American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017 - 118

World," which will include Thomas Petrie
with Petrie Partners and Roger Biemans
at Vantage Energy Partners, COGA says.
After the keynote luncheon, the association notes, the afternoon's events will
include the session on big data and predictive analytics, with participants Donald
Paul from the University of Southern
California's Energy Institute and Mehrzad
Mahdavi from Weatherford. Another presentation, "Midstream to Markets: Better
Positioning of Natural Gas," will feature
Jim Duncan from ConocoPhillips.
The opening night party, starting at
7:30 p.m. at the Chambers Grant Salon
at Denver's Ellie Caulkins Opera House,
concludes the day.
According to COGA, the first session
on Wednesday, Aug. 23, will be the
"Maximizing Millenials" executive forum.
Joining Sandberg in the panel discussion
will be Audrey Carlson of Liberty Oilfield
Services and Tamara Bray with DCP
Midstream. A fireside chat, "The Progression of Safety: From Process to Culture," will feature Britt Howard from

Ch2m, Mark McGill of Noble Energy,
and Jade Strong with Mergentis.
The keynote luncheon will feature remarks from Norton, COGA says, and
the afternoon sessions will include one
titled "Pipelines: New Battles on Old Issues-Challenges in Developing Large Interstate Pipeline Projects." Later, Trisha
Curtis with PetroNerds will appear in
the midstream to markets session, "Oil
Markets: Out of the Woods?"
Sessions on Thursday, Aug. 24, begin
with an executive forum titled, "LNG:
Enduring Projects & Expanding Markets,"
featuring John Harpole of Mercator Energy
LLC and Gregory M. Vesey from LNGL,
the association reports. The next session,
"Technical Advancements in Environmental Stewardship," is a panel with Bryan
Willson from Colorado State University,
Joseph Lima with Schlumberger, and Erik
Anglund of Anadarko Petroleum.
COGA indicates the convention's final
events will be the business power lunch
followed by the Fifth Annual Rocky
Mountain Oil & Gas Awards presentation,

which begins 6:30 p.m. at Denver's Seawell Grand Ballroom. The speaker lineup
is being updated frequently, Sandberg
indicates, and encourages people to check
theenergysummit.org for final details.
Once again, Sandberg avers, the Energy
Summit will feature exceptional speakers.
"These people do not see these topics
from afar or read about them in papers,"
she describes. "These are the people who
make decisions every day about these issues and lead their companies through
the challenges we will discuss."
Having such high-caliber speakers
also raises the caliber of attendees, Sandberg adds. "If you not only want to hear
from the actual experts who are living
what we are talking about, but also want
to meet your peers and those from whom
you really learn and with whom you
would like to form beneficial, long-lasting
relationships, come to the Energy Summit," she recommends. "It attracts the
right people, right topics and right atmosphere for pushing one's career a step
forward."
r

IOGAWV Meeting Highlights Tech Side
SPENCER, W.V.-The Greenbrier Resort's owner will be at the Independent
Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia's
summer convention, and the association
is eager to hear his plans for the state.
IOGAVW President Scott Freshwater
says Governor Jim Justice, the Democrat
who captured the governor's office while
owning the resort, is scheduled to participate in the meeting, which will be held
Aug. 6-8 at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.V., the same venue for
the meeting for the past several years.
"Governor Justice will talk about the
oil and gas issues that we see in West
Virginia," says Freshwater, vice president
of Reserve Oil & Gas Inc. in Spencer.
"IOGAWV expects a good crowd at the
summer meeting. The past few years, we
have tried to make sure that the meeting
is very informative for the members. The
association has everyone together, and it
will use the meeting for strategic planning,
updates and education. That is something
the association has really pushed over
the past several years."
Benjamin Sullivan, vice president and
chairman of IOGAWV's Program Committee, says he expects attendance to be
slightly better than last year's meeting.
"It does help having the meeting at
the Greenbrier. It is really beautiful,"
Sullivan, general counsel and vice president of land for the Energy Corporation
of America, applauds. "Governor Justice

spoke at last year's summer meeting as
the resort's owner. We expect him to
speak to our membership during the meeting, and we are working on a private
lunch meeting with him and a number of
chief executive officers."

Legislative Plans
IOGAWV has its 2018 legislative
agenda nearly ready for release to the
public, Freshwater reveals, with pooling
and co-tenancy the next session's top
legislative concerns. He reports the oil
and gas industry is seeing positive signs
on the legislative, judicial and industry
fronts, leading to increasing amounts of
optimism that the latest market down
cycle could be coming to a close.
"Right now, the lack of pooling regulations are a detriment to companies coming to West Virginia," he assesses. "Passage of pooling legislation would allow
for more efficient development. We think
that would put the producers that are
here, as well as producers that want to
come to the state, on par with all the surrounding states. There are three states in
the country that do not have some form
of pooling: West Virginia is one related
to the Marcellus Shale formation."
However, he noted as of mid-June,
the state had not approved a revenue
plan or a budget. The House and Senate
had each passed a revenue plan, but he
points to huge discrepancies between the

118 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

two. Freshwater says one bit of positive
news for the oil and gas community was
that neither plan sought to extract additional revenues from the industry.
Freshwater points to federal legislation
as another reason for optimism. He says
West Virginia Senators Joe Manchin and
Shelley Moore Capito have proposed the
Capitalizing American Storage Potential
Act. He describes the legislation as authorizing a feasibility study on establishing
an ethane storage hub in the Appalachian
Basin, using federal loans.
According to an American Chemistry
Council study, the facility would create
more than 100,000 permanent jobs by
2025 in West Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Kentucky, in addition to more
than $2.9 billion in federal, state and
local tax revenues.
Sullivan adds that two May decisions
by the West Virginia Supreme Court of
Appeals also represent good news for
operators, with the court ruling in Patrick
Leggett et al v. EQT Production Company
determining that operators are allowed
to deduct reasonable post-production expenses from flat rate conversion wells.
Additionally, he says, the court determined
in its Gastar Exploration v. Contraguerro
decision that approval from nonparticipating and nonexecutory royalty owners
for forming drilling pools and units under
existing leases is not required.

http://www.theenergysummit.org

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017

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