Latest / Under Pressure: Compressor Talk / Navigating the Complexities of Oil and Gas with John Jordan

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Navigating the Complexities of Oil and Gas with John Jordan · Under Pressure: Compressor Talk

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is David Abshire with the Under Pressure Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This afternoon, we've got John Jordan with us.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: John, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me, David.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, John, you've been fascinated by earth science since you were young, but it was a geology class in college that really hooked you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: What was it about geology that made you think this is what I want to pursue?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I always had a kind of a fascination for nature and understanding how the earth worked growing up.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And once I got into college and you meander your way through figuring out what you want to do with yourself, you know, I can't remember I ended up taking a geology course and just fell in love with the concepts, the understandings, you know, it really was presenting the ins and outs of kind of how everything worked.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And tried to envision what that could look like for a career, and ultimately chose the path of oil and gas.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you've entered the industry in the late 90s when oil was around$10 a barrel, natural gas was under a dollar.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was it like trying to build an oil and gas sphere in a market that difficult?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was definitely a challenge.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was no longer the boom of the 70s and 80s, and the market, you know, the whole industry had shifted.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we were also kind of on the cusp of you know, moving into the unconventional resource world.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it started to provide great opportunity, but right out of school, it was the jobs were few and far between.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was something I knew I was already passionate about.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to get into the industry, wanted to really work within the oil and gas sector.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, just at least my first job uh, you know, out of school, I managed to latch on with a research company.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, you know, it was not not a far stretch from what I was doing in school.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as the as the industry started maturing a little bit on the unconventional resource side, within a matter of a couple years, I was able to latch on with an operator, and I've been with operators for the majority of my career.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you started you started out focused on the subsurface, understanding the rock, evaluating reservoirs, and deciding where to drill.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: How did that technical foundation shape the way you approach bigger operational and business decisions in your career?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great lead in.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's one thing to leverage your expertise.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and mine was obviously on the subsurface, and you understand the resource, and you know, you you ultimately the the like the the final answer there is where are we going to put a dot on a map to go drill a well?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, that's that's only the the the basic foundation of it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: You you then have to understand all the other facets of the business, the land, the regulatory, the operation side, production side, to actually make that come to fruition.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: But just the the ability to understand the subsurface well enough to say, hey, look, this is a prime location to ultimately drill a well with some expectation, and then realize that expectation once the once the uh well is drilled was just absolutely fascinating.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I love it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So as you moved into management, you realized that putting a dot on the map doesn't mean a well can actually be drilled.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: What did that transition teach you about bringing land, legal, regulatory drilling, and facilities all together under one umbrella?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: It it it truly is a team effort.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I it seems like a a really almost corny catchphrase within corporate America, everything is team focused.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is drilling an individual well in the oil and gas business takes so many different disciplines that without that team effort, there is no success.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: One one little glit, one glitch in you know, the overall system or one discipline or one delay across the board.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like anybody's out there trying to do the wrong things.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just there's so many moving parts uh to ultimately make it a successful endeavor.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, I completely agree.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think the folks that have never been in the industry and see all the different moving pieces, they don't understand from the beginning to the end what it takes to get that well online.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it is a team effort and definitely, definitely a big effort uh to make it happen because anymore uh I think about the smaller companies all the way to the larger operators, what it takes to make that happen.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a process.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And people right now they'll drive out to a location and and see something running and they think, oh, this is this wasn't don't look like it was very much work to probably get this going.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, no, it was, it was Yeah, it's you know, when you you think about it, you know, maybe not some of the largest operators in the country, but look, you know, mid-sized operators, you can imagine an asset team that's got well over, you know, two, three hundred people and then field staff and operators that are touching well heads every day on top of that.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it it's an enormous amount of people, energy, and effort to actually make these things work.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you describe getting a well drilled as a life of compromise when you're trying to deliver a program of perhaps 150 wells in a year, how do you decide where people can bend without breaking?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, uh it a lot of it is relationship driven.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, because I was I had been in in a position throughout a a large chunk of my career on making that exactly happen.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Your initial approach is from the technical side, subsurface side, but you've gotta understand the nuances of all these other disciplines, you've got to understand what their pain points are and what that means to the individual.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not only the discipline, but it's the person.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can say, hey, look, I'm dealing with a landman who's super optimistic and he's gonna get it done by two o'clock this afternoon, you talk to his counterpart and he's like, This is gonna be two months out.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's the real answer?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna bend, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you how do you manage that situation?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're you know in the collective of attempting to drill the well and you're dealing with call it 20 different disciplines, everybody has their own personality, everybody has their own comfort in reaching the the inline.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to then really dial the person, their perception of the effort and the ultimate goal of the overall team to then push everybody a little bit, you know, push and pull.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a constant push and pull.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I completely agree.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you've negotiated acreage swaps to extend laterals from 10,000 to 15,000 feet, but you pointed out that 640 acres on one side may not equal 640 acres on the other.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do geology, economics, and relationships come together in a deal like that?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it it certainly all starts with the reservoir and the resource.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can look at two 640s and map it up, and you can you get a relative sense of are they equal, are they dissimilar, you know, how much one way or the other.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then there are other factors in terms of are there existing wells in the ground?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And is that going to impact future well drilling in the associated economics with that?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it it's really a full picture evaluation of okay, here's a 640 and compare to the other.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And even though they could be adjacent, they're they're definitely not equal.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And who's kind of on when you view it, who's kind of on the high side, who's on the low side.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is you're also dealing with another company that you might have dealings with in the future.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the ultim ultimate goal is not squeeze every ounce out of them to to ensure that you've won in the deal.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of look, I I need to work with these people, and uh, you know, if I'm giving them a partial favor today, a partial favor will be granted.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you've said everyone wants to leave the table believing they've received an equal or better deal.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: What separates a transaction that simply closes from one of the that strengthens the relationship for the next deal?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it gets back to to the the people aspect and those that are sitting at the table.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we all we all have our own perspectives of any given deal, and what wherever you're coming from or however you're approaching, it's gonna be slightly different than another individual.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see, you know, see the numbers, see the evaluation, and uh your perception of the final uh numeric outcome is gonna be taken a little bit different.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to to meet and and match alignment of what that final decision is, it all boils back to the to the individuals and establishing relationships.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I completely agree.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you've led efforts to secure Wyoming's first water disposal approval for a new formation, something that had never been done in the state.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: What did it take to convince the people in that project that it could be done responsibly?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was uh that was a Herculean effort.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Required a it my role in the process was really just overseeing uh some very, very smart people on the technical side to put together the the understanding of the formation, where it is located, how it would or would not be uh you know, any type of environmental liabilities in the future, how it would be a successful project, um, and really just working with everybody to make sure that all parties vested in the project were completely knowledgeable of everything that we knew at the time, didn't have any outstanding questions, and ultimately it ended up leading to a successful approval of the project.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it's always so hard when you go in with these new ideas and you're trying to pitch them to especially people on the regulatory side that approved it as well.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's definitely a challenge.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that, especially in the oil and gas business.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that the that work also included building a facility that treated and produced water and turned a waste stream into a pure stream of water.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: What made that project especially meaningful for you?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I wouldn't call it an industry first, but it was definitely leading the industry in terms of treating produced water at the field level to ultimately split that into completely usable clean stream and then a a smaller amount of kind of waste stream product.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of those things where the really the success of the field in which we were working, it was isolated enough that you you almost had to self-source everything.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we need we needed a self-sourcing solution to the amount of water that was being produced out of the field.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so bringing in this technology, uh trying something that was at least rel relatively new on the on in the oil and gas sector, it had been a tested uh technology globally, but not necessarily as much in oil and gas.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it ended up working, uh, which was really the the the thing at the end of the day that was the most rewarding was the fact that we put the project together, got it in place, commissioned the facility, and uh, you know, water was being treated at the end of it on on spec and at least reasonably within cost.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you're able to have those kind of projects to where obviously it takes a lot of work to get them to where you can see and produce fruit, is what I like to say.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to see something like that turn from a negative to a positive, of course, too, which is great.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you helped build the case for a Colorado asset sale that ultimately brought in just over a billion dollars.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: How do you turn subsurface science and individual well performance into a story that gives a buyer a confidence at that scale?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh it's really the beginning, beginning to end story with technical justification all along the way.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we had actually, um, as a technical team, I don't know that we were forging down the pathway of building a sales case.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: We were forging down the path of how do you most optimally develop and efficiently develop a resource?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And as we established that workflow uh and implemented that, gathered a ton of scientific data to help justify and prove up our approach in terms of the development, all the horizons we were doing, the the spacing, the stacking configuration, uh, which then uh led to the the company making the decision that it might be in our best interest to to actually sell this, go out in a different direction for the company.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did we did exactly just that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: We we put together that very robust technical story uh that was you know actually in the field.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a concept, it was uh in the field, wells producing, technical subsurface justification uh to to demonstrate you know the forward look on how we envision the rest of the asset to to be developed.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of it, we were able to successfully turn that out for the company and divest at a very robust divestiture.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So cool.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you said that learning throughout your career has mattered far more than what you originally went to college for.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: For students entering the industry, how do they become experts without becoming trapped inside one specialty?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just constantly having an open mind and asking questions, especially in the oil and gas industry, there's so many different disciplines that are a part of it.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as you're open to to asking those questions of why are we doing this?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why, you know, what is what is the justification for pursuing a different direction or in a in a specific discipline, you know, why why are the pain points what they are?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just the the the continuous questions over the course of a career, you end up learning so much more than you ever imagined learning when you were in college.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, no, I completely agree.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy, uh, especially for the younger kids coming right out of college and going to work for the major operators.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: They get siloed sometimes and put just on one little part of the whole process.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so it definitely slows down uh the learning curve for these young engineers and stuff that come out, or even the young operators that come out of college and go work for the majors.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to several kids that younger adults, I should say, that's graduated and went to go work for majors.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, I've only got to work on this small piece of the puzzle.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've never got to see all of the everything come together.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always like, Really?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, I've been doing this for five years and this is it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my gosh, this is all I've seen.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my gosh.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, there's so much more.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's one of the things too, of course, when you work for smaller operators, obviously, you get a big, big bite of education really fast coming out of college.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that's that's good too.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, sometimes it's good and bad depending on how you look at it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, so I've got to ask John, because just so you I'm I have an English bulldog and I see your Georgia Bulldog stuff right behind him.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I was looking at it like my corner of my eye, I seen it, and I was like, So is that where you uh went to college at?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Was it Georgia or just yeah, I went to University of Georgia?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, nice.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was dating myself.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually there for Vince Dooley's last coaching year.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and then we had a we had a little good run after that, and then it was the doldrums for at least a decade or two, and then obviously now they're always in in talk and contention.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's fun to watch them now.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm my CFO, he's from Georgia, so he's and I have an English Bulldog, so I'm just a huge fan.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh a quick funny story.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my youngest daughter just recently graduated from the University of Arkansas in May.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'd go out and visit her all the time uh in Fayetteville.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was there with my English Bulldog at the hotel, and we're walking in.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, uh, who happens to be staying there?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Georgia Bulldog uh volleyball team.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: They had a great they had a big uh a big tournament going on there.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I walked in and about 20 girls that were about seven foot tall all dropped to their knees, and my dog was just in heaven.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was like, yeah, I was like, man, he was he was just living life with them.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh all the all the girls and the coaches, they was all taking pictures with him and stuff, but just loving it up.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was great.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love to see that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, John, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you so much for what you've done in the industry and thanks for sharing your story.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, anything we can do to put some wisdom and knowledge out there for the younger generation coming in, uh, you know, it's just great to be able to share our wisdom and knowledge with these younger kids and folks that are coming in and wanting to learn about the oil and gas business for sure.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we like to do, John, for all of our guests that come on the show, uh, just whenever you get a chance, if you can just shoot me an email with the mailing address.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have the ladies in the office.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: They'll mail out gift boxes just saying thank you for taking time out of your day.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, you know, for being a part of the show.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, uh thanks so much, John, for joining us today and have a great rest of your week, buddy.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, David.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it being on.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, bye bye.