American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2019 - 96

ConventionCoverage: The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma

CEOs See Technology As Draw
To Attract The Next Generation

Colin Fenton, chairman of commodities
at Tudor Pickering, Holt & Co., and
keynote luncheon speaker at the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma's fall conference, held Oct. 21-24, predicts oil and
natural gas continue to be crucial factors
in meeting future global energy demand.

vector at our disposal, because the world
needs us," he urged.
Discussing calls by several Democratic
presidential candidates to ban hydraulic
fracturing, Fenton observed stock markets
were taking that rhetoric seriously. He
pointed out the energy sector's share of
the Standard & Poor's 500 now was
below 5%, while market capitalization
of the S&P 500 oil and gas exploration,
drilling and production companies had
dropped below $200 billion, from $400
billion in 2014.
Asset bubbles often inflate market values
beyond their real worth, but they can as artificially deflate them as well, Fenton indicated, adding that it appeared the oil and
gas industry was now in a negative bubble.
"You live in a world where really smart
people make really naïve pronouncements,
like the age of hydrocarbons is over," he
said. "A lawyer or a policymaker with no
scientific training or credentials will say
to a geologist, a geophysicist or an engineer,
'you don't understand science. Oil and
gas are going away forever.' Now, to be
clear: what we saw emerge in 2014-
electric vehicles, driverless cars, ride sharing-all are legitimate disruptive technologies in transportation. It is totally appropriate to build these developments into a
forecast about the future. But belief that
human civilization will abandon hydrogen
and carbon in all economic sectors is a
delusional denial of the most basic scientific facts that we know about the periodic table of elements. That is where we
are today."
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96 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

BRANSON, MO.-Acknowledging
the oil and gas industry faces a host of
economic, political and social challenges,
David D. Le Norman, chairman of the
Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, suggests the next generation of workers
holds the promise of alleviating many
of those hurdles.
Le Norman, founder and managing
partner at Reign Capital Holdings, served
as moderator of a panel of chief executive
officers analyzing the state of the industry
during the Alliance's fall conference.
"Gen-Xers, Millennials and the coming
Gen-Zs are very important to our electoral
process, but they also are hugely important
to the future of our industry," he said.
"They haven't been part of the industry
long enough to actually suffer through a
protracted decline. We need to encourage
them, and not lose these smart people to
other industries."
In a panel discussion examining Oklahoma's legal climate, Shelley Shelby,
director of government affairs at Continental Resources, and Will Houser, land
and agency adviser at Marathon Oil, reported that a murder case could lead to
more than 40% of the state's surface

estate coming under control of the Bureau
of Land Management.
The Next Generation
In response to Le Norman's question
on how Oklahoma's oil and gas community can attract young workers, Tim Haddican, CEO of Red Bluff Resources, observed how operators continued to advance
technology, especially in the use of artificial intelligence.
"The companies trying to implement
AI are very early," he said. "If I was a
young person, I would be super excited
about using AI to make better decisions.
There is a tremendous amount of data
being collected right now with SCADA
systems. We aren't fully utilizing that
data to improve the business. If you are
in a downturn, those things are going to
be driven even faster, because you have
to squeeze dollars to survive."
The future will see tremendous change,
but Chaparral Energy's CEO Earl
Reynolds held that while there was talk
of flying cars and other innovations, fossil
fuels likely would remain the lowestcost fuel option available. Reynolds downplayed the short-range effects of slumping

Tim Haddican (left), chief executive office of Red Bluff Resources, answers a question
during the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma's CEO panel examining the state of the
Oklahoma industry. Joining him on the panel were, from left, Crawley Petroleum's CEO
Kim Hatfield and Earl Reynolds, CEO of Chaparral Energy. David D. Le Norman (right),
chairman of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, served as moderator.

American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2019

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