Dear Mr ‘hot’ take, You are kind of a d*ck. What’s the deal? Discipline callouts, arm chair quarterbacking and not calling your mother as often as you should?! Seriously. Here’s a #hotquestionoftheweek- how can you be as open minded as you claim when you can't possibly listen to anyone with that megaphone of a mouth? The alien in your profile pic is pretty funny. But what’s really funny is pretending to be some outsider and bash the C-suite when...

Dear C-Suite Well, here we are. In the last 2 weeks, I have laid some pretty good beatings on your people- and the least surprising part is that nothing I said was a surprise to anyone. It’s almost as though they are talking and you aren’t listening. You say “people are our most important asset” but think “unless they tell me something I don’t want to hear”. Maybe it’s middle MGMT that is filtering the message but you’ve got to realize that it isn’t...

Dear Geoscience Community, I feel awkward. I don’t know how to say this. We’ve been together a long time but we’ve also grown so much. That’s why it hurts me when I say: It’s not me, it’s you... I’m sorry. Such a shock, right? How can I not think exploration is fun? Prospecting. Finding new plays. Doing science! Getting core!! Licking rocks!!! Our industry NEEDS this. Unless you are offshore or international or have a lot of personal money to drill your own prospects,...

Dear Research Analysts, You and I need to make a deal. I’m going to tell you some wonderful news later this week- and you are going to hold accountable companies that haven’t learned anything the last few years. Deal? Wait! I’m not done with you yet. I understand the complex revenue model you have- you get paid to cover the companies and if you aren’t nice- they don’t let you on their conference calls and then “that” department on the other side of the...

"The Beatings" series has resulted in a lot of DMs and somehow- I’m now more scared about how badly E&P companies are run than I was before (ESPs to meet 2019 production targets- are you kidding me?!) Welcome to September! Which means it’s time for the 2020 budget: the annual event where management shuts down all the really important work and instead- requires staff to iterate on 2020 scenarios. Well cost at $10 mm? No! Run it at $9 mm...I think cost...

“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...