Latest / Silicon & Shale Podcast / Who’s on the Hook: A 2030 Pipe, a Take-or-Pay Hyperscaler, and the Autonomy Ladder

Transcript

Who’s on the Hook: A 2030 Pipe, a Take-or-Pay Hyperscaler, and the Autonomy Ladder · Silicon & Shale Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I read a dating profile this week.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: No name, no photo, no hometown.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: Just one line at the top.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: A rated hyperscaler.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: That's not a dating profile.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: That's a credit rating wearing a nice shirt.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a dating profile.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Kinder Morgan, October 21st.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Their NGPL pipeline takes a final investment decision on a project called Permian Link.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: About $4.2 billion.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: About 2.8 billion cubic feet a day.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: About 434 miles of new pipe.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: And who's it for?
0:26
SPEAKER_01: New power generation for an A-rated hyperscaler.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole bio.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't like long walks on the beach.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Likes long-term take-or-pay transportation agreements.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Which, honestly, is the most attractive thing you can put in a midstream bio.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: That's the part I keep coming back to.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: They didn't say they're exploring.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: They didn't say memorandum of understanding.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: They said final investment decision and take-or-pay.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll be the one who still kind of likes it.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: That's a company putting its own money down because a customer agreed to pay for
0:52
SPEAKER_00: the space, whether they use it or not.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: And here's the small print I want you to hang on to.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: In service, third quarter of 2030.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Subject to the timely receipt of all required permits and approvals.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: 2030.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: Write that on your hand.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: 2030.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: We're going to come back to it.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm not writing on my hand.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm writing it on the sticky note from last week.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: The one that says vertically integrated AI utility.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: There's room on the back.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the shape of the whole week.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Last month, the conversation was, did they sign anything?
1:19
SPEAKER_01: This week, somebody signed something real with a date four years out.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: So the question changed.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: It's not, is it real anymore?
1:26
SPEAKER_01: It's who's on the hook if it's late, and who's holding the override switch when something trips.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Who pays and who's in control?
1:32
SPEAKER_01: That's the episode.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Silicon & Shale, where the oil patch meets the algorithm.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: This is episode 21, for the week of October 26th, 2026.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm Packer.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Derek.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Straight, no dating profile.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Straight.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America, NGPL,
2:09
SPEAKER_01: which Kinder Morgan operates and owns a piece of,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: reached final investment decision on Permian Link, about $4.2 billion total.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Kinder Morgan's share is about $1.6 billion,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: about 2.8 BCF a day of capacity,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: about 434 miles of new pipeline plus compression, metering, and interconnects.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: It serves new power generation for an A-rated hyperscaler and it's backed
2:28
SPEAKER_01: by long-term take-or-pay transportation agreements.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And the route?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Reuters reported on the 21st that it runs from the Permian near Pecos County,
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Texas, up to NGPL's MidContinent system.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: And Reuters says executives told the call that other customers beyond
2:41
SPEAKER_01: the Anchor hyperscaler have shown interest.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So the MidCon gets a fat new straw from the Permian.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: That's the plumbing.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't alone in the release.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Southern Natural Gas,
2:50
SPEAKER_01: also kinder,
2:51
SPEAKER_01: has the Southeast connector,
2:52
SPEAKER_01: up to about 2.6 BCF a day, and Reuters puts it at about 470 miles.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Phase start beginning fourth quarter 2030.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And Kinder says its expansion backlog rose to $14.4 billion,
3:04
SPEAKER_01: including a record $13.2 billion of natural gas projects.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: 2.8 BCF a day on paper.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: And zero molecules until 2030.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: That's the steel side.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Today what's ordered is a decision.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Nothing's in the ground.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: But here's where I push.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Every pipe on Earth was a decision before it was in the ground.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: You're making it sound like FID is a press release.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: FID is the board saying, spend the money.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's fake.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying it's four years from a molecule.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Let me count it for you.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Third quarter 2030.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: From this Friday, that's roughly 200 rig count Fridays.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: 15 or 16 more Kinder Morgan earnings calls.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: At least one full federal permit cycle plus whatever the states want.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: A kid who's in eighth grade right now gets a driver's license and maybe a truck
3:45
SPEAKER_01: before that pipe flows.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of Fridays.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of Fridays.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And none of that makes it a bad project.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: It makes it a long one.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Fine.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: But the take-or-pay part matters more than the calendar.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: If the hyperscaler changes its mind in 2028, Kinder doesn't eat the empty pipe.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: The shipper pays for the space either way.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole point of the contract.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: That's true for the pipe.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Is it true for the power plant the gas is going to?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: The plant's not named.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: The site's not named.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: The customer's not named.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Right, so what's on the hook is clear for one link of the chain.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: The pipe company is protected.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Everything downstream of the meter we can't see.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you that.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: But I still say it's the most real thing this year in gas for AI.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Somebody poured money, not just ink.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Poured a decision.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: The money pours over four years.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: You're impossible.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm a calendar.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the thing that should have moved and didn't.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: The rig count.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: And before we do it, I owe you a confession.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, good.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: For about a year,
4:35
SPEAKER_01: I've assumed that all this new data center gas demand would show up in the rig count
4:39
SPEAKER_01: by now.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: Some kind of bump, at least in gas rigs.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: I was wrong on timing.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: The quiet part is you wanted it to be true because it would make the story tidy.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the quiet part.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the numbers.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: Baker Hughes, weekend at October 23rd.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: The U.S. count held at 603, flat for a second straight week.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: A year ago, it was 550.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Oil rigs up 1 to 460.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: Gas rigs down 1 to 132.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Gas went down.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: In the week of a 2.8 BCF pipe for an AI customer.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: By one rig,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Permian flat at 272 against 250 a year ago,
5:12
SPEAKER_01: Eagle Ford up 2 to 51,
5:14
SPEAKER_01: Haynesville flat at 56, New Mexico up 2 to 98, Texas down 1 to 277.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: So the Haynesville,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: which is the gas basin everybody points at for Gulf Coast power, didn't move.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Didn't move, and the service companies told you why they don't expect it to.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Halliburton October 20th,
5:29
SPEAKER_01: third quarter revenue $5.7 billion,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: flat with the second quarter, adjusted earnings 60 cents a share.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And the outlook?
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Jeff Miller, the CEO, gave an early look at 2027.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Mid-single-digit revenue growth, operating margins of about 15%.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: And here's the line.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: It assumes a flat North America market and does not require any recovery
5:47
SPEAKER_01: in North America hydraulic fracturing.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: To us, that recovery is purely upside.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Purely upside?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: That's a company telling you, in writing, not to wait for it.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And one serious note.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Halliburton's outlook sits against
5:58
SPEAKER_01: the wider global supply disruption that's been hitting markets this year.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: That's real and it's hurting people and we're not going to riff on it.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: So, the honest read.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: A hyperscaler signs a take or pay pipe,
6:08
SPEAKER_01: the rig count shrugs,
6:09
SPEAKER_01: and one of the biggest frack companies in North America plans for flat.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Which I'd argue is completely consistent.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Nobody drills for gas that ships in 2030.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: You drill for the strip in front of you.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: The demand is on a different calendar than the drill bit.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: But I'll push on the other half of your confession.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: You said you were wrong on timing.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: I think you might be wrong on mechanism, too.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Go on.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: The Permian is mostly oil wells that happen to make a lot of gas.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Associated gas.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: If somebody needs more Permian gas in 2030, a lot of it shows up because oil rigs keep running.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Not because anybody adds a gas rig.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: So the gas rig count might be the wrong place to look for this at all.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: That's a real point.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: The pipe doesn't need a gas rig.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: It needs oil economics to hold and take away to exist.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So the signal you wanted may never show up as a gas rig in the Permian.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: If it shows up anywhere first, maybe it's in a basin where people drill for gas on purpose.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Which is the Haynesville, which was flat at 56.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Which was flat at 56.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: So, nothing yet.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: But at least now we know which number to watch.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: I'll take the correction.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Wrong on timing, maybe wrong on mechanism.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Two for one.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Which is a pun-adjacent sentence, and I'll let it go.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a pun.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: It was a drill bit of a pun.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Oof.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the one.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: We graded it.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a D. Moving on and never coming back.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Fair.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Now the story that, for me, is the hook of the whole episode.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Louisiana.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Ten gas plants.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: One data center.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be really careful here because this is one side's argument.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: What we're reading is a commentary by Paul Arbaje of the Union
7:29
SPEAKER_01: of Concerned Scientists, which is an advocacy group that opposes this plan, see.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: The Lens in New Orleans republished it on October 22nd.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Everything I say next is what UCS says.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Understood.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Go.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: According to UCS,
7:40
SPEAKER_01: Energy Louisiana already won approval for three gas plants for the first phase
7:43
SPEAKER_01: of Meta's Hyperion data center in Richland Parish.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: It's applied for seven more under the state's fast-track process.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: At 754 megawatts each, UCS says 10 plants total about 7.54 gigawatts.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: The final vote at the Louisiana Public Service Commission is set for December.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And the money question?
8:00
SPEAKER_01: UCS cites Entergy's own estimate that about $13.6 billion
8:03
SPEAKER_01: of new generation capital would be about 75% paid down at the end
8:06
SPEAKER_01: of Meta's 20-year supply contract,
8:09
SPEAKER_01: which by UCS's math leaves about $3.4 billion for other customers.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: The tail.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: The tail.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: And there's a court piece.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: Earthjustice,
8:16
SPEAKER_01: representing UCS and the Alliance for Affordable Energy,
8:19
SPEAKER_01: appealed in late September to a state district court in Baton Rouge.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: That was after commissioners voted 3-0 to deny a subpoena for Meta's documents
8:26
SPEAKER_01: on investment, jobs, and electricity demand.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have Entergy's or Meta's side in this source?
8:30
SPEAKER_01: We don't, so we're not going to characterize it.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: This is one party's argument in front of a judge.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's ruled.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So here's why you said it's the hook.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Put it next to Permian Link.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: Kinder's pipe is take or pay.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: If the customer walks, the customer still pays for the capacity.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: The bill sits with the shipper.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: In Louisiana,
8:48
SPEAKER_01: the argument UCS is making is that with a regulated utility plant,
8:51
SPEAKER_01: the leftover cost after the contract can land on ratepayers.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Same customer type.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Different contract.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Different person on the hook.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Same AI appetite.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: One structure puts the risk on the buyer.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: The other, according to the people suing, can put the tail on everybody else.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I'll disagree a little.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: You're making take or pay sound like a magic shield.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: It's only as good as the counterparty.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: A rated is doing a lot of work in that dating profile.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: And A-rated today is a rating, not a promise, in 2040.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: So the shield's real, but somebody still has to stay solvent for 20 years.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'd add one more thing on Louisiana because it's easy to turn this
9:25
SPEAKER_01: into good guys and bad guys.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: We're not doing that.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: A utility building plans for a big new customer is not a scandal by itself.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: Utilities build for load.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: That's the job.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: The question is the shape of the deal.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: The question is the shape of the deal.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: UCS's argument is that the fast-track process and the private documents make it hard
9:42
SPEAKER_01: for anyone else to check the shape.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: That's the argument going to court.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Whether a judge agrees is a different question, and we'll read the ruling when there is one.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And the vote's in December.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: The vote's in December, per UCS, so this one's on a much shorter clock than the pipe.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of the funny thing about this week.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: The pipe with the clean contract is four years out.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: The fight about the messy contract gets decided before New Year's.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: The slow one has the clear bill, the fast one has the argument.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: 20 years.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: Count that one.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: No.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: One calendar per segment.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Fair.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: That's the EMP block.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: AI block.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And we start with a service company,
10:14
SPEAKER_00: because that's where the AI money is actually showing up on an income statement.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: SLB.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: SLB.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Third quarter, October 23rd.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Revenue $9.45 billion, up 5% sequentially and 6% year-on-year.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Fine.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Not the story.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: The story is a line item called Data Center Solutions.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: The business where SLB builds stuff for data centers.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: $230 million of revenue in the quarter.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Up 23% sequentially.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Up 76% year-on-year.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And they say it's expanding into Asia.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: And digital.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Digital revenue was $693 million, essentially flat sequentially.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Digital annual recurring revenue, $1.04 billion, up 13% year-on-year.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: So the business of selling AI and software to the oil patch grew slower than
10:56
SPEAKER_01: the business of building rooms for other people's AI.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the headline I'd write.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: The data center line is still a third the size of digital,
11:02
SPEAKER_00: but it's the one with the steep slope.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: And the CEO.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Olivier Lepouche said,
11:06
SPEAKER_00: quote, AI is driving unprecedented investment in data center infrastructure.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And they pointed back to their previously announced Kelvion acquisition.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Which verb landed this week though?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Driving unprecedented investment is a mood.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Reported.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: The verb is reported.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: 230 million is booked revenue in a quarter.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: That's not a partnership.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: That's a number on an earnings release.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that one counts.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And the drilling side?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: More than 750,000 feet of automated drilling in the quarter.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Up nearly 50% year on year.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Out of how many total feet?
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: In what we have.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So we don't know if that's a big slice or a small one.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: And we don't know how much
11:40
SPEAKER_01: of digital is actually AI versus software that's been around for 15 years with
11:43
SPEAKER_01: a new label.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Also true.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: SLB doesn't break that out.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll say this, though.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: If you remember EP20, we talked about drill plan.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: This is the other end of that.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Planning tools upstream, and then automated footage actually getting drilled.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: Footage is steel.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: I like footage.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: You like anything with a unit.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: I like anything you can't put in a slide without measuring first.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Here's my disagreement with you, though.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: I think the data center line at SLB is the most important AI number
12:08
SPEAKER_00: in oil field services this quarter, and you're going to tell me it's a distraction?
12:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to tell you it's a hedge.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: SLB is saying,
12:15
SPEAKER_01: in effect,
12:15
SPEAKER_01: the AI boom is going to buy equipment from somebody, and it might as well be us.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: That's smart, but it's not the oil patch using AI.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: It's the oil patch's supplier selling to AI.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Which is still money coming into this industry because of AI.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: It is, but a mineral owner in Reeves County doesn't get a royalty on a cooling skid in Asia.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: No.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: But the same company that drills their well has a growing reason to understand power
12:35
SPEAKER_00: and heat at a data center.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And that knowledge comes back.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: You're betting on a crossover.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying the quarter shows two businesses on two slopes.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: 76% is a slope.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: On a base of $230 million, digital is a billion-dollar run rate growing 13.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: Ask me again in four quarters.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: I'll put it on the calendar.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Can I say the thing I actually like about the SLB quarter?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Please.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: You've been grumpy for six minutes.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: The automated footage.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: 750,000 feet, up nearly 50%.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: That's not a pilot.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: That's not a demo rig in a parking lot.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: That's footage in the ground drilled with automation in one quarter.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the share of total,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: and I want to, but a number in feet is the number I can picture.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: So you'd trade me the data center line for the footage line?
13:15
SPEAKER_01: In a heartbeat.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: The data center line tells me where SLB thinks the money is.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: The footage line tells me what the rigs are actually doing.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And it connects to the ladder story, honestly.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Automated drilling is already a ladder.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Somebody decided which parts of the well the system gets to run and when
13:30
SPEAKER_00: the driller takes it back.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: Which is the part nobody puts in a press release.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Who took it back and how often?
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Don't.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: We're out of calendar jokes for this block.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Then let's go to the one I actually want to fight about.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Roam AI.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: The latter.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: The latter.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a press release, so everything here is the company's claim.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: October 20th, out of Oklahoma City.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Roam AI announced the commercial release of the Roam AI technology platform.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: It's built natively on AWS.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And it has three layers.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Go.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: An enterprise app factory.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: For apps, dashboards, workflows, alerts, and co-pilots.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: A data foundation for governed data and an edge platform
14:04
SPEAKER_00: that connects field equipment
14:05
SPEAKER_00: and their words automates approved equipment adjustments.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Approved by who?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the good part.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: They pitch it against what they call shadow AI,
14:13
SPEAKER_00: which is everyone in the company running their own unapproved tools,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: and then they lay out a ladder.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Operators begin with read-only surveillance,
14:20
SPEAKER_00: progress to approved remote control,
14:22
SPEAKER_00: and deploy autonomous control on wells that have demonstrated stability.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Three rungs.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Three rungs.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And each step,
14:28
SPEAKER_00: they say,
14:28
SPEAKER_00: is a joint decision by operations, IT,
14:30
SPEAKER_00: and OT, with customer-approved operating limits, safeguards, and operator override.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: It pairs with their autonomous ESP optimization, chemical management, and well site monitoring.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Which verb landed?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Released.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Commercially released.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the verb.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Not deployed at 40 wells.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Not cut failures by X.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: No.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: No named customers.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: No well counts.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: No performance results in the release.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's where I'll be the skeptic.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Every vendor has a maturity model.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: It's a slide.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: It goes from crawl to walk to run.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Is this ladder governance or is it marketing?
15:00
SPEAKER_00: I think it's governance written down by a vendor,
15:02
SPEAKER_00: which is still better than governance nobody wrote down.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: That's a low bar.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: It's the bar the field actually has.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Most automation I've seen gets turned on by one engineer on a Thursday because
15:11
SPEAKER_00: the alarms were annoying him.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: There's no ladder.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: There's always a guy.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: So a vendor saying, out loud...
15:18
SPEAKER_00: You don't go autonomous until the well has demonstrated stability
15:20
SPEAKER_00: and three groups sign off and there's an override.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: That's a standard somebody can now be held to.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Or a standard they can point to after something goes wrong.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, the customer approved the limits.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Which is also what a standard is for.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Somebody approved it.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the answer to who's on the hook.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: It's both.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: It's governance and it's marketing.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: My question is whether anyone climbs it or whether everybody stays
15:41
SPEAKER_01: on red only forever because nobody wants to sign the second rung.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And Brandon Brown, the CEO, basically answers that with his line.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Start with one high-value problem, prove the outcome, and scale what works.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: That's a good line.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I'd be embarrassed if it were mine because it's too good for a press release.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is the same idea we did in F18.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: The set point, off, manual, auto.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Except Rome AI made it the whole product pitch.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'll ask you.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Your own well, your own ESP.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Which rung would you let this thing run on overnight?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Honestly?
16:10
SPEAKER_01: Honestly.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Read only.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: The first month.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: That's a reluctant yes.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a yes with a leash.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: What about you?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Second wrong.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I'd let it propose and let a person approve.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: The reason isn't that I don't trust the math.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: It's that when it trips at two in the morning, I want a name in the log next to the change.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole thing for me.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: A name in the log.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: A name in the log, which is a good place to stop the AI block.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Collision zone.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Where an EMP problem runs into an AI capability and one of them blinks.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: So lay the three stories on the table together.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Story one.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: A hyperscaler signs take or pay for gas that won't flow until 2030.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Story three.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Louisiana is in court arguing over who pays the tail on plants built for one data center.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Story 5, the well site is being asked to climb from red only to autonomous.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And the threat is?
17:10
SPEAKER_01: The AI customer has zero tolerance for an outage.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: A data center doesn't want to hear that a compressor tripped in Pecos County.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: So that reliability expectation travels all the way up the chain,
17:19
SPEAKER_01: power plant, pipe,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: compression,
17:21
SPEAKER_01: gathering, and eventually an ESP on a well somebody's cousin owns a royalty in.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: And at every link, somebody's contract decides who eats the miss.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: That's the E&P problem.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Reliability gets pushed upstream and liability gets sorted by paperwork.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And the AI capability is the latter.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: The AI capability is governed autonomy with an explicit ladder and
17:39
SPEAKER_01: a logged override,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: so that when somebody asks,
17:41
SPEAKER_01: who was in control when it tripped,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: there's an actual answer,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: not a shrug, not the system, a rung, a set of limits, a name, and a timestamp.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I want to push on that.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: You're saying the answer to a 40-year infrastructure question is a log file?
17:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying the log file is the part of the answer the field controls.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: You don't control the take-or-pay contract.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: You don't control the Louisiana Commission.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: You do control whether you can prove what your well was doing at 2 in the morning.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: But who's asking?
18:05
SPEAKER_00: The data center isn't going to call the pumper.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Not directly, but think about the chain.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: The power plant has a gas supply agreement.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: The marketer behind that has supply from producers.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: If the plant misses, somebody in that chain is going to ask why.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: And the first time a big buyer's diligence team asks a producer,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: show me your uptime and your control history.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: You either have it or you don't.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's my real objection.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I think you're overselling how much of this reaches a single well.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: 2.8 BCF a day is fed by thousands of wells.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: No single ESP is going to strand a hyperscaler.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: No one well matters.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: The pattern matters.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: If a gathering system has a habit of tripping when it gets hot, that's a pattern.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: And patterns show up in contracts.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: So you think buyers start pricing reliability at the wellhead?
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I think they start asking about it.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Pricing comes later.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: And here's my count of the calendar for that.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: You promised.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: One more.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: It's the collision zone.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Third quarter 2030.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: That's four summers of peak power demand before first gas.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Four hurricane seasons.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Probably two or three full-rate cases somewhere in the Gulf South.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Enough time for a producer to go from read-only to a ladder that actually has
19:05
SPEAKER_01: a history behind it.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not cynical.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: That's a runway.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a runway.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Nobody gets surprised by 2030 unless they want to be.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Then let me do the other side of the disagreement.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I think the Louisiana fight tells you something bad about the ladder idea.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Look what happened there, according to UCS.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Commissioners voted not to subpoena the documents.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: So the information about who's on the hook stayed private.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: That's what UCS argues, yes.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So if the big players can keep the contract terms private,
19:30
SPEAKER_00: why would the small players override log matter?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: The bill gets decided in rooms the log never goes into.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: That's a good point, and I don't have a full answer, but I'd flip it.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: The less you can see about the contract above you,
19:40
SPEAKER_01: the more you want your own records to be clean.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: You can't control who's on the hook upstream.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: You can make sure you're not the easy person to blame.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Defense, not offense.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, this is where the Louisiana story and the ladder story are the same story.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: In Louisiana, the fight is about whether anybody outside the deal gets to see the documents.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: On the well site, the ladder is a promise that the documents exist.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: The rung, the limits, the override.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I'll take that partway.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: I still think the real power is in the contracts,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: and logs are housekeeping.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and here's where I'll ask you the personal one.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Would you let it touch yours?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Forget the ESP.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Say you own a small gathering system and somebody offers you a premium contract
20:27
SPEAKER_00: to deliver into a data center power plant,
20:29
SPEAKER_00: but it comes with uptime requirements and autonomous control on your compression.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: Would I let the autonomy run the compressors to hit the uptime number?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, a partial yes.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: I'd let it run inside tight limits during normal operation because
20:42
SPEAKER_01: a machine responding in seconds beats a person driving out at night.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: But I'd want a hard rule.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Any change outside the band wakes up a human and every override gets logged.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'd read the penalty clause twice before I signed.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: So you'd climb the ladder for the premium?
20:55
SPEAKER_01: For the premium with the leash, which is the same answer you gave for the ESP.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: We're more alike than the show lets on.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't tell anybody.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And now the dating profile.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Remember the top of the show.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: A-rated hyperscaler.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: The whole reason that bio works is that the rating is the only thing anybody needs to know.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Nobody needs the name because take or pay plus an A rating means the pipe gets paid.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: The bio is a credit statement, and that's exactly what the field doesn't have yet.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: There's no rating for this Wells Automation is trustworthy.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: There's no A-rated compressor station.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: So the autonomy ladder is the field's attempt at a bio.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: It's the field writing its own dating profile.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Read only for six months,
21:29
SPEAKER_01: approved remote control since spring,
21:31
SPEAKER_01: autonomous on stable wells with a logged override.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: That's a profile a buyer can read.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: That's actually good.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: I'd swipe on that.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Please don't say swipe on a pipeline podcast.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Too late.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: That's the collision zone.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Field report and build list.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Practical stuff.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Title for this one is read the contract, not the capacity number.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Because every headline this week led with a capacity number,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: 2.8 BCF,
21:53
SPEAKER_01: 7.54 GW by UCS's math,
21:56
SPEAKER_01: 230 million, and the capacity number is the least useful thing in the release.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: So, three questions.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Three questions for any AI power or pipe headline.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: First, is it a final investment decision or a memorandum of understanding?
22:08
SPEAKER_01: FID means a board said spend, and MOU means two companies said they'd keep talking.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Second.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Is it take or pay, or is it subject to customer commitments?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Take or pay means somebody's already on the hook for the capacity.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Subject to commitments means they're still shopping for somebody to be on the hook.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: And third, what's the in-service date and who pays if it slips?
22:27
SPEAKER_01: PermianLink says third quarter, 2030, subject to permits and approvals.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Now ask who carries the cost if it's 2031.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Usually the release doesn't say, that's your homework.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Give me a worked example.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: A headline lands Monday morning.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: What do I do with it?
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Say the headline reads,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Midstream Company and AI Developer Partner on Gas Supply for New Data Center Campus.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: First thing, which verb?
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Partner.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: That's not effed.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Second, search the release for take or pay or firm transportation.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: If it's not there, nobody's on the hook yet.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Third, search for a date.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: If the only date is the date of the press release, that's your answer.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: So most headlines fail at step one.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Most headlines fail at step one, and that's fine.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: A partnership can become a pipe.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: It just isn't one yet.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Permian Link passes all three.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: It's FID, it's take or pay, and it has a date.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: That's why we led with it.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: And the date has a condition attached.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: The date always has a condition attached.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Subject to the timely receipt of all required permits and approvals.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Read that phrase like the fine print on a rental car.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: It's not hiding anything.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: It's telling you exactly where the delay would come from.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: If you're a landman, the first question matters early, right?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: A pipe that's FID'd is going to come looking for right-of-way.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: And FID'd pipe is a pipe that's going to need easements and it's going to need them
23:36
SPEAKER_01: on a schedule.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: If you're in that corridor and FID headline is the start of a conversation,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: not the end of one, and MoU, maybe not.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And mineral owners?
23:44
SPEAKER_01: For mineral owners,
23:45
SPEAKER_01: the honest thing is that a new pipe out of the Permian is about takeaway,
23:48
SPEAKER_01: and takeaway can matter for local gas prices.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: But we're not going to tell you what it does to your check.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows yet, and it's four years out.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Build list.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: What should somebody actually build?
23:59
SPEAKER_01: An autonomy ladder log.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: For every automated loop you run, an ESP, a chemical pump, a choke, you keep one record.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: What rung is it on right now?
24:07
SPEAKER_01: Read-only, approved remote, or autonomous?
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Who approved that rung, and when?
24:11
SPEAKER_01: What the operating limits are?
24:13
SPEAKER_01: And every override event, with a timestamp and the name of the person.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: That's a spreadsheet.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: It can start as a spreadsheet.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need a platform.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: It needs discipline.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And if you want it to be more than a spreadsheet,
24:24
SPEAKER_00: that's where a platform like the one Roam AI is selling would plug in.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: But the log matters more than the brand.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Whoever's tools you use, the record should be yours.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And the one actionable item?
24:33
SPEAKER_01: If you produce into gas that might end up serving data center power,
24:36
SPEAKER_01: and in the Permian that's starting to be a lot of people,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: start keeping uptime and override records now.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Not in 2029.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Now.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: Because the buyer's diligence is going to ask for them,
24:45
SPEAKER_01: and history is the one thing you can't create the week before somebody asks.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: You can't backfill a log.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: You can, but you shouldn't, and an auditor can usually tell.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: What goes in the uptime record practically?
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Because people hear uptime and think they need a data scientist.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: You don't.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Start with what you already have.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Downtime events with a start time, an end time, and a reason code.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Was it a trip, a planned shut-in, a power outage, a third-party constraint?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Then, for anything automated,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: what the automation did in the hour before the event,
25:11
SPEAKER_01: did it change a set point, did somebody override it?
25:14
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: A year of that is worth more than any slide deck.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And reason codes that a human can read.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Reason codes a human can read.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Other is not a reason code.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Other is a confession.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And one more for the field.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Talk to your crews about the ladder before you climb it.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: The person most likely to catch a bad autonomous change is the pumper who knows what
25:30
SPEAKER_00: that well sounds like on a normal day.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: That's the best line in the segment, and you got it.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll take it.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: And if you want help with any of this,
25:37
SPEAKER_01: building the log,
25:38
SPEAKER_01: reading the contract,
25:39
SPEAKER_01: figuring out which rung your loops belong on, that's what we do.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: You can reach us at siliconandshale at gmail.com.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: We work with operators,
25:46
SPEAKER_01: landmen,
25:46
SPEAKER_01: and mineral owners on exactly this kind of problem,
25:49
SPEAKER_01: where the oil patch meets the algorithm.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Siliconandshale at gmail.com.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, messiest artifact of the week.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: We rate these in units of unreturned easement letters.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: One letter means mildly confusing.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Five letters means somebody's going to need a title opinion.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: First nominee.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: A-rated hyperscaler.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: A customer described only by their credit rating.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Two unreturned letters.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: It's clean, it's honest, and it tells you nothing about where the power plant is.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: You'll need to call somebody.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Second nominee.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Purely upside.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Halliburton's word for a frack recovery they've decided not to count on.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: One letter.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: That's the most honest phrase of the week dressed up as optimism.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: I respect it.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Third nominee.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Shadow AI from the Roam AI release.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Four unreturned letters.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Every company has it, nobody admits it.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And naming it in a press release is the oil field equivalent of saying there's
26:35
SPEAKER_01: a ghost in the doghouse and then selling a ghost trap.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: So a shadow AI wins?
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Shadow AI wins.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: It gets the title opinion.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Before we go,
26:43
SPEAKER_00: if somebody wants to sponsor this show,
26:45
SPEAKER_00: if you sell into the oil patch or the AI side of it and you want to reach
26:47
SPEAKER_00: the people actually running wells,
26:49
SPEAKER_00: pipes, and data rooms, write us at siliconandshale at gmail.com.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: We'll keep it honest and we'll keep it short.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: And one small ask.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: If this helped you read past a capacity number,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: a rating,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: or a quick review wherever you listen helps other folks in the patch find us.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole ask.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Next week there'll be another rig count.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: That's one down about 199 to go before that pipe flows.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Somebody has to count them.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: And to the A-rated hyperscaler, we still don't know your name.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Packer already wrote it on the sticky note anyway.