Big Digital Energy

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Unknown
All right. Kyle, what year was that

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Unknown
at the Oscars where the guys came out. And the song. It's hard out here for a pimp one. Do you remember?

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Unknown
I know when that happened, but I don't. I don't remember what year I remember. One that. Yeah,

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Unknown
those guys had more fun than like, any other humans on the planet

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Unknown
Yeah,

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Unknown
night and they came out

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
And so anyway, it was funny when, when, we were talking and you were going to come on the, the podcast, like, what are we going to talk about? And you're like, man, I got some grim stats to

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Unknown
that I

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Unknown
you about about the land, man business and stuff. That's where I immediately went.

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
out here for a pimp.

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Unknown
Yep. Yeah.

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Unknown
Were you out there grinding? So. Yeah.

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Unknown
So, before we jump into the, tell me how the, the rain at AAPL is going because you're LFA, right?

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Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Presidents, took over, July 1st, and that'll run through June 30th. A one year term as a volunteer for the organization. So halfway through, but it's been really good.

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Unknown
Gotten to travel the country a lot, see a lot of folks. And, I think it's been it's helped me understand kind of what's really going on in the way in business. You know, most of my career I've spent work in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and things are great. Yeah, there's there's a lot activity. There's rigs, there's there's things going on.

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Unknown
And you see other parts of the country, you know, we've got members in 44 different states and not a lot going on in Grand Rapids, Michigan right now, or Jackson, Mississippi, or, you know, some of those areas. So, it's it's been eye opening, but I think it's been good.

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Unknown
Yeah. Okay. So what what else does AAPL do besides throw nape?

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Unknown
I mean, that's

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Unknown
yeah.

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Unknown
the, you know, from, from the, the non land guy in the industry that's always they

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Unknown
the nape guys. Yeah. They feel good party.

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
Yeah. So the organization started back in 1955 as a way to kind of organize and what, what the at the time only the oil and gas industry know that Wayne men needed a seat at the table alongside their, maybe more educated counterparts in geology and engineering.

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Unknown
And so the main tenants of APL really are to, to provide certification and education, to provide lobbying efforts to make sure that our, members are able to work and freely move state, state to get those jobs. And then also have, standards of ethics and procedures to make sure that, you're dealing with with people that are above board.

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Unknown
I think there's times where people think of Wayne, men that, like, fly into town and or sleazy used car salesman. And our goal was, to try to bring as many men into the fold as possible and hold them to a high standard of ethics and care. And so that's, the main differentiator is, is trying to separate, your average Joe to, professional Wayne Mann.

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
Gotcha. Okay. Well, this is kind of wild, because I don't know that I've fully appreciated you started rattling off, facts the other day about Landman and pay and stuff like that, so why don't you? And it was funny because in the middle of the conference and I'm like, stop. Why don't you just come on the podcast?

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Unknown
This would be much, so we got about about a quarter of this conversation done so, so far away.

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Unknown
Yeah. So a thing that's been, important to me, you know, when I came in as president is to, ensure the sustainability of this organization and, the, you know, taking a step back, you know, Wayne Mann, as I mentioned before, and we mainly think about with oil and gas, we think about Nape, we think about energy, but we really think about oil and gas.

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Unknown
But, Wayne Manor, you know, working on right away projects. They're working in lithium, geothermal, wind, solar, a bunch of different things. And so the, the need for Iron Man is really at an all time high. And yet we haven't really backfilled our roster. And so we've got some, some stats just with APL. You know, about half of our members are in that 60 to 65 range, which are nearing retirement.

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Unknown
The thing that's scariest about that number, those most of those guys are out in the field. And so, again, if you don't know how Wayne work works, you may think about the lion man or the Wayne manager inside your internal company. And those guys have very important jobs. That's what I spent most of my career doing.

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Unknown
More of in-house stuff. You're doing trades? You're reviewing title before the wells are drilled. You're working with regulatory. But it's a different job than the guys that are actually in the courthouses pulling the records, filing the documents. Knocking on doors and sitting at kitchen tables and negotiating leases on the ground with families. And most of our older members are those guys that are there in the field that are there doing the work that has to get done for that well to be drilled.

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Unknown
And so we start to ask the question like, well, what's happened? Why is no one wanting to go do that job? And there's several factors. There's, you're on the road more. Maybe that's not as nice, but if you look at survey data from, current generation, they want flexible schedules. They want to be able to

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Unknown
Suites in and small towns in Texas aren't necessarily the nicest.

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Unknown
This is this is true. Sleeping in your car is not always the best. But but pay became a big indicator. We were looking at that and so we started pulling back historic data. You know, we do compensation surveys and also looking anecdotally at other industries and, sure enough that the big change is that, day rates for field linemen have stayed flat really, since 2000.

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Unknown
Depending on where you're at, that may number may be 400. That number may be 500. But it's definitely not, doubled like you would see other industries and even within our own profession, if you look at what corpus rates have changed, if you look at what, the cost of a consulting engineer or consulting geologist, you know, those numbers are up 40 to 50% just in the last 10 to 15 years alone.

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Unknown
They're really, you know, almost double if you look at even just standard inflation, that $400 a day in 2000 should be 770 today.

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Unknown
I'm going to I'm going to cut you off and let's pull this back just a little bit. So the the the job of a we'll call them a field land man. Has that changed dramatically kind of over the last 25 years.

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Unknown
And here are two things bouncing around in my head that may or may not impact that one, you had the shale revolution. And so in a weird sort of way, I would have thought there would have been more demand for more field and, land men during that thing. But then also we've we've had, you know, the technological revolution of now you have the internet, now you have social media and stuff.

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Unknown
And so what's kind of happened over the last 25 years to that job?

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Unknown
Yes, that job has changed a lot. But I think it is oversimplified and I haven't done a lot of field work myself. So in my mind, I'm like, all the records are online.

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Unknown
This should be easy. You should be able to do this from anywhere.

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Unknown
should text farmer Bob

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Unknown
Yes,

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Unknown
lease.

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Unknown
yes.

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Unknown
And do all and do auto sign.

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Unknown
So some of those things have improved. But some things have not. So, even if, you're West Texas, it's, you know, Midland County, everything is a digital record except for probate. There's no reason for the those courthouses to to spend the money to digitize this will and this estate because the likelihood of it coming up is not going to matter.

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Unknown
And so someone still has to go get some documents. You also have, which Covid I think helped, the oil and gas industry a lot of catching up, you know, forever. It was like you had to be in person for every closing, even though since Bush passed the, No Child Left Behind act, which is weird that it was part of that.

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Unknown
But every courthouse has to accept a digital, a digital signature. But still, people are a big no no. You got to be here. I want, I want black ink on that one. And so,

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Unknown
did I. I don't think I've ever told you that. Sorry, sorry. I'm cutting you

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Unknown
You're good.

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Unknown
We we sold a company to a South Korean conglomerate.

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Unknown
And anyway, you know how closing is. You negotiate the document, but you sign, you do your signatory pages in advance, and at some point, the lawyers just release them to both sides. I get a call from my lawyer. No, no, no, they're coming in I go. What do you mean? They're coming in? And it's like, literally conference room table, 12 sets of documents, ceremonial pens.

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Unknown
The vice chairman is coming. He has a camera crew with him. They're documenting the the this entire thing. And, anyway, I'm like, well, that's the damnedest thing, but okay, so I'm just sitting in my office, my lawyer comes in a few hours like, dude, you got to come give a speech, and I.

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Unknown
Oh what?

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Unknown
I got to give a speech?

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Unknown
It's like, well, the vice chairman has written a speech, and you have to give a speech. And so anyway, I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. So I go in there and it's I didn't even think I was going to be part of closing. I was just on the board, you know. But company managements there, Kane guys are there.

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Unknown
The, the South Korean conglomerate, the vice chairman gets up and he had written a speech like on, you know, handwritten on Big Chief tablets and in very broken English talked about family, love and faithfulness or something to that effect. And I mean, 25 minute speech and we all sit there, we lost it. And so anyway, they turned to me and I basically gave a speech on family love.

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Unknown
you.

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Unknown
he

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Unknown
Yeah,

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Unknown
just kind of buried it is, is his speech, back to him? But yeah, it was the

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Unknown
you're you're in some documentary somewhere. You didn't even you check on IMDb.

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Unknown
all ceremonially signed

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
the craziest thing. I wasn't even supposed to sign. But they the the vice chairman needed to know that the senior cane guy was signing, too.

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Unknown
So we we like they created a signatory page for me to globally

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Unknown
That's awesome.

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Unknown
Yeah, it was a mess. Anyway, I didn't mean to

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Unknown
No it is but those those old like ink on the page I remember the when I was at Chesapeake, we sold all our New Mexico assets to Chevron. Chevron came in also for an in person closing for that, which made no sense.

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Unknown
But, with all those fed units we were assigning, it's it's triple gates of every assignment, because the BLM can't make a copy of a piece of paper for some reason. It's it's all blue ink. And they were stacked up. Henry Hood was the, VPN for Chesapeake. And, like, his desk is probably this size, and it was under paper, you know, this whole way around, it's like slot and paper slot and paper, like, it's, I mean, so the industry has changed some, since the end of the year.

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Unknown
so do do do field land, guys. So go out and knock on doors

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Unknown
Yes.

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Unknown
Okay,

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Unknown
Yeah. They're still, I mean, think about your parents or grandparents that are like, I don't know, I'm going to run into the bank and talk to her today, and it's like, you don't have to do that. But they're they don't feel comfortable, even though they can digitally do these transactions.

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Unknown
And so they really are a lot of these folks are like the face of our entire industry. And our guys in house may have never met, you know, Joe, that's 66 and has been signing deals for 40 years. And so it's really important to make sure that we, educate and train, but also equip, those guys in the field.

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Unknown
I think they could do a better and faster job for companies if they had additional funds and time. And it's, it's a weird either or kind of situation. But like right now with rates not changing, they don't really have time to invest in that additional software. Some companies are nice enough and go ahead and pay for an investor's account for their guys in the field and kind of push it forward.

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Unknown
Some don't. And so if you're asking this guy like, yeah, I could get that done a couple days faster, but I'm not going to pay 20,000 a month. You know, for the, for the account to be able to do that stuff. Instead, I'm going to drive out there for the, for the book and, and get what you need.

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Unknown
And so and I think you could come across as, you know, Chicken Little, the sky is falling as we talked about or whining on one end. But I think it's really looking at kind of, an investment in the future, but also like, truly calculating what, like an ROI would be if you did pay more and got a better product, not just paid more for the same thing?

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Unknown
So like some rough numbers, if you looked at if you could get drill sites ready, and using 20 days faster and using just some rough, say, a wells producing 500 barrels of oil a day kind of number, you could afford to double a Wayne main salary if he could get each unit ready. Drill site ready 20 days faster is a that unit would produce if it was, you know, just time value.

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Unknown
Money. Got a proposition? It's going to produce an extra 5 or $600,000 for that extra $100,000 cost. And so like right now our guys in the field, it's funny. If you go back and look at data, in 2000, a field Iron Man made more money than the average attorney in the United States. They made about 98,000, as laying men, about 95,000 as attorneys.

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Unknown
Today, when men are making 105,000, and those attorneys are about 176, and so, again, when men aren't attorneys, they, they work in the quasi world of negotiating contracts, interview and title and, providing advice to folks. But, I think something has to give there, where I think you're likely to run into a situation where there's not people in the field there that are equipped to do the work.

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Unknown
And I think a little bit of a shame on us in the industry. You mentioned the shale revolution. You know, when that stuff's going crazy, basically, jobs got siloed. And so it's like you're in-house, you're really good at managing operating agreements or putting together units. You, on the other hand, are really good at, trades.

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Unknown
So you're going to be in the BT Group and you're scanning, moving stuff around, but you don't know how to review title. You don't know how to draw. Well, you know how to do anything in the same thing happen in the field. I mean, even a lot of the big brokerage houses today have a title side and a leasing side, and it's like they're people that don't know how the agreements work, anything.

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Unknown
They're just salesmen. They just they go get leases and it's like, that's not good. Like, we need to at least understand

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Unknown
my max? I can pay

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Unknown
Exactly, exactly. I'll come under the max and you'll be happy. Yeah,

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Unknown
happy.

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Unknown
yeah. So we've, So from the appeals standpoint, we've identified this as an issue. We've got a committee. The strategic planning committee has been working for the last 4 or 5 months now.

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Unknown
Doing interviews with, with both brokerage groups, and operators, and trying to meet in the middle and see what we can do to help. I remind people, you know, AAPL is a 506, business league. We are not licensed people. So for antitrust reasons, we can't tell you day rates are now X. You know, we're not real estate agents.

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Unknown
We can't say, that it's going to be a certain percentage that got busted up as well.

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Unknown
Yeah. How

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Unknown
How

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Unknown
around for the longest time is beyond me.

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
to the real

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Unknown
Well, and there's a lot of research looking into it and say I'm not taking that standard for months. Let's talk about what do you, what services do you have? I'm at 38%. You know,

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Unknown
No that's interesting.

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Unknown
Yeah.

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Unknown
So, so we can't set a set number, but I think it's trying to, get data together and get the right people around to have a conversation.

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Unknown
Yeah. How much of that conversation is driven in part by. Holy cow, I was going to change our whole world,

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Unknown
that then. Yeah, it's it's a big part of it. There are, you know, leaps and bounds of, things that are happening, each and every day that you're like, oh, I didn't think that could ever do that.

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Unknown
Oh, it can.

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Unknown
I mean, I've seen that just since we've been and we've, in effect, been a software company for about a year, a little over a year.

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Unknown
And the answers I give to clients literally change every 60 days.

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Unknown
I mean, six months ago, if you'd had said, can I read handwriting and say now than now it reads handwriting better than I do. We run some stuff through, through Clyde, and it'll come out and I'll go. That's what that says. Holy cow. That is what that says, you know.

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Unknown
So it's gotten scary good

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Unknown
Well I was using it yesterday kind of a one off deal. So Arkansas is one of the few states you can do like catch all deeds.

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Unknown
It's like everything in this county you don't have to have like, perfect legal descriptions. You just have to have one thing that it tags to. So a lot of people will put like, we know that grandma has got this producing. Well, we've got a pay stub from it. And then anything else she might own passes down. It's I was working on one for a friend yesterday.

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Unknown
And I had giant pdf of, like, years of tax records, that listed several different properties. And I had it build me exhibit just from, like, in 30s like take, take all these PDFs and anywhere where it's got listed section, township, range or list, a unit name, make those into this grid. And I mean, it's 30s.

00:17:02:05 - 00:17:33:03
Unknown
There's some checking. I don't just print and say it's done, but it's saved hours of manual input data, you know, like, and so that is a thing that, not just APL, but I think, a lot of, white collar, data movement, document signing and storage, people that are in accounting, people that are paralegals, I think have to be aware of what's, what tools are in front of them.

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Unknown
And if they're not careful, if they don't develop skills to use those tools that they may get replaced.

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Unknown
well. And, and that's where I was, was going with this because you're you're sitting there talking about the great crew change in effect. And how do we get younger people in, how do we get trained and how do we get a better product out?

00:17:53:15 - 00:18:13:06
Unknown
Because, the thing I think about life, right, wrong or in different business runs because and I'm just going to say guy, but it could be gal, the old crusty guy who's been around forever, you know, if it's an engineering type problem, can go put his hand on the machine and go, oh, this is what's wrong.

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Unknown
Or, you know, the old Lane guy was like, yeah, I'd run the risk on

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Unknown
that.

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Unknown
You know. Yeah.

00:18:19:07 - 00:18:38:19
Unknown
And it's a lifetime of doing menial work that creates the old crusty person. And I just wonder if we're going to automate so many of the workflows of that menial labor, because that seems to be where I was really getting traction.

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Unknown
You know, read all these documents and extract all township range,

00:18:42:18 - 00:18:43:11
Unknown
Yeah, yeah.

00:18:43:13 - 00:19:04:06
Unknown
blah. If I was going to do that, how do we train the old crusty person and so I worry about that. How do we train the old crusty person? But then, you know, there is a train of thought and I do not subscribe to this, but there are people out there that are like, I don't give a shit about the old crusty guy.

00:19:04:08 - 00:19:11:05
Unknown
I want young people with data, period. And we'll we'll go figure things out. So

00:19:11:07 - 00:19:29:09
Unknown
it's a balance. I think, you know, I've got younger kids and so, dabbling in what their use of AI is, whether it's making funny pictures or, helping with, with math, homework. But the thing that I remind them, is it is, you know, artificial intelligence is a great tool.

00:19:29:11 - 00:19:56:19
Unknown
There's some things that should just be automated, but if you don't have a base level of knowing, like what's right and wrong or what the like enough of a sniffer to know that's bullshit. You can't check the work. And that's where the balance of these old crusty guys, I think you got to have somebody that's that's able to stop and say, well, that came really fast, but are errors if you don't know, to recognize the issue spot, if you will.

00:19:56:21 - 00:20:01:20
Unknown
If we're going to create more problems, more headaches, from trying to be faster and more efficient,

00:20:02:01 - 00:20:17:23
Unknown
My, my take on that is most genius in this world is when someone decides to break a rule, but you have to know what the rules are to know which ones you can break and be able to pull off your genius, whatever it is,

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Unknown
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:19:03 - 00:20:24:02
Unknown
And and I worry that you're not going to know what the baseline rules are in a in a world with

00:20:24:04 - 00:20:36:04
Unknown
so there's a book called Primal Intelligence of the authors. I'm going blank on the name of the author right now, but, he's a guy that trained us, Special Forces for a long time and teaching them how to think a little bit differently.

00:20:36:06 - 00:20:57:16
Unknown
And he's got a whole chapter on, artificial intelligence, and, he's, you know, US war games. Now, instead of pitting team against team, it's team against artificial intelligence. So AI knows every battle, every war that's ever happened in the history of the war or a history of the world and how they're gamed and put together. And, so if you put an individual man against the computer, the computer always wins.

00:20:57:18 - 00:21:19:08
Unknown
If you put a group of four or more people together, they always beat the computer. And it's this idea of like, they understand what rules the computer is trying to follow because it's all happened in the past. And so the author kind of makes this point is like, a lot of those menial things, they're going to be offloaded to artificial intelligence, but there will never be advancements in any of those fields.

00:21:19:08 - 00:21:25:00
Unknown
Once we push it over, because all AI is doing is really efficiently doing what's happened in the past.

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Unknown
pattern recognition.

00:21:26:06 - 00:21:43:12
Unknown
Yes. It's not. It looks to the average person. Wow, that's creative. Look at that picture. Now somebody has done that before. They combine two things or like and there's nothing that's actually new or innovative or and so his his argument is like that man is always going to have a place in some of this, but should be using these tools.

00:21:43:12 - 00:22:00:15
Unknown
And that's kind of what I would say with the old trusty guy is like, got to get that iPad out and got to get rid of the yellow pad and like try some of these things. But, that person's, you know, knowledge, experience, the ability to just touch it and know is going to make them really powerful and really valuable.

00:22:00:17 - 00:22:03:14
Unknown
If they're willing to adopt some of these, these more modern tools,

00:22:03:17 - 00:22:26:18
Unknown
because, you know, because I do think there's a world and this is probably showing my podcaster bias, but there is a world in which when the crusty guy retires, instead of that tribal knowledge walking out the door, it's been recorded and now it's searchable. It's part of the the AI enterprise solution of the company and can be queried.

00:22:26:20 - 00:22:34:07
Unknown
And so all the great ideas he or she had through the years are there, and somebody can find them when they they go through. So

00:22:34:07 - 00:22:53:02
Unknown
yeah the in business and a lot of businesses are but it's really kind of apprenticeship. Even if you're not out in the field, I mean, I came right out of law school and thought I knew a lot of things, and go work at Chesapeake and it's you got 6 or 8 rigs running and having to make decisions on, you know, are we going to stop the rig because we don't have everybody signed up?

00:22:53:02 - 00:23:08:21
Unknown
No. And we know as long as I'm not trespassing, there's probably going to be some cleanup later. But I was fortunate. Jerry Johnson, I think he's been on your podcast for as Roland. I, his office was next door to mine, and I was like, the little kid or the tick, tick, tick. We got a second.

00:23:08:21 - 00:23:26:20
Unknown
We got a couple questions. Big stack of stuff, you know? And that's what I think. Could be very cool. With AI is it's almost like a mentor at your desk of, like, look over my shoulder. What do you think about this? Am I doing that the right way? And even as it gets better. Okay, I'm doing that in Texas now.

00:23:26:20 - 00:23:42:16
Unknown
How would that be different in New Mexico? Like what? And then what agency would I need to talk to here to get that approved? Or, you know, like instead of having to, like, go to a completely different department or your mentor actually doesn't have any experience in that area, they're just really good at Texas, or whatever the state may be.

00:23:42:16 - 00:23:52:04
Unknown
So, I'm excited about, where things are going and, the tools available and the more that are going to become available, for us in the future.

00:23:52:10 - 00:24:04:14
Unknown
Yeah. I do think, you know, if you if you think about the AI discussion, the two, the the the two ends of the spectrum, I don't care what you think about is politics.

00:24:04:14 - 00:24:28:04
Unknown
I don't think anybody on the planet doubts that Tucker Carlson is wicked smart and Tucker Carlson is a, is baby Hitler. We need to be dropping nuclear bombs on data centers today as we speak. And the whole other side of the spectrum is Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalists. He's like, it's a tool. It's like a fancy hammer or unplug it if it gets bad.

00:24:28:06 - 00:24:52:04
Unknown
And I have a tendency, the more and more I'm, I'm kind of doing this every day to kind of lean towards Andreessen. And it, you know, it is a tool and being able to use that tool to your point, because it's there in law. I mean, lawyers are using AI as a thought partner. Hey, take a look at this PSA.

00:24:52:04 - 00:25:13:07
Unknown
What did I miss? You didn't address offsite. Water disposal. You know, wastewater disposal. Do you want a clause in there about that? You know, you're you're starting to see that. I think, you know, we're doing a lot in the way of automating. What I'll say is kind of G&A type operational, oil and gas type stuff.

00:25:13:09 - 00:25:27:18
Unknown
But you can tell that pretty soon we're going to be building bots that are going to be, you know, pumper assistant, you know, hey, did you think about this? Hey, you're coming up. Did you know the last three times you changed the chemicals early, the well petered out or whatever? It's,

00:25:27:20 - 00:25:46:11
Unknown
the other. Well, the other piece on that is if it becomes more augmented, if it's like wearables and it's like flagging you, it's not when you went back to your desk and had that conversation, but it's like, you've got the meta glasses on or whatever, and it flags how you look at this, or even on a from a legal or land side as it pulls your eyes to this provision in the document.

00:25:46:11 - 00:25:52:05
Unknown
Hey, red flag that that was included or this was not in the last draft. I tried to slide that back in on you.

00:25:52:07 - 00:25:56:10
Unknown
Our our safety. We've, we've built a safety application.

00:25:56:10 - 00:26:19:01
Unknown
We don't have anybody using it yet, but basically it's a dynamic JSA. So it goes to the well file, it pulls all the information out of that world file that's pertinent. It goes and grabs the whether it goes in to the OSHA database and incidences with similar situations and kind of lays all the stuff out in a dynamic JSA.

00:26:19:01 - 00:26:39:23
Unknown
Hey, you're going to need to worry about this, this and this today. The next version of that, once we get a few clients using it, it's literally going to be the the cell phone sitting there saying, hey, dude, you're about to flick the switch, look up and to your left to make sure that valves closed because this is where Johnny got his head taken

00:26:40:02 - 00:26:40:21
Unknown
Yeah, yeah,

00:26:41:02 - 00:26:43:07
Unknown
It's going to be that level of dynamic.

00:26:43:07 - 00:26:59:12
Unknown
That's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I so, And it, I mean, this will be outdated by the time this podcast airs as far as. Yeah. Yeah. It's like. Yeah. Which is so cool. I think artificial intelligence is also big right now for physical assets for the way in business too.

00:26:59:12 - 00:27:14:02
Unknown
I mean, one of the things I'm overly dressed for podcast, because I've got another speaking engagement at lunch, and a lot of things I've been talking about, is with the data centers that are providing, all this AI, and how many laymen are needed to get those projects together when you look at that,

00:27:14:05 - 00:27:16:09
Unknown
way in, man, doing a data center.

00:27:16:11 - 00:27:39:17
Unknown
So there's a few different sides there. One is these large scale commercial projects like the Stargate in Abilene. Yeah, it's a $500 billion, it's the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the United States. And in Abilene, adjusted for inflation, it's bigger than the, transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system. Which is wild.

00:27:39:19 - 00:27:58:05
Unknown
Yeah. And so for that, there's actually a land group that, not only scouted the sites, but these developers want to control everything. They want to make sure there's no risk factor way down the line. So they're acquiring all, mineral rights. All water rights, and getting all the right of ways to be able to get stuff in and out.

00:27:58:07 - 00:28:11:23
Unknown
But, like, if there's, the one in Abilene, there's actually some wells on site, and so they need to go acquire those wells also, some of them I don't know if on that side, but some of the sites, they're actually using natural gas wells drilled on site to power so they can be off the grid.

00:28:12:03 - 00:28:16:15
Unknown
Yeah. Launching all that down with with, his his rocket

00:28:16:15 - 00:28:35:04
Unknown
Yes. Yep, yep. And so there's a direct correlation when you think about, oh, we need mineral title for that. But then just any of these projects, a lot of those developers don't even understand kind of the, the mineral state being dominant in the United States, that they would even need to check the minerals. They assume you bought the surface from Farmer John, and I've got it all.

00:28:35:06 - 00:28:55:08
Unknown
So then they're having to come back in and clean all that up, after the fact in some locations. The other piece of it, though, is, you know, just with the, the increased electricity demand, the United States to power all these, you know, 43% of electricity, United States is still generated from burning natural gas. And so that's why you see that gas prices up over the last, you know, six months or so.

00:28:55:08 - 00:29:15:17
Unknown
And I would assume that's going to continue to be a trend for the next 2 to 3 years until we can figure out another way to power, this big infrastructure project that, the current administration is basically bet the future of the economy on, is that we've got to remove all red tape and plow ahead and let the United States be dominant, in AI.

00:29:15:17 - 00:29:30:22
Unknown
And to do that, we need, I think the numbers like 3 or 4 times the number of data centers, in the United States to be constructed over the next three years. So, what land is going to be a big part of that? I'm actually speaking. There's, the National Data Center forum is here in Houston in April.

00:29:31:00 - 00:29:46:07
Unknown
And they've asked APL to come, be a keynote at. So, I think there's a recognition there. Apple did a cool partnership with the Hamm Institute, at Oklahoma City. It's Harold Hamm, set up a deal for Oklahoma State, his alma mater. It's a big research.

00:29:46:09 - 00:29:47:19
Unknown
And I I've actually been there.

00:29:47:19 - 00:29:51:09
Unknown
Yeah, it's it's really, really it's very impressive.

00:29:51:11 - 00:30:14:02
Unknown
And so they started sometime middle of last year, on this new project, and they've got all the big players from the West Coast, Amazon, meta, OpenAI, and then several developers, NextEra on the renewable side, Devon, expand continental. And then Apple's the only kind of nonprofit, business league that's a part of it.

00:30:14:04 - 00:30:29:13
Unknown
And we have, monthly meetings that are kind of roundtable discussions. We're actually going to have one at night, here in a couple weeks. So all those, all the CEOs of those big companies, are going to be at night for the first time and kind of see how energy companies work and how we're so nimble.

00:30:29:15 - 00:30:48:16
Unknown
That's what really is attracted them to the energy companies to help them build these data centers is, engineers have been figuring out how to make things work, basically, on the surface of the moon, if you think about West Texas, very remotely, without power, for a long time. And that's what that's the kind of help they're going to need to get these, these projects up and going.

00:30:48:19 - 00:31:13:03
Unknown
So we did, a conference called fuze for a couple of years, and we were trying to be the South by Southwest for energy tech. And anyway, we've morphed into our software companies. So we're not not doing it anymore. But literally one of the most fascinating discussions I had is somebody from a renewables company came up to me and said, hey, Chuck, so where does this sounds?

00:31:13:05 - 00:31:46:16
Unknown
I want to meet an oil and gas guy. And I'm like, sure, let's go find one. You know what's up? And I they said something to me that is so intuitive, but I hadn't really thought of it. It was kind of like an oh shit moment of guy. You're right. And so anyway, we we went and found a chief operating officer of an oil and gas company of a of a rather large one, and we had a beer for an hour and a half, and the renewables pitch was, hey, I just built a wind farm out in West Texas.

00:31:46:18 - 00:32:05:23
Unknown
You literally, as an industry, produce 100 million barrels of oil a day, and you refine it and you get it. No one has scale the business like energy. And I need to know how to scale, because if I ultimately want to have one wind farm, that's great, but I want to have hundreds of them. How do you scale?

00:32:06:01 - 00:32:10:18
Unknown
And I want to even take it down to the level of, does that mean I drug test employees,

00:32:10:23 - 00:32:11:13
Unknown
You know. Yeah,

00:32:11:15 - 00:32:20:22
Unknown
just it was one of the most fast I would give anything one if I didn't have too many glasses of wine during it because I forgot half of it because we were rolling in the good wine.

00:32:20:22 - 00:32:30:19
Unknown
But the second thing was was just being able to, to have that captured on tape would have been fascinating because it was it was stuff I never even thought of.

00:32:30:19 - 00:32:31:00
Unknown
Yeah.

00:32:31:03 - 00:32:35:08
Unknown
And the oil and gas business has solved it years ago, scaling.

00:32:35:08 - 00:32:35:13
Unknown
Yep.

00:32:35:18 - 00:32:43:10
Unknown
And you just don't appreciate just how big this industry is and how much shit we do literally every day.

00:32:43:10 - 00:32:54:18
Unknown
And it can't stop. That's the other piece. It's like, no Christmas Day. There's guys working out in the middle of nowhere making shit happen. So when you go flip that light switch, the power comes on.

00:32:54:18 - 00:32:58:16
Unknown
when we drop a barrel of oil somewhere on the ground, it's newsworthy.

00:32:58:16 - 00:32:59:21
Unknown
Yes, yes, I

00:33:00:02 - 00:33:01:15
Unknown
think that should be a

00:33:01:17 - 00:33:03:18
Unknown
Yes. No, no,

00:33:03:20 - 00:33:04:18
Unknown
so good at this.

00:33:04:18 - 00:33:21:19
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. We're very, very efficient. Very, very clean. Heavily regulated. I mean, again, I think there's a lot of scrutiny that comes, but I think the average, the average Joe doesn't understand and then also doesn't understand the scale to, to make it all work. It's it's fascinating business. Yeah. So,

00:33:21:21 - 00:33:24:04
Unknown
So, when's nape this year

00:33:24:06 - 00:33:28:21
Unknown
So February the 18th through the 20th. So it's like a week later than than normal

00:33:28:23 - 00:33:31:07
Unknown
You know what February 18th is, don't you?

00:33:31:09 - 00:33:33:18
Unknown
3/18 the day after my wife's birthday. So

00:33:33:21 - 00:33:35:08
Unknown
John Travolta's birthday.

00:33:35:08 - 00:33:36:11
Unknown
Oh, I

00:33:36:11 - 00:33:38:03
Unknown
I know it is it's my brother Kenny's

00:33:38:03 - 00:33:40:06
Unknown
Okay. That's right. That's funny.

00:33:40:11 - 00:33:42:10
Unknown
text him, Happy John Travolta birthday.

00:33:42:10 - 00:33:50:21
Unknown
That's great. And, this year a little bit new format. So the last several years they've had like a charities concert kind of going on on Wednesday night.

00:33:50:21 - 00:34:05:04
Unknown
And it was a separate ticket and kind of confusing. And so this year it's all one big icebreaker welcome party. There will be an area in the lobby where you can still get drinks, but not be loud and you can talk. And then inside it's a Sammy Kershaw, concert, which is going to be sweet.

00:34:05:08 - 00:34:06:05
Unknown
that's kind of

00:34:06:07 - 00:34:07:01
Unknown
that's Wednesday night.

00:34:07:04 - 00:34:08:00
Unknown
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:08:02 - 00:34:09:04
Unknown
Cocktail party starts at

00:34:09:10 - 00:34:10:06
Unknown
five. Yep.

00:34:10:08 - 00:34:10:15
Unknown
Okay.

00:34:10:18 - 00:34:26:23
Unknown
Yeah. They've got a governors forum before that, which again is free to come in with your badge even if you didn't register for the business conference. So, I encourage everybody, if you haven't been in a few years, I mean, the last several years. And they, I would say Houston felt as busy as shale boom.

00:34:27:01 - 00:34:44:18
Unknown
But the night before was more manageable. Not small, but, we're running 8 to 9000, instead of at the peak, it was, you know, fire marshal, one man in, one man out at 20,000, on the floor. But, so I do encourage people, if you're still come to Houston and go into the party, grab a badge, come in.

00:34:44:20 - 00:34:54:04
Unknown
You know, come see some of those things that are free add ons, that are kind of cool. Special events too. Just if you've got a badge you're going to do and not just be out there on the expo for

00:34:54:06 - 00:35:01:08
Unknown
year. Do you know who John Leiker is? John was a law, a long time oil and gas investor, was at first reserve for a while.

00:35:01:08 - 00:35:24:09
Unknown
Anyway, John had the most amazing ability to capture everything in a sentence, and that sentence was always funny. One year I think it might have been 0706 somewhere around there. You know, natural gas was a $12 an hour. And I know that. And, John walked out and I said, John, how is it in there? And he goes, man, it's so rock and roll.

00:35:24:09 - 00:35:27:05
Unknown
And the bankrupt companies have two booths.

00:35:27:07 - 00:35:29:19
Unknown
that's a great,

00:35:29:19 - 00:35:30:19
Unknown
such a Lincoln thing

00:35:30:19 - 00:35:31:21
Unknown
That's great.

00:35:31:23 - 00:35:42:12
Unknown
So, so Wednesday night we got the kick off Sammy Kershaw. Oh, that'll be cool. And then Thursday exhibit open all day and then half day on Friday

00:35:42:14 - 00:35:54:13
Unknown
Yep. And they're given away. I'll butcher the name, but, Grenadier got some, they got a really awesome several hundred thousand dollar vehicle that they're giving away, as the prize at the end.

00:35:54:15 - 00:36:10:15
Unknown
So last several years, they've done. If you stuck around to noon on Friday and your name happened to get pulled out of the hat, you might have won a four Wheeler or a jet ski. They got a partnership this year and have a really sweet, sweet giveaway. So, again, I would encourage people to stick around for, for that.

00:36:10:17 - 00:36:14:20
Unknown
More details would be on the website, the butcher, the name, but

00:36:14:22 - 00:36:23:10
Unknown
and, and in terms of exhibits, big companies, are we doing any special power alleys or things like that?

00:36:23:10 - 00:36:33:07
Unknown
Yeah, the hubs have been really good. For us, the first one was, Bitcoin that we launched 4 or 5 years ago. And that's still still there and going strong.

00:36:33:09 - 00:36:57:07
Unknown
Minerals and nano, has become another, you know, really important sector of our overall business, but are kind of, seem separated from everybody else. So they kind of have their own lounge and area to hang out and know that if you're looking to, to just play in that space and not looking at operated prospects that that's together, critical and rare earth minerals, is a new one this year.

00:36:57:09 - 00:37:33:14
Unknown
So we've had, one of our oldest chapters is actually up in, Tahoe. So we've got an event coming up in April, called the Mineral and Land Resources Institute. And it's copper and silver and gold, mining guys, they've added some lithium stuff, and so they're going to kind of run a hub. I think there will be a lot of interest there with the lithium, activity in this makeover, not just in, in Arkansas, but, East Texas and Louisiana, even a little bit in Mississippi now, then we added a couple of other hubs, again, with, with, current administration being really open for, all energy development.

00:37:33:18 - 00:37:57:14
Unknown
So there's an offshore hub, this year, I just actually heard yesterday, so they had the first offshore lease sale for the first time in 4 or 5 years was in late December. 30 companies showed up. I think there was a million acres leased for $371 million. So a lot, a lot of activity going, back offshore, into the Gulf, which is going to be exciting.

00:37:57:16 - 00:38:17:12
Unknown
Again, different work than what you think about for most land men. But there are still, Wayne men that manage those operating agreements and put those units together. And then the other hub, is data centers. So again, with our connection with the Hamm Institute and some of these other groups, there are going to be some developers there that are, looking for prospects.

00:38:17:14 - 00:38:34:08
Unknown
So another thing that I kind of rant sometimes when I, get on a roll or a ramble with folks is, you know, I think nape has a great opportunity, and a lot of our legacy oil and gas companies, they own a lot of surface sometimes that they don't even catalog in their own systems. That they got from acquisitions over the years.

00:38:34:08 - 00:38:52:23
Unknown
And if you're a large surface owner, a Chevron, an Exxon, you should definitely be talking to these data center developers that you could actually bring some value forward for your shareholders if you acquired something in middle of New Mexico and you don't have any producing assets around. I just came with some big acquisition is like put together some teasers and prospects just to show all your surface.

00:38:52:23 - 00:39:05:07
Unknown
And whether you're selling that to a data center developer or leasing it to a wind or solar group, I think there's a lot of value add and synergies there. That Nape is a great marketplace for. So I would I would encourage folks to look at that. That's

00:39:05:07 - 00:39:20:19
Unknown
a good point. My, my kind of rant over the last couple of years, has been, you know, if you think you're in the business selling natural gas, you're mistaken. You're in the business of selling electric electrons, and you need to think through how that is.

00:39:20:19 - 00:39:24:06
Unknown
Because if we let big Tech decide, they're going to all want to be nukes,

00:39:24:10 - 00:39:24:23
Unknown
Yes.

00:39:24:23 - 00:39:44:07
Unknown
you know? And so if I had a bunch of natural gas kind of stranded out in West Texas, a lot of these data centers don't have to be in Houston, Texas, or outside DC, particularly kind of the more latent type training stuff that can shut down for eight hours at a time.

00:39:44:07 - 00:39:48:06
Unknown
And it doesn't really matter. That is cheapest source of electricity.

00:39:48:06 - 00:39:48:23
Unknown

00:39:49:01 - 00:39:53:08
Unknown
So I always joke, if I were the, mayor of Monahans, I'd upgrade the bed again so

00:39:53:08 - 00:39:55:23
Unknown
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:56:04 - 00:39:57:07
Unknown
let's send it in.

00:39:57:07 - 00:40:02:04
Unknown
Yeah yeah yeah. He can land his jet right out there on the desert today, and we don't even know for sure.

00:40:02:07 - 00:40:03:13
Unknown
Darren, I need an airship.

00:40:03:13 - 00:40:04:02
Unknown
Whatever.

00:40:04:02 - 00:40:04:18
Unknown
That's funny.

00:40:04:21 - 00:40:05:09
Unknown
cool.

00:40:05:10 - 00:40:05:16
Unknown
Yeah,

00:40:05:19 - 00:40:07:15
Unknown
well, Kyle, appreciate you coming in.

00:40:07:17 - 00:40:22:05
Unknown
Yeah. For sure. I appreciate you having me on. Been a big fan of what you guys are doing for a long time, and, I think it's, a good opportunity to kind of spread the word on. On what? Apple is working on what we're doing, and, at least start that conversation around

00:40:22:05 - 00:40:24:12
Unknown
people get in touch with AAPL,

00:40:24:14 - 00:40:26:15
Unknown
layman.org.

00:40:26:17 - 00:40:51:13
Unknown
It's kind of the website and there's an info out, it's kind of a catch all email address. Being able to do that through the nape side, it's the same kind of, same kind of set up. But, yeah, that conversation around day rates, I think is really important. I don't think it's, I don't think it's completely hashed out yet to say that, that every company has to just start paying people more, and that's going to solve the problem.

00:40:51:15 - 00:41:03:05
Unknown
But Apple's also looking at, answering some of the needs of our operators and figuring out some better field education, and better training. So hopefully people were able to do the job faster, and more efficiently.

00:41:03:09 - 00:41:11:20
Unknown
that's always my thing is, anytime you're going into the C-suite, you need more money. Whether it's a piece of software or a human being out in the field.

00:41:11:20 - 00:41:14:00
Unknown
Whatever. Show me an ROI,

00:41:14:00 - 00:41:14:07
Unknown
Right.

00:41:14:07 - 00:41:15:22
Unknown
You know, I mean, and that's just

00:41:16:03 - 00:41:16:10
Unknown
Yeah,

00:41:16:10 - 00:41:19:18
Unknown
that's that quantifying that and making that case

00:41:19:20 - 00:41:20:08
Unknown
Yeah,

00:41:20:09 - 00:41:30:15
Unknown
is the the only way to kind of rattle the, the C-suite. Cage, because at the end of the day, they honestly don't care if employees are happy or not.

00:41:30:15 - 00:41:45:12
Unknown
No, no, the analogy though, and I think there are some, some of my, colleagues that don't necessarily love this analogy, but it's, it's a little bit like you're you're getting bids to, renovate your house, and you have one crew come in and they.

00:41:45:16 - 00:42:15:15
Unknown
This sounds dirt cheap and sounds amazing. But they've got no letters of recommendation. You know, no one's that used them. And there's this fear of, like, well, if they screw this up, how would you take that cost to fix what they screwed up? And so that's kind of that analogy. If you've got a tidal bust and it's cost several million dollars to cure later down the line, and how much time was production off while you had to completely shut that well, in versus now it's a pretty stand up group and maybe pay a little bit more, but like, I feel comfortable enough with this guy.

00:42:15:16 - 00:42:35:03
Unknown
They can be around my family. I let them made like they seem really aboveboard. They let me know if there is a mistake. They you know, quick to respond. And those are the groups that I think I would personally be advocating for, to make sure that we are compensating correctly and making sure that they're able to stay in the business and, and able to grow their businesses and hire more people.

00:42:35:04 - 00:42:50:21
Unknown
You're always going to have those, you know, fly by night groups that just try to come in when prices are high and, they're kind of hard to regulate. So it's not necessarily an across the board, but it's going to pay for quality, and know what you're getting. And then I think you will see the returns on that.

00:42:51:02 - 00:42:51:11
Unknown
Yeah.

00:42:51:16 - 00:42:51:23
Unknown
So

00:42:52:05 - 00:42:52:17
Unknown
stuff.

00:42:52:17 - 00:42:52:22
Unknown
yeah.

00:42:53:04 - 00:42:53:13
Unknown
stuff.