna

46:60 get in this game. And now the banks get into it, well if you're not insured, now the banks aren't gonna lend. If you ain't gonna lend, you ain't gonna have your capital, you can't put your

47:07 capital into grow, and it's a whole cyclical turn. So I think we all need to come to the table, have a server conversation, realize that the world needs more energy and stable energy, and getting

47:18 back to what you mentioned too,

47:21 about that is once we have more

47:25 stable energy, which means good quality of supply, then the whole world benefits, because what really bugs me at the end of the day, what really drives me on the future-proofing energy, and why I

47:35 believe in technologies and bringing people together and making the industry better as a whole, is because so many people, and again, I mean without much respect, so many Americans, especially

47:43 Americans, have no idea that there's over a billion people that still don't have access to clean drinking water or even stable electricity.

47:51 When you really get outside the bubble that's here and you start to really look at the whole world and it's shocking, all because they don't have access to a basic continuous unit of power.

48:03 We're gonna do solar panels and we're gonna put out windmills and all that. They don't care, they need it now. And I just don't think there's any other better place than America, the United States

48:13 to do that on LNG, leasing LNG, we need more pipelines, we need to get the market And we can lead the way we are with our exports right now. We cross like 132 million barrels.

48:26 But we'll see what happened. Last time that happened, OPEC turned on the supply. Oil is getting back up there. There's geo-political destabilization going on. SPR is down. I think OPEC's gonna

48:37 have to have a move and I don't think they're gonna play like they did last time. I don't think it's gonna be like one million barrels. I think possibly they could turn on the spigot again, if you

48:45 will, and bring it back up to like three million barrels per day And if it does that, what happens to our. here. All of a sudden we go from 100 bills back down to 70 or 60 increased costs. And

48:55 now guess what? That damn cycle over and over and over again. And it's just like, ugh.

49:03 So question, by the way, sorry. Yeah, no, no, it's good. It's fun to get in your brain and get some of these questions. Final, final question I do have for you. And we could talk for hours,

49:13 but I do have to cut this off at some point. What advice would you give to your younger self, if any? It's a question that I like to ask all of my guests because, you know, hindsight is 20, 20,

49:27 and it's very clear. But for you, I'm really curious. Like, what would you tell your younger self? What would you tell young JB Bendix in terms of what could make your life a little bit easier as

49:40 a young man?

49:44 For me, it would actually would be to let go more often. So, and by that, I mean. When I

49:54 was in school, it took me almost twice, it took me a much longer time to learn. I was put into what they call remedial education classes or special education, whatever name that they give it these

50:04 days. And so when other people were out playing and running around the yard and things like that, I had to study, I had to work at a very young age two to three times as hard or just to maintain a

50:16 certain level of

50:18 grades, if you will It wasn't that I was stupid. And at the time, I was

50:25 bullied, but I wasn't like physically bullied, whether they're sticking my head into a toilet, there are people that are physically bullied that way. Sure. It was more psychological and emotional

50:34 bullying. And, but I was determined to work my way out in the classes, which I did, working my way out of a graduate top of my class, went to college, political science, the whole thing to be

50:46 covered. But at the time, I look back on it, man, And I think I should. I was always, I was always set in my mind that if I don't get this grade in A, I'm not gonna get to college. And I was

50:56 thinking that way like I was in fifth grade. And I wasn't able to let go and enjoy the moment, you know, the time that I was there. So if I look back when I was a kid, I would tell myself, you

51:05 know, to let it go. Like my parents were right. Like, dude, go out and play, you know, this isn't gonna kill you, kill you. But I, in my head, at the time I was telling myself, if I don't

51:13 do this to me, I'm felling myself. 'Cause I hold myself to a very high level of discipline and character And when I fail myself, I beat myself up on it and I should let myself go a lot better. And

51:26 I think,

51:28 that's what, that's looking back is probably what I would have changed. But then on the flip side, I don't think I'd be as critical as I am today and how I think and look at things and how I ask

51:36 questions and my curiosity. Because I love to learn. And I think if I wasn't that tough on myself that I wouldn't, I wouldn't wanna study. I wouldn't want to look at all sides and why is it that

51:48 way? Well, how do you make it better? Do you know the solutions out there? People are like, you know, they'll always tell me, Dude, once it's good, you go to work, punch in, punch out and

51:55 do your job. I was like, No, I'm not gonna be like 90 of the rest of the population. Like, and nothing against that. And that's an entrepreneur in me, but I don't think if I was that talking to

52:02 myself, I'd be the entrepreneur that I am today. Probably not. Probably not. I mean, I think that that is, as an entrepreneur, I can say there's some days where that sounds really nice, right?

52:13 But I also know I'd find something wrong with that. Like we kind of talked about last week, like say I were to just give it all up and go back and get a job Well, somehow I'd find a way to be

52:21 frustrated about that too, right? So that's where it just gonna be my nature. And I think that the nature of a hard charger to whether you're working full-time W-2 for somebody or running your own

52:32 thing. Jamie, this was a lot of fun. I appreciate your insights. We kind of met on LinkedIn. You've even amassed a good following and I enjoy your perspective. Where can people find you?

52:45 Whether it be on social media or websites, like where can people go and check you out.

52:51 Yeah, so my website and hopefully my head looks okay. I'll play around the light here. Hopefully it's not been too learned for you, but it's, you know,

53:00 Navitasorgcom, which is N-A-V-I-T-A-S-O-R-G. com, that is the landing page. I run a good operation. So through there, there's all the different ways you can come in contact with me, of course,

53:10 through LinkedIn and lock on wood. If you message me, as long as it's not like the stupid cells unsolicited, the stupid cells, you know, on LinkedIn making an attempt to be authentic, I will get

53:20 back to you. I'm very good at it. But just don't please don't reach out to me and try to, you know, don't act like we never even looked at my LinkedIn profile or anything of that nature. And I

53:30 put that out just because I get a lot of solicitations and things that it's ridiculous, dude. It is absurd the amount of people reaching out to me for stuff. It's like, you know, have you

53:41 considered outsourcing your software development? And I'm like, where is services company? I don't like, where are you getting that I would like do an ounce of research before reaching out? It's

53:51 crazy. Yeah. And so,

53:55 I, again, I just put that out there as an agreement because then it hurts us too. When we, when we have an actual possible solution, it goes, it falls on deaf, deaf ears, but that's how you

54:04 can reach out to me. If you have a legit question and you make an effort, a unique effort and don't put me into some kind of like automatic, um, trickle down social thing, please, I will

54:14 definitely get back to you, um, and I'm pretty, pretty quick at that, you know, that, that way. But yeah, other than that, um, and you can also engage, you know, on, on socials, you know,

54:24 too, like through, through LinkedIn, um, please, I, I, I'm always very professional. You know, I might push a lot of buttons because I want to generate conversations and make people think

54:33 critically, uh, and I can speak a lot, say a lot of things that other people privately messaged me saying, man, I wish I could say that, but I can't because of my job or, um, that, that's one

54:42 of the rewarding things, uh, you know, like me and my dude,

54:46 So that's like a humble brag. I engage on socials on my comics, just keep it professional. I know I said shit here, I normally don't do that. You're allowed to do that, don't worry about it. My

54:58 oil field lingo, I mean, I just have a flick of switch. Go from the field, you know, field talk, I know we gotta go. I live with this. So I took me about a couple of weeks ago. I went from

55:06 the field into sales 'cause I wanted to learn all the tools, you know, that you have to do things. And I didn't even realize in meetings and I was like, yeah, you believe that's some bitch? And

55:14 I'm like, oh man, I'm like in the middle of executives.

55:18 And they're like, dude, you come from the field. I was like, yeah, like three weeks ago, oh, we could tell.

55:25 That's awesome.

55:27 Gotta check yourself. Well, JB, I appreciate you, my man. This is a lot of fun. Best of luck with all your current and future endeavors and I have a feeling we'll be having you on here again,

55:37 but appreciate your insight, my man. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for listening, by the way. I know you have to a lot, but truly, Hopefully I made sense and hopefully this just. does well for

55:46 those those the best guests. It's less work for me. You know, yeah, less editing, right? See ya.