American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2017 - 105

portunity for smaller players to utilize
the technology that created the shale revolution to produce more lower-gravity
oil from old, higher water-cut type fields.
"You are starting to see this in the
residual oil zone play and the San Andres
formation," Gilmer attests. "I think it
certainly is worth looking at going back
into a lot of these mature fields. If I was
buying production today, I would be
trying to buy production that is in that
sweet spot of 25-40 gravity crude."
Public Education
There are policy as well as business
implications for these paradigm shifts,
Gilmer goes on. "It is no coincidence
that the environmental movement is targeting pipelines," he evaluates.
How industry responds to efforts to
stymie it is one of the things TIPRO will
discuss at its summer policy meeting on
Aug. 9-10 in San Antonio, Gilmer promises. And one key to industry's effort, he
maintains, is simply to tell the truth.
"The coin of the anti-fossil-fuel groups'
realm is an out-and-out lie. There really
is no nice way of putting it; they deal in
lies," Gilmer states. "What we really have
going for us is that we are truth-tellers."
People who have at least partially
based their opinions on anti-fossil-fuel
rhetoric have an emotional response when
they learn they have been misled, Gilmer
holds. "Our job is to gently let people
understand how badly they are lied to on
a daily basis," he says.
Public education is a key focus for
TIPRO, assures President Ed Longanecker.
In support of these efforts, he says
TIPRO this year launched a new "student
leaders in energy" program for undergraduate and graduate students to engage
the next generation of oil and gas workers
with the association.
The intent is to educate students on
the truths versus the myths about oil and
gas. "I know a lot of them have questions
because they are bombarded constantly
by misinformation and other efforts by
the anti-oil-and-gas organizations, or academia, to demonize the oil and gas industry," Longanecker says. "We are trying
to connect these men and women with
accurate information and resources to
help equip them to counter a lot of that
negativity and misinformation, as well
as give them some assurance that this is
a sound and responsible industry that is
worthy of their career paths."
A third component of TIPRO's efforts
to push back is strengthening its activity
in the legal arena, Longanecker notes.
"The TIPRO Board of Directors has
voted in favor of forming a standing
Legal Committee," he reports, adding,

"We always have engaged in lawsuits by
issuing amicus briefs on behalf of our
members or organizations on various issues. We have expanded that."
A couple examples Longanecker cites
are TIPRO's attempt to intervene last
year in environmentalists' lawsuit to force
the Environmental Protection Agency to
reclassify oil and gas waste as hazardous
under the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, and joining other industry
groups in challenging EPA's Subpart
OOOOa New Source Performance Standards for methane.
The purpose of the Legal Committee,

Longanecker says, is to better track, analyze and monitor the next phase of attacks
from environmental activist organizations.
"We know they can't beat us in the Texas
Legislature," he reflects. "And the pendulum has shifted from a regulatory standpoint at the federal level under President
Trump, so they will use the courts to
challenge whatever they can."
Collaborate And Target
Even while TIPRO looks for ways to
strategically expand its efforts, Longanecker
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JULY 2017 105

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