What The Funk?

0:00 Good afternoon, nerds, just kidding. I don't know. I just wanted to start talking with Tricia Curtis, the legend, one of the celebrities in the oil and gas space, CEO, founder of Petro nerds,

0:14 international traveler, speaker, expert. How we doing today, Tricia? We're doing great. And you're making me blush. Thank you. Yeah, well, it's an honor to have you on. So going way back,

0:28 right? I guess really to basically COVID days, Digital Wildcatters was tiny. You had a podcast on that. I had a podcast on that small group of people. I think maybe I met you in person once, but

0:40 obviously followed you. You do a great job putting out content in the oil and gas space. And then we ran into each other in Boston at the AAPL show, had a chance to talk in person, which I don't

0:51 know if we'd ever really done. I'm like, how have you not been on my podcast? 157 episodes you haven't been on So super excited to have you on today. Tricia, and I'll just ask you the question,

1:02 get right into it that I ask everybody. Who are you? Who is Tricia Curtis? Well, that's a pretty broad question, and it's great. And, you know, I do get feedback when I was going through your

1:13 questions. I thought, man, there are a lot of people in industry that say, we don't know anything personal about Tricia Curtis, it's all super professional, which if they listened to the Chuck

1:22 Yates podcast, which I was on, there's a little more involved in there, but that usually there was some wine and some alcohol involved with that one with Chuck Yates. But yeah, no, one, I

1:36 really appreciate being on the podcast. It was awesome to see you in Boston and actually catch up at person 'cause we've crossed paths a few different times. But who I am, I mean, I live eating

1:46 braids my business. So as most people know, I love it, I'm passionate about it, but I'm pretty passionate about everything in life. And so if you're gonna be on this earth, like give it your all

1:58 and that's sort of how I feel. I am extremely blessed to, and I think you're in the same camp of running my own business. And it's not always great. It's not always easy. I have been through a

2:08 lot since really in my 30s. I've been through quite a bit of volatility oil prices and COVID had a lot to do with that. But, and I won't say like business is everything to me, but it's a big part.

2:22 Like I think the oil and gas industry and this space and what I do because I love it. And that's really how you create a successful business It's got to be a part of you. I mean, no one looks at

2:32 the big tech founders and you don't think they live, eat, and breathe it. I mean, they definitely do. But no, I mean, I have a personal life. I have a, you know, I'm very, very close with

2:42 my family, but I would say that, you know, and I'm complimented by it, but my niece has described me as, you know, opinionated, caffeinated, and passionate and just sort of always full of

2:53 energy. And that's me kinda all the time. Yeah, it is. So I wanna go back. Like I think you're like a farm kid from Colorado, right? Isn't that your upbringing? Yeah. So I, you know, I say

3:06 very commodity-focused 'cause, so we split, we kinda, I grew up on the border. I was born in Cheyenne and in Wyoming. So I still claim Wyoming, but we had a ranch in Southwest Wyoming and

3:17 outside of Bags, Wyoming. And that, so my dad, my grandfather kind of, it was just kind of a fun ranch room. But my grandfather, my dad side, pumped old wells, all throughout Wyoming. My dad

3:28 pumped old wells. So we chased, so every oil and gas boom in the Rockies. And then my mom's side, my grandfather was a wheat farmer, a dry line wheat farmer outside of Craig, Colorado. So that

3:41 was wheat and then everybody else was in coal. So it was oil, wheat, or coal. And so yes, happy and proud for playing country girl. And we went to school in Craig, Colorado, but we spent a lot

3:53 of weekends on the ranch in a lot of work. And I am truly, you know, might have complained when I was having to do it, but really, really grateful for that work ethic and drive 'cause it served

4:03 me very, very well. Yeah, no, I bet. And that's like a really fascinating way to grow up. Like, so I'm from the middle of nowhere in the country in New Hampshire. And there's like a ton of

4:14 farms out there. And it was always viewed as like the people who worked on the farm, like they always had jobs in the summer, but they were the hardest jobs, right? It was hot, you're out there,

4:27 you're doing whatever people do on the farm. I don't know, I was busy like waiting tables and doing like easy jobs like that. But I always had like a great deal of respect for these people who did

4:37 work on the farm and owned farms and maintain them, especially in the summer, because then you had your bounty and they had farm stands and all that fun stuff. So for you, it's pretty cool. Like

4:46 a background of obviously oil and gas, it's in your blood. So you had like a real firm understanding of energy. And then to continue that, you also had this like wheat side of things. So like you

4:58 really understood the earth and the abundance and everything that it could give and provide to you. Grew up in Craig, small town, right? Craig's where you're from. Yep. Where'd you go to college?

5:10 So well, that was the big kicker for wanting to work in and actually oil. Was I went to school at Regis University here in Denver, Colorado, got a full scholarship. And so that was sort of the

5:20 seal in the deal. 'Cause it was like winning the lottery for my family So this is a small private Catholic school. And it's a teaching university. So Lord only knows what it costs now, but at the

5:32 time it was probably like 40, 000 a year when I went and I had a full scholarship. But it was a really good for a small-time country girl. Like I was pretty nervous about going to college and going

5:42 to a big school. And I loved learning. And wow, it was truly the opportunity of lifetime 'cause I had dug right in. But it was my first economics class. you know, day one in college, like, I

5:54 really, you know, I had no idea that I like Shakespeare and I was, I was in English and like, we're acting out Titus Adronicus with swords. And I thought, this is incredible. And then I took my,

6:05 I thought, this is awesome. And then like day one, I also take economics and my first economics class. I was just, I just fell completely in love. And I'd grown up like watching the stock market.

6:15 And when we had CNBC in squawk, bakkam. And we had that, you know, we had the stock market on since I was nine years old So I was fluid with the stock market at a young age and knowing what was

6:24 going on in the world. And then taking this first economics class, I remember them talking about, well, you know, it's wide demand, but like oil is a hard one because, you know, you can have a

6:33 supply and demand, but then you have all these geopolitics and all these things. And I thought, oh, this is really hard, I like this. And so

6:39 then I was pretty interested in Russia and China. And just kinda, I thought, I really like this. And it was a nice thread in like, you know, it helps that I grew up around it. And I thought,

6:48 this is a completely different angle it. It seemed really difficult and I. I like things that were hard, so I just went after it. Yeah, like one of the things that I really enjoyed about your,

6:58 it must have been at least an hour, maybe longer that you spoke at the AAPL Show in Boston, like I didn't know what to expect. I know that you're a wealth of knowledge, you love oil and gas, you

7:08 work with all different types of companies, governments, you do international work.

7:14 I was really impressed by the emphasis that you placed on the international factors that play into making up, like the global energy economy. And that was a viewpoint that I feel like I don't hear a

7:26 ton of, but what about that is so interesting to you, right? 'Cause you were talking about things like what happens in China then actually has a ripple-down effect here and then supporting it with

7:37 math and quantitative metrics and numbers. Like, is that something that you just love about the oil and gas industry and the energy industry as a whole is looking not just at domestic upstream

7:49 drilling, but the impacts that one decision or move will have thousands of miles away on what can happen over here? Well, no, I mean, I love all of that 'cause I think, you know, knowledge is

8:01 power. And so I say that a lot, but it's like, the more you know, you know, more is more. So in like, I onboard a client or something, I'm like, are you ready for 200 slides? You know, I

8:11 was like, that's what you're getting. You know, and they're like, what? And I'm like, yep, that's, you know, like, you're gonna get what you paid for, and then I'm gonna walk you all

8:17 through this And there's a lot, but I do love, everyone always tells me, you know, you must love numbers. And I currently, I use them a lot. I didn't realize I love them, but I do love data,

8:29 and I like making things make sense to people and seeing that aha. And so being able to, you have to, like, really comprehensively study, and be able to articulate and help people hold together.

8:38 So I think, like, I really appreciate those comments and those compliments about, like, yeah, global energy economy is a great way to describe it, There's so many, energy is one of these things,

8:49 but it is the thing that underpins the entire economy, not just the US. economy, but the global economy, it's all business. So access to energy to turn your lights on, but that really extends

8:59 into business, the portability of bills, the portability of utilities, but that trend sensor across the entire planet. And so it's very easy for people to take a certain lane and a certain vein,

9:10 and because our media, the way it's focused, and even in market intelligence, it can be very vibrating. And so the more you dive into it, the more you learn, and I do love to comprehensively

9:23 explain the markets. And I think like the China piece is, simplistically the US and China are the two biggest economies. And that being said, they're completely different. I mean, they run

9:34 completely differently. But when it comes to something as simple as oil supply and demand, I mean, that matters a great deal. I mean, if you know the US market, that's wonderful, But you really

9:44 do have to know the entire global op. oil market and you have to be thinking about a lot of different nuances right now at play that can impact prices. So no, I love that. And it's not because I

9:53 love being a smarty pants. I love releasing the aha and

9:58 the client sort of getting it and being like, wow, that's awesome. And then like, you know, having this and then my gosh, they sound like a genius, which is fantastic. But like, I love

10:06 working with companies that they're drilling and producing for oil. They do not have time to be up at two in the morning looking at what's going on in the Asian market So yeah, I really enjoy

10:17 helping businesses and seeing that success. So that's a perfect segue and I do want to get into all the personal stuff because we're not just going to make this a pure oil and gas and numbers and

10:27 economic conversation, which I know you can talk about forever. But like, what is Petronurds? What led you to starting this company and fundamentally like, what do you do? What is Petronurds?

10:39 Yeah, that's a great question So you're getting back into business, And then we'll go back into, you know, petroards. I mean, so it really came about, you know, I was working in Washington,

10:51 DC. and I was at a think tank. And I think someone had, you know, I got in the weeds a lot. You know, I was, I was, you know, cut my teeth on US. shale. So I was cold-called every

11:01 organization in DC. to get a job out of the recession. And I ended up at this small think tank and called the Energy Policy Research Foundation. And I was, you know, deep diving into Canadian oil

11:12 sands 'cause I was working on Keystone XL. And I didn't know anything about it. And that was at the same time, you know, we had massive crew differentials blowing out, you know, because the US

11:20 was just starting to produce oil in North Dakota. And the market, just like the whole system was not working. And nobody understood this. And so I was trying to figure out like, what is going,

11:30 what even is WTI? What is WEX test Texas Intermediate? How does this make sense? And then I realized no one knew this. So I'm like, okay, I've got to go, like figure out this thing going on,

11:38 pushing. And so I had to study all of it. And then I just, I really fell in love with it was this endless box of - studying. And so I think it was my old boss or somebody had said something like,

11:48 you're a petriner. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's great. Like, no, I am. And I was like, so it just stuck. And so I had, you know, I'd come out to then like, did that business for work

12:01 for the nonprofit for till 2015 and was really hell bent on coming getting out of Washington. You know, it's, I think it's, you know, people work, work there. I completely understand that but

12:11 it is a bubble. It is an incredible bubble, just like New York and New York and DC are way too close together. And they just don't understand how the rest of the world lives. And so, you know, I,

12:22 I did not want to be there. I wanted to get out. And so I came and I want to be closer to my family. I'm very, very close to my family. And, you know, I saw family and outside of Craig, my

12:30 parents were there, my sister's over the hill by other sisters in, in July, Wyoming. And I have some extended family throughout Wyoming. So I just want to get closer to home. So I came out to

12:40 Denver, you know, and, you know, I talked about this in Chuck's podcast, so I can't. not talk about it. But I mean, I was, you know, we got eloped. We had started the business together. We

12:50 had worked together. And so it was a, you know, talk about 2016 to 2020 and everything, you know, the, the marriage did not succeed, the business did. And, but it was, it was really hard

13:02 from 2016, starting a business called Petronards. And going from a paycheck, two people have paychecks to getting married to zero paychecks and nothing, you know, every, you just, you know, I

13:12 had to bring in, get contracts and do stuff. So it's a grind, like to me that did not scare me at all. That's a challenge. And, you know, as I was, you know, working angles and getting

13:21 contracts and doing asset evaluations for, for companies like Anchutes, but, you know, I ended up working for them later. So, um, I, it was great. Um, not great for, for the marriage. And

13:33 then, uh, so that, that failed with before COVID. Um, and then COVID happened and I was working for, um, I was working for and choose exploration as I had touch of nerds. was still doing that

13:44 full-time, also working for Anchutes, two part-time, but basically they were both full-time. So working for Anchutes, and I was managing strategy and analytics, and super-fortunate. I had

13:55 wanted to start an oil company and in the powder, thank God I didn't, and I had wanted to have my own EP, and in that process, didn't really know a lot of the right people. I didn't have access

14:07 to funds, but was going through the process of it and did some, you know, talking to folks in New York, and then in the process of looking for assets, I had ran into Anschutz again, and in that

14:17 process, and I don't think I'm saying anything I shouldn't, but Joe Domenick was basically kind of like, hey, you know, if this doesn't work out, why don't you come work for us and do like

14:25 strategy? And I thought, well, that sounds like a great idea. So, it was great. I had a blast, and really, I got to work on, talk about petronomy. I got to work on, like, actual

14:38 completions, which I love, and nobody was going to let me do that being a non-engineer. And so I ripped apart every Turner well in the Powder River and love, love that side of the business. Just

14:50 like ripping through stuff and being able to deep dive. That was super fun. And it really, it was my first time working directly for an operator. So incredible experience. That fell by the

14:59 wayside with COVID in 2020. I mean, I think this industry, it's something that people really have to appreciate how hard 2021 or 2020 was for this industry. I mean, most of us lost our jobs We

15:12 definitely didn't make money. It was pretty negative for 2020. And it was a really scary and rough time. And so for folks that stayed, I think, in the industry, people have to really appreciate

15:21 this mentality to see through the storms. But I also grew up around the business, and I know it's a boom and boss business. So be sure to gotta live through that. But I'm going it a long way

15:32 around getting to the personal side. I mean, like, that stuff drives me. I got through it. I doubled down on Petron Earn. and exited the relationship with the, with the ex-husband in the

15:43 business. So now, you know, it's, you know, was able to take it in full time. So it worked out. Obviously there was a lot of pain involved there, but I mean, I'm super close to my family.

15:52 You probably see my German Shepherd, who's not in the, like my German Shepherd Axel, who's usually in every podcast of mine. So he's my baby. He's my real boyfriend, actually, you know, he's

16:03 very demanding. Yeah, I close my family, like to spend a lot of time with my nieces and my nephew And, you know, and I am fortunate that I do travel quite a bit for work. And, you know, I like

16:16 to, it's not like they're not like work vacations, but I, you know, I enjoy what I do. So it works out. Love to read, love campfires. I don't mind going to the range. I like that too. I

16:27 enjoy, you know, I don't do as much as I would like to, but I'd like to get back into hunting. And, you know, yeah, I'm pretty game for a lot of things. But when you run your business, so it

16:37 does get time as little squished. Yeah, and for me, I'm married, I've got three kids, so it feels like there's almost no time. And even worse, it feels like anytime I am taking a bit of a break

16:50 from either of those things, it starts to pull you back. Like I should be doing more as a parent, or I should be doing more for my business. And I think one of the things that I enjoyed about our

17:00 conversation in Boston was I was coming off of a pretty good amount of travel, maybe not compared to you, but like a pretty hefty amount of travel in the first half of the year. And I remember

17:12 asking him like, so how do you do it? Like you're in DC one week, and then you're in London, and then the next week you're in Boston, and then you're in Houston, and then back home, like how do

17:21 you do it? So what advice would you give to like the heavy road traveler? How does Trisha Curtis, the petro nerd, manage all your travel and not get burned out by it? Well, you know, I am

17:32 definitely, I'm definitely an introvert, technically I think I when you. When you look at that, yet those Myers-Briggs tests, I took them probably three times in college and maybe in high school.

17:45 And I was always on the IAE, introvert extrovert, like I was laying right in the middle. And I really appreciated when I got back from New Mexico last week.

17:55 People always ask, and I actually think it was, it was Jake, digital ad powders on their podcast. He'd ask me like, how you refuel. Or maybe he asked me personally. And I realized I refueled by

18:05 being at home alone with my dog, and I love, you know, if people know me, they know I am not a big group thing. I hate, I've always hated house parties. I love intimate groups. I want to hate

18:16 a couple of people, or I love, like I always say this, I love going at the dinner with someone, 'cause I like a one-on-one conversation. And, you know, meetings with me, people always have a

18:24 meeting and they put an hour. It always lasts two or three hours. We always talk a lot. But I like really, like, I like going deep, and I like going in depth. So I recharge by, you know, like,

18:34 I have to personally deep dive I like to go through the data. Um, you know, I'm not sure that well ever changed for me. I've like, I want to see it and know it. And I think that really does

18:42 differentiate me and my businesses that most people who are giving a presentation or talk, they don't do the research. Um, and there's a big difference between the big wigs that IHS do this. So

18:51 they're the one, they're going to Saudi Arabia. They're going to learn talking and they don't know the shit behind it. And that's, that's really important because you have to actually know the

18:57 data and you have to know how it connects. And I, I want to know how it looks and I want to spend time with that. And it's kind of methodical. It's almost therapeutic to like be on a road for,

19:05 for several days But it is, it is taxing. And, you know, I don't, I don't have kids. So I can only imagine, I know like the family balancing work, life balance is, is hard, especially with

19:16 family. Um, and typically, you know, if you, if you have, you know, maybe two parents, there's a balance, right? You can add them flow with who's helping out more home with kids. But, uh,

19:25 it's a, it is tricky. And you don't have another person. No one is helping me, right? I, when I leave, like no one's, I, everything's on me. Um, so, you know, obviously it would be much,

19:34 much harder with children but it would be easier with. with a full-time partner, and I have a boy crying, but it's different, right? It's like, you know, if I don't do it, if I don't clean the

19:43 house, if I don't take care of the dog, if I don't do all these things, it just doesn't get done. So it's a balance, it's obviously a lot easier because I'm on my own. So I don't, and I don't

19:53 have children. So it's easier on the road travel, but I would say it's

19:57 a sleep. I am not a good, like I'm a super light sleeper and I'm not great. It's like right before, like I was so excited to get like six hours of sleep right before that presentation embossed and

20:07 I was like, oh. I was like pumped to actually get a full, you know, six hours of sleep because a lot of times you're just like, there's a lot on my mind and it's hard to sleep right before a big

20:15 presentation. And so that's like the biggest thing. And then the, it's the presentation's a lot of work. And so I like last year was a, and I say this honestly, last year was a very, very hard

20:28 year in business. If you were in the oil and gas base and you are not producing oil and pulling it out of the ground,

20:35 I mean, 2023

20:37 was almost like 2016. It was one of the hardest years I've had in a long time because everybody just said no to everything and they pulled back and they weren't spending. And this year, it's all

20:46 the same things, oil prices are the same, but there's a lot more uncertainty in the market. And I'll be very honest, my business does better when there's uncertainty, whether prices are low or

20:54 prices are high. Doesn't hurt to have uncertainty in higher prices 'cause people have the money to pay you. But when I go on the road, it's I truly have to say I have to get paid to speak at a

21:04 presentation 'cause I put so much time and effort in that presentation. And then the prep and making it different from the previous ones, I do not do what a lot of people do. I love what Chris Ray

21:15 does. I love a lot of people do this, but I don't give the same speech over and over. I never give the same speech over and over 'cause I wanna talk about what's going on. So, and I care about

21:24 that a lot. I am anal about the data up to date. I hate if it's stale by the EA data updated a week ago And I'm like, oh, it drives me nuts. And I don't know if anyone even sees that, but I do.

21:36 And I want to know the numbers. And I know people are sitting in front of me and they're investing their time. And the time's valuable. And so I just want to give it my all. But I would say that

21:48 coming home and the recharging, and you just have to have breaks. But I did - and it was summer. So I was able to, in May, at the end of May, go home and see my family, which was awesome. I'd

21:57 be with my nieces and nephews and my parents. And then I'd see my sisters. And then it was basically on the road And then I went to Boston. I saw you. I went to DC right after that. And then I

22:08 went to - then I was in - well, home again, was in New Mexico. So there's a lot. And you just kind of - you fill those recharges. So I think - people always ask, but I do think that recharge,

22:18 however it is, that you recharge, you have to do that. And then you get used to also figuring out how you travel and making sure you can sleep on - figuring that out. There's a reason I learned

22:32 the hard way that. when I was really in my 20s, why people had nice luggage. And I was like, oh, it's nice luggage. It's silly until it ripped every time. And then I realized why you wanted

22:41 something that rolled well, so I learned that stuff. But yeah, and like, you know, you get that, I guess I get recharged by doing the introverted thing, but clearly I get a charge from being

22:51 also talking to people and getting that response and hearing the feedback. And when I was in New Mexico, it was great, 'cause I spent a couple days, I spent like three days there. And I got to

22:59 hear or talk to all these operators and politicians and people, and it's awesome. There's so much something different from studying and looking at stuff. And that's why I always say, you know,

23:09 sticks on a map versus go out to the field and see it and feel it. It's completely different. And I am super pumped. So when people like, I am really stoked to be going out to Permian again in

23:18 November and like I hands up, you wanna take many field tour I'm there because it's just different. It's just completely different vibe. And I absolutely love it.

23:30 like always with you, you're like an onion. There's a lot to unfold right now. But there was one thing that you said that in your history, right, that stood out to me, which is you wanted to

23:44 start an oil and gas company. Like, you're gonna be around for a while. Is that still kind of something that you'd like to do? Or do you feel like it's too risky? Or are you just gonna keep doing

23:55 what you do now? 'Cause you clearly have the, both appreciation or understanding of the data, and then the back office as well as the field. And you have a little bit of that like political

24:05 influence based on the network that you've built. So I could see you starting and or running an EMP company. Is that in the cards for you at some point?

24:17 I would, I would love to. If you look at the rig on my porch, I have this like my dad made me this little rig at an old oil filled equipment. I don't know if most people know if it's a rig, it

24:27 says Touch of Nerds rig number one on it. And I just love it. It's like my size, but I just

24:32 have a pump check that he built me that's in my backyard. But no, I would absolutely love to and I love, I love production. So, you know, when I had Buckhorn on the podcast and I had those guys

24:43 like just awesome team and great people, I spent time with them in New Mexico as well. And no, I mean, I would love to be more involved in it like when I was working with Antutas and doing the

24:52 completion stuff. I love that. I mean, everybody wants to drill and complete a new well, but you realize like the risk is really, is really, really high. Risk is a lot less high on the

25:02 production side facility. You have to have a mass amount of capital and I didn't come from that kind of money. I don't have access to it. You know, I came from a, you know, I'm very, very proud

25:11 of my upbringing and my family, but, you know, it wasn't money. It was all labor. I was the first generation to go to college. And, you know, my parents are exceptionally hardworking, but

25:21 like, it's, it's, you have to, when you're starting a business like that or starting any of the you have to have access to capital. That's the simplest thing. And I, you know, Now I know more

25:30 people. I would, the answer is absolutely yes. I would, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I am not, I always kind of get a little bit insulted and I shouldn't, but people say, oh, you're just a data

25:40 analyst and think that's a, or you're gonna be

25:44 like, yeah, or say like, you're an analyst and I thought, well, you know, there's a lot to, you know, running your own business and articulating this. And clearly I am an analyst, but like,

25:53 it's more like being like a chief economist on deck for every company that I work for And just having like, they don't have to pay the overhead, but really it's more like that. I'm sort of looking

26:03 through the global market. And no, I would love to translate that into whether it's, you know, something on the side and just helping people with assets or whether it's actually, you know,

26:12 production. I particularly, I would love to be a bohemith of like, strip or well production and preventing all these, these crazy entities from plugging and abandoning wells that are actually

26:20 viable that we should be, you know, maintaining this production and keeping them aligned, keeping that tax revenue and 83 dollar oil If you are not bathing your production right now or enhancing it.

26:30 you were missing out on a lot of money. Yeah, but, right, and I wanna talk about this a little bit. So, to me, like, I look at oil and gas primarily through the lens of technology because

26:42 that's what I've been in. I've been in tech sales and marketing, upstream tech, for the last almost 17 years. So, one of the trends that we've seen more of in the last year, year and a half,

26:55 maybe two years, is towards sustainability and ESG And one of the concepts that companies have been thinking about or even trying to implement is the idea of plugging and abandoning a well in

27:09 exchange for a carbon credit. So, there could be some, and of course, you're an economist, right, so in an analyst. So, there could be some fundamental benefit to actually doing that, right,

27:20 and maybe even making more money off of it, but it doesn't feel like it makes as much sense, I don't have the numbers in front of me, when oil is. 80 a barrel. Why wouldn't you just keep it

27:31 running, right? So curious like your thoughts on that because you've probably done some research on does it make sense to P and AOL and exchange it on the carbon credit market or even if it's

27:43 producing six, seven barrels a day and you can leave it alone, which makes more sense. So there's several different buckets of information in that that you have to tease out and that's that we did

27:55 just along along with the tailwinds of, let's be honest, a lot of it did come with the Biden administration where everybody started getting gun hoe about carbon credits and everything and the energy

28:05 transition push and that all started coming together and you started having these tax incentives. I think the oil and gas companies need to remember what they do for a living. And so when I hear

28:14 public or private companies that are advocating to me for P and A, you better show me the math because I think that you have to also show me what's the alternative, how much does it cost for you to

28:23 keep that well going. And it's not nearly as much as people often say. A lot of the risk that goes with that of taking on wells that people are concerned about is that the viability is the cost,

28:36 right? Is the bonding requirements? How much is the state gonna pay and who's liable? And that's why a lot of companies will either give them away or they'll PNA them. I really dislike that

28:47 argument because if I talk to sometimes the same company and they'll say, well, we're long oil. We're very bullish on oil prices. And I'm like, well, so if you're telling me you're drilling

28:55 completing wells, then the same argument should go for, meaning you're bullish on oil, you think the market's gonna demand your crude oil, but in the same out of the side of your mouth, you're

29:03 talking about PA, you're talking about carbon credits, and you're talking about ESG and all this stuff. I'm sorry, it just doesn't compute. So if you're long on oil and you think we're gonna need

29:11 oil for long term, then you should be keeping your wells viable. Now, the trouble is that a lot of these companies think it's simpler and easier from an emissions standpoint for regulation, for

29:22 methane, for everything, to just either hand those off to someone else, or plug them and not deal with it and work in this other production with the new facilities that capture all this methane.

29:30 However, when I talk to folks, especially when I talk to Sam Shiveric on when we talk about production stuff of, what is the actual cost? They alluded to it was a lot less than people are saying

29:41 and you absolutely can do this. You can take on somebody else's as well and you can retrofit this. It's not nearly as much people are saying. And by the way, I'm gonna throw this up in the air

29:50 under a Trump administration or under any administration or under state legislation Why don't we start proposing some bills where we give companies, if this is about methane, if this is about carbon,

29:59 why don't we give them the incentive to retrofit all those wells, keep the production online, keep the tax revenue coming from this and keep the production and actually capture the methane and

30:09 capture the emissions and solve all the problems and not plug that well. That helps the entire economy and that's a spiral up, level up answer. Yeah, because the demand for hydrocarbons is not

30:23 going away, right? which to me has always been the whole weirdest. part of the quote unquoteenergy transition. I like to refer to it as an energy addition. Shout out Jake Corley on that because

30:34 I'm just pro-energy. I have solar panels on my roof here because I've been to poor places where the light flicker and when it's windy, you have nothing. So I personally believe that it's like a

30:46 fundamental right that people should have access to energy. So I'm for it, I'm for all of it. And of course I'm for the environment Reducing methane is a good thing, fundamentally, right? But I

30:59 think that you make a good point. It's not let's just shut it in and leave it alone for the sake of, okay, I can put it on a carbon credit exchange. It's what's the financial benefit to this? And

31:10 then ultimately, if you can reduce methane and keep the well-going, you should do that, right? Well, it's also thinking about that real GDP that I don't know if you heard, I mentioned that. And

31:20 I've been trying to explain that to folks of all like, what is real GDP? Thinking about like one and done That's not good GDP growth. You know, I can get more economic growth out of keeping those

31:28 wells online, providing jobs, tax revenue, getting the actual oil, using it at home. I mean, so I

31:35 study, have ripped apart the data when everyone nuts on the energy transition. I went through it all. It's 100 like net zero 2050, reducing oil consumption by 25 million barrels a day by 2030 is

31:47 not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen by 2050, it's impossible. Unless you actually just all shut in and stay at home. You know, and you know, people in Colorado that are killing themselves to

31:55 reduce carbon emissions, I will tell you the statistic. We are less than 03 of global CO2 emissions, all of Colorado. So Colorado could not exist tomorrow and we would not impact global

32:07 temperatures or global CO2 emissions a single lick. So when I see everyone going around, trying to plug wells, trying to shut in coal-fired power plants and kill economies and kill the welfare of

32:18 humans and also like the stuff that they're actually consuming, I mean, it's wrong. And it's not just wrong, it's like, it's not actually working. So I like the people, you know, people say

32:28 energy a distance. I call it energy, 'cause it's actually just energy. I mean, if you wanna put solar panels on your roof, great. Is that efficient? I don't know. I think there's a lot of

32:37 technical issues with that. I'm pro-energy, I love energy. I want the solar panels to be made here in the USA. I want that stuff to be mined in the US. I want it to be processed. Or by a

32:46 friendly country, at least by an ally. I don't care if it's done somewhere else, but I'm not okay with it being done in China I'm not okay with it being forced with forced labor. If it's about CO2

32:56 emissions, if you're getting it from China and it's made from coal, then we're just playing whack-a-mole. Which gets me to the whole point of then, just focus on what we're actually doing. And so

33:05 there's so much, I say this a lot, but there's so much misinformation within the stock market, and so much misinformation on energy, and so much bias toward the energy transition over the actual

33:16 data and information. And that's why you haven't seen appropriate evaluation of, you know, of. share price performance for oil and gas companies when you have 83 dollar oil

33:27 because they don't know how the stock market doesn't know how to value oil and gas right now in the medium term and in the long term. And if we started talking more honestly about this, that I have

33:37 no criticism of putting soil craniels on your roof. I'm not going to do that myself. But I mean, that's like, we have to be honest about all these things. And so it's not as simple as just saying,

33:46 you know, oh, if it works for you. And I think, I think oil companies that lean didn't really hard into these tax credits and stuff, they need to be thinking honestly about what does that say

33:54 about their business and what does that say about how they're actually talking to the street as well. Yeah, I mean, a lot of good points there. And also, like, there's a little bit of the

34:03 greenwashing component of like, well, guess what? We're carbon neutral because we bought a ton of carbon credits. It's like, what? Right. Like, to me, that's just like, what are we doing?

34:11 Like, that's not the point. And that's a whack-a-mole. That's a whack-a-mole game. It is. It is. We only have a few more minutes here because you're an extremely busy person and I know that you

34:19 have other really important things to do. What about politics? We've got at least another 10 minutes. So keep going. Fine. What about politics? Okay. Like do you think about potentially being

34:29 involved with the DOE or influencing in a more political manner because the way that your brain works, like you get this stuff and it's all data drip. Has that been something that you've considered

34:40 in your potential evolution as a pet runner?

34:45 And so working for a government official or running for office? Either one.

34:52 I definitely, I think the easier thing to say yes of like working for a, you know, I would I would love to work for Department of Energy or, you know, be, you know, help on energy policy, work

35:04 on energy policy, absolutely from about the domestic stance and the international stance. I would love that. I'd rather be an appointee and certainly would would would love to do that And I do

35:14 spend time in Washington and. You know, I spend a lot of time on the, you know, China issues and the international relation front. So I would love to do that. I think, you know, running for

35:25 office sounds very taxing and just, you know, politics is extremely messy. So I'm not saying no, that they would, I wouldn't ever consider it, but I think I like to do stuff and get stuff done.

35:38 So, you know, I think I would be frustrated about the inability to get stuff done as an elected official I think I would absolutely love to, you know, work for Department of Energy or, you know,

35:50 the, you know, Secretary of State or something on an international side. I think those two levels from, we have done a poor job. You know, I think the Trump administration did a lot of great

36:02 things in terms of energy and on a pro-energy standpoint in the US. and did some pretty great things actually with Abraham Accords and started a stance for the US. to be tougher on China. But I

36:11 think that, and we have really, We, by administration, sort of continue. Some of those things on China has not been vocally nearly stuck on China as they should be, but really an energy has been

36:21 abysmal. I mean, this is some of the worst energy policy we've ever seen in the world is happening in the US. 100. Like when I talk to foreigners and I talk to people abroad who are, I don't care

36:33 what political spectrum they're on, they're just business leaders and they're in Europe and they say, we cannot believe what is happening in the US. That you can have 132 million barrels of air

36:41 production and you can have an anti-oiling gas administration. It makes zero sense and it's a business one. It's an absolute travesty and I would love to bring in some intelligence to how actually

36:54 the market works to a lot of these policy folks in Washington and Washington needs less policy and more intelligence and that would, I think it would go a long way. So is this, and that's really,

37:06 I mean, that's a damning statement for sure. The worst energy policy we've ever had Is this due to a. fundamental lack of understanding, or is this more just of a like a posturing political

37:17 playing to your base? I think it's about, I think it's three things. Firstly, I'll be very honest and if you listen to the podcast or you talk to me, I have been critical of this administration

37:28 from, you know, actually, you know, Biden's mental faculties and knowing who is running the country for a long time. So, you know, the fact that we don't really know that, the fact that, you

37:38 know, foreign leaders don't know that, the fact that you can't easily get in a meeting with Biden, now that's being talked about, but this was clearly going on for three years and the media just

37:46 didn't talk about it, which is incredibly wrong. I mean, you have a very, very biased media, but that hurts information, that hurts market intel, there's hurts a lot of things. So, I think

37:56 there's one bet, right? It's actually who's in charge. So, it means that we have a lot of young ideologues, probably a lot of people at Ivy League universities, part of very young people who are

38:05 like, let's go do all these things. And you can see that in the policies. You can see the speech, you can look at the actual, If you go on a federal register. if you actually read the executive

38:14 orders that Biden put in, and I encourage you to go look at some of the executive orders that Trump put in, 'cause you can read Trump's on the federal register and they read to a normal person. You

38:23 can read Biden's and they make no sense. They're written to a lawyer, they make no sense. And that kind of case in point for how the administration works. But they also, it's not just the

38:33 executive orders which we saw with the climate change executive order, 14008, like all kinds of things that the Biden administration has done, but it's also, so it's the people in charge who's

38:42 actually in charge, that's pretty unclear. And then you have a lot of, a lot of people who got into office and now they wanna push everything through, you certainly saw that in Congress, you

38:51 certainly saw that in DC where there was criticism of Trump and him putting a lot of executive orders in. Well, Biden went through those really, really fast. He put in more than Trump really

39:00 quickly, put in a lot because that's how you rule. Well, he wasn't given a mandate, right? He didn't win by that sort of sweep So what I get frustrated with is that - He was elected as a moderate,

39:12 and that's how the media portrayed him, but they have led the country as a very progressive, very far left group. And so when you talk about things like taxing unrealized gains, like that's insane

39:22 for people to think about. I get an unrealized gain and I get taxed on that, like it's an insane way to think. So I think it's, it's not known who is in office. I think it's this, you know,

39:32 excited tailwinds, these very young people like thinking we have control in this progressive, and then having a, and then having a lot of opportunity to spend a lot of money and being able to spend

39:40 on everything. And then there's zero, absolutely zero people within the administration that know anything about hydrocarbons. There's an anti-sentiment, they all hate it, and so they don't know

39:50 anything. So part of it's that they don't know, and part of it is that they don't want to know. And so you have a combination. And I think there's a couple of people like, almost hot to see, you

39:59 know, he knows, but like, what's his level of influence all the way to the top? Who knows exactly? And then how do, how do they listen and how do they think and who's making actual decisions?

40:07 I'm not being, I mean, I am being critical, completely unclear right now, where does the buck stop? And if the buck stops with the man who's currently at home sleeping because he's got COVID

40:16 right now, that's kind of a problem because that means a lot of things aren't getting done. And up until election, we still have a country to run. So it's a really, from an energy standpoint,

40:26 and I saw this in DC early on, because a lot of people thought, well, the administration is gonna be anti-oil, but they're gonna be pro-gas. Well, I got a new slash for you. They come up to the

40:36 wellboard together, folks. Oil and natural gas come up to the wellboard together So, you know what, you can't be anti-wanted pro another. And they ended up being anti-bose. And so putting that

40:46 pause on LNG export permits, and I encourage everyone to read the actual documents from the White House on those pauses, 'cause they make zero sense. They read like a speech written to a

40:54 24-year-old trying to land a massive progressive. I don't even know if the 24-year-olds in this country are that progressive. I just, I didn't even talk to anyone that would understand what these

41:04 documents mean, but they were paused in it to basically just say, we don't wanna be in oil and gas and we don't wanna do this. So so much of it was political and it's, it makes it very unclear to

41:14 know, you know, how much is political, how much do they actually know? And there's a balance between a little bit of both. I mean, the Secretary of Energy didn't know how much we actually

41:21 demanded of crude oil. She probably does now. I don't think she's probably a complete idiot, particularly has a, she's very green, she has an agenda. And you can have those feelings and you can

41:30 want that, but it doesn't necessarily work in economic reality. And that is playing out in real time right in front of us, whether it's hurts with EVs, whether it's, you know, looking at actual

41:38 companies, looking at CNBC today, there's a big article on it. I mean, luck through vehicles are not panning out, even with an asset subsidies that they had.

41:47 Wow, I mean, this is gold and I wish we could talk for another hour 'cause I know you can talk. There's no question about that, but - Sorry, that was a long rant and I apologize. No, but it's

41:55 all really profound stuff. Like, I wanna hit you with a couple of hot seat questions before you run. So first things first, right? What advice would you give to somebody, getting into oil and

42:07 gas right now. Somebody right out of school, maybe they're an engineer, maybe they're an analyst. Like, what advice, what information would you impart on the early to mid-20s person getting into

42:20 this industry? So that's a great question. And firstly, I just wanna say thank you for having me on the podcast 'cause it's fun. And I don't often get asked, I don't often get grilled on

42:29 questions, but no, it's a great question. And I love talking to students and I love talking to young people And when I was in New Mexico, I was actually talking to somebody who had their daughter

42:39 there and the dad was telling me, like, wow, that was so awesome for you to talk about energy with her. And I realized, I'm really close with my nieces and we talk about politics and we talk

42:49 about inflation and we talk about the economy, we talk about oil, so they're knowledgeable. But I would say for a young person in their 20s, a lot of them don't, because of the bias in the media

42:58 against oil and gas because of the administration, because of a lot of things and the information, they just don't know what's going on. And so I would say that it's an extremely sexy technical

43:08 business. I mean, completion, like pumping, drilling it four mile along lateral and being able to pump like 3, 000 pounds of sand per lateral foot in a four mile long lateral. That's an

43:18 incredible technological feat. And that

43:21 actually shows up in the data to be able to say like, oh my gosh, we are actually producing this. You can see in the data that it's incredible. So I would say to a young person of like, if you're

43:29 looking for technology and you're looking for something sexy, hard and appealing and an industry that I can guarantee you is going to be around it for a very, very, very long time. If not forever,

43:39 I can guarantee you like, this is a business you'll make money in. It's a business you're going to find really, really good people and really passionate people. And I mean, a lot of people say

43:47 this, but it is. It is truly the people that make this business. And there's a lot of amazing businesses out there. And I think that's probably for any successful business, but oil and gas has

43:55 grit. It really does. I mean, I'm a boom and boss kid. I've grown up around it, but like, The people who stick around it they know it and they care about it deeply and they also care about

44:04 people and most of them Not all of them do the right thing and just like our it's not doing what's right and you know like when when everyone's looking left You know it's a sign to look right or when

44:16 everyone's looking right look left I mean and I don't mean that look like me like you know look if so if I know that the Economy is consuming a hundred four million barrels of a oil, but everybody's

44:25 telling me not to invest in it I'm gonna be investing in it on because I know the economy. I know the backbone. So I would say they kids need to really think hard and like this is a great industry

44:35 and it's gonna be here for a long time and Yeah, educated and it's almost awesome that all your peers don't want to be in it because this is open to you You're like you're gonna be the next CEO in 20

44:45 years from now, you know, I Can guarantee you right kids that are finishing up their MBA at Harvard Stanford wherever they're going right now they're not looking into oil and energy. and the people

44:59 that are will have a profound advantage because they can't feel expertise where there's not gonna be a ton of competition for them. Final question, where can people find you? And I guess before we

45:10 say that, like give me your website, give me all like sort of the places. One of my, the funniest things that I've seen with you speaking was when you speak fast, right? You give a lot of

45:19 information, you get to the end of your talk in Boston, right? And some like died in the wool oil and gas guy came up and he said, well, you talk real fast and you say a lot of stuff. So I just

45:30 have one question and I need a one word answer. You're like, yeah, that's not possible for me.

45:37 Which is so great. But it just showed like the contrast, right? You've got these like slow speaking, you know, oil and gas people that have been in it forever, incredibly knowledgeable. So

45:45 don't make any judgments about it. And then you who's just got this motor, right? I love it. Where can people find you, your business, your podcast, all that fun stuff? Yeah, you know, it's

45:56 funny 'cause I don't remember that. And I remember telling him, which will be a postcard podcast, but I remember telling him, you know, I like to break the rules and I'm certainly not gonna

46:05 follow this one of like, I'm not gonna give you one more to answer. That's ridiculous. But no, I appreciate that. So I wanted to say one last thing, but you can find me on LinkedIn. I do a lot

46:17 of, which I think you see a lot. I post my short videos and people would say, well, you talk to us, but you know, you have to cram, like Twitter has a two minute, like cap or two minutes and

46:25 20 seconds. So that's why I cram a lot on those, but like a two minute video and it doesn't matter 'cause people will listen to that, they'll actually read the post and sometimes they'll get like

46:34 80, 000 impressions or something, so it can move the needle and then people are aware of the work, right? And so I love that 'cause I try to find different formats and all of this is this than me

46:46 posting on LinkedIn. So I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter, and then in the podcast, like if you wanna know about the content that we've been talking about and I really, really appreciate you. you

46:56 ask them the great questions. But like, you want to know about this? If you want to dive deeper, like, I say this, the knowledge is power. And the last thing I want to say, you know, when

47:02 people always ask me, like, about the business, and I've

47:07 had some people recently, like only every now and again, somebody says, Well, I don't like the name. I'm like, That's funny. 'Cause most people like love the name of my business. Oh, I love

47:14 it. I love it. And it's a little tricky for a business, you know, like working with very professional entities, but like, usually they get to know me and it's a immediate path. But I say this

47:23 very clearly And I often end up saying this to a lot of women who are working for ESG or energy transition for no company. And they say something like, oh, why don't you think about energy nerds or

47:32 something? And I say, look, there's plenty of people doing energy transition, plenty of people doing energy. Like, I'm a petri nerd and I'm proud of the name. But also, I knew in 2020, I

47:42 doubled down on my business. I lost, you know, I had to buy up my former partner and my ex-husband. And I said to my dad who thought I was might be crazy to double down a business called Petri

47:52 Nerds in 2020. And I said, they're gonna be 12 people in the world that know hydrocarbons and geopolitics, and I am damn sure gonna be one of them. And I can tell you, it is not an easy, but

48:02 there are very few people who really do understand geopolitics and oil and how they work together. And it needs a lot to people in their business, so I'm happy to be doing it. Love it. Well, the

48:15 fastest 48 minutes in the history of the What the Funk podcast is now officially over. Tricia, you probably have some diplomat or somebody, some vice president to go talk to and pitch, but love

48:25 this. Thank you so much for coming on. Tricia Curtis on LinkedIn. She's the petro nerd. She rocked it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.