“You've got ran off from every job you've ever had. Why you trying to promote your opinion like you're important? The real influences keep quiet. Not you.” #hotquestionoftheweek Snap! I’m sure that you aren’t the only person who is thinking that (certainly ESP salesman aren’t loving me right now, either). But no, you aren’t totally correct- I’ve managed to keep some jobs. I think the real question you asked is: do influencers stay quiet? Trump became “President Trump” because of Twitter. Elections were influenced because of...

Dear Facility Engineers (with honorable mention to midstream companies), I know you don’t get a lot of attention unless you are being yelled at when you are late. I promise I won’t yell. I do have a question though: why are we building facilities with 4000 bbls of storage when a well will be producing 300 bbl/d (or less) within a year and your water BETTER BE PIPED somewhere day one?? Seriously. Trucking water is the biggest waste of money in industry. It is absolutely...

Dear Production Engineers, ESPs don’t make sense in 90% of the applications you think they do. Stop using them (did I get your attention?!) Each artificial lift technology has an intended use- where it works well and where it doesn’t but you install it anyway. There is no cookie cutter solution: that is why we pay you- not the service company engineer- to fix problems. Learn how to design YOUR OWN rod string. Learn when an ESP MIGHT make sense (hint: high water cut,...

Finally! Dear Drilling Engineers, Remember before BIG fracs when you were the most important department? Vendors carrying food, tickets and the occasional snowmobile would go flying past my office in search of you. As you may or may not have noticed...times have changed! Let’s start with the big change: all the land worth owning is already owned so there is absolutely no reason to tight hole your neighbors. Our industry doesn’t really compete with each other locally- we compete with OPEC and Russia globally. At...

Dear Drilling Engineers (ok, hold on, I need one more day to talk about something else that is almost as important as you) At EnerCom, I heard a few executives use the $CPE-$CRZO deal as evidence that “the market doesn’t like deals”. Incorrect. The market doesn’t like stupid deals (where there is no overlap and you acquire in another basin instead of being bought yourself). So. Let me present Exhibit 1: $PDCW-$SRCI. What were they both to do? $NBL and...

Dear Drilling Engineers....wait a second! News Flash!! PDC and SRC to merge in 0 premium, all stock transaction..."the Beatings" will have to wait until tomorrow. Bloomberg picked this story up 2 weeks ago - which if you ask me - was a great “trial balloon” to the market. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand the securities regulations around that leak but if you were surprised by this deal, you aren’t paying attention (a lot like drilling engineers... but I’ll get to them later)...

I went to the wedding of one of my best friend’s daughter’s yesterday (And no- I don’t want to talk about what that implies about my age). I am cynical. I think we all know that by now. But being part of the day when two young people in love start their life and share their faith - it is refreshing. There is a lot of stupid in the world and a 12 hour vacation from stupid was nice. Because it was a Catholic...

In a return to the #hotquestionoftheweek, we will put off “The Beatings” series until Monday. “It kills me to acknowledge that you’re right in your pessimism. Instead of griping about how badly the industry is screwing up, can you offer some of us a solution? I’m in my 30s with all my experience in O&G- if I have no future in this industry, how do I get out? PS. You really don’t know where apostrophes go, do you?” 2nd question first. No. I...

Dear Reservoir Engineers (you knew it was coming) You are the steward of asset value and since it’s just you and me talking, can we be honest? The gig is up. Spacing tests are coming out and it looks bad. In the Bakken; Stack; Eagleford; Midland; Delaware. Everywhere is showing significant EUR degradation because YOU recommended drilling wells too close together. Increased density has massively hurt EURs per well and we both know “b” factors ARE lower and terminal declines ARE higher at tighter spacing and...

Dear Completion Engineers (Volume 2) Yesterday’s post had a surprising number views. Surprising only because after 45,000 of them, no one has provided data to support what completions engineers are doing. Therefore, allow me to present... volume 2! Flow back equipment. You knew you were drilling this well (right?). It needs product take-away, which is great, as you’ve already built a $900k facility 30’ from your wellhead. Why (expletive) are you running through flow back equipment?? To the tune of $10,000 a day!!!Seriously. Both the markets and...