November 26, 2023 • 45 mins
Sentinel Energy's VP, Matt Randolph, joins guest host Robert Rapier this week to talk about the energy industry and how Matt uses social media to fight misinformation about the Oil and Gas Industry.
Inside the Oil Patch. The Latest information on the Oil, Gas, and Natural Gas industry with your host, Kym Bolado. For more information visit https://shalemag.com/in-the-oil-patch-schedule/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to in the oil Patch,presented by Shale Magazine, broadcasting from the
oil Field Experts Studios. Oil FieldExperts where you get the right products right
now in the oil patches, wheretogether we explore topics that affect us all
in oil gas business and in yourcommunity. Every week, your host,
Kim Balatto will visit with the moversand shakers in this fast paced industry.
(00:21):
You'll hear from industry experts, electedofficials, and many more right here on
in the oil Patch. Welcome toin the oil Patch Radio. I'm Robert
ray Pier, senior contributor from Forbes, sitting in for Kim Blago. This
is my first time sitting on thisside of the interview chair, so bear
with me a little bit. I'vegot a very interesting guest today. We'll
get to But this morning I gota text from my sister, who teaches
(00:45):
high school in Oklahoma, and shetold me she's using one of my Forges
articles to teach her class something aboutenergy. I was really tickled by this
because I am passionate about educating peopleon energy issues. But to me,
it always feels like the public,and especially younger generations, aren't that interested
in energy issues. It seems likeinterest only really spikes when gas prices spike
(01:07):
or there's some oil issue in theMiddle East. That's when suddenly everybody becomes
interested in energy issues. Well,today's guest has convinced me that's not true.
So when they told me I couldask anyone I wanted to be on
the show, the choice for mewas very clear. Today's guest, Matt
Randolph, is not only a VPand principal partner of the oil companies Set
(01:29):
On Energy LLC, He's also aTikTok Sensation. Matt or mister Global as
he goes by on TikTok, hasover three undred and fifty thousand followers and
his videos have been viewed hundreds ofmillions of times, he says, a
YouTube channel where he has around eleventhousand subscribers. His videos are educational and
entertaining, and they are especially embracedby younger people. Matt, thank you
(01:52):
very much for joining us today.Robert, thank you very much for having
me. I've been looking forward tothis absolutely, so in this first segment,
I want to do a couple ofthings. So I watched a lot
of your videos and I haven't seenone where you really describe your journey in
the oil industry, like how didit start, what drew you to that
(02:13):
career, and what are you doingtoday? And then either in this segment
or the next segment, I'd liketo talk to you about how you got
involved in TikTok. So first,you know what drew you to the oil
industry. Well, Robert, Iwas planted in western Oklahoma in nineteen seventy
nine as a five year old.And I'm sure you're familiar with the history,
(02:38):
so you know, the oil fieldwas booming. This was I currently
live in Elk City, and itwas just a massive boom town at the
time, and that's kind of whatI grew up in. It wouldn't be
unusual, you know, for usto take the pickup out and sit on
the tailgate and watch your rig burnto the ground. Like that was not
an atypical, you know day forme. I got to sit at the
(03:02):
edge of a massive crater and watchthe apache keys blowout in Allison, Texas
when I was seven years old.They would literally let you drive right up
to it and watch it. Backthen, you know, they were little.
Times were a little different back then, you know, So I was
fascinated with this industry at a veryearly age. And everyone I knew,
(03:22):
you know, my family and friends, everyone worked in this industry. I
think we had about four thousand rigsup in nineteen eighty one, and I
think they tried to stick half ofthem right here in Elba City, Oklahoma.
So when I got, you know, out of high school where I'm
from, you either go to collegeor you get in the wall field,
(03:43):
and I decided to do both.So I worked nights on a on a
drilling rig for Anadarko Drilling and whenI would get off work in the morning,
I'd run over to Southwestern and takemy classes, you know, my
college classes. And I did thatfor a while, and it was exhausting,
and I made the mistake that alot of young kids make. I
decided, Wow, you know,I'm making probably three times more money on
(04:06):
this rig than I'll make when Igraduate. Why am I going to school?
So I quit school and that kindof started my career in the industry.
I do want to add I didgo back later and get my degree,
but I spent a few years indrilling, most of it with H
and P. But then when Igot on the completion side of the business.
(04:29):
That's when I really fell in lovewith it. I just I loved
it a lot more than the drillingside. And I spent my career right
here in Elk City, working fordifferent companies and just just worked my way
up. I eventually and you know, two thousand and four, I reached
out to a friend who had startedan oil and gas service company. He
(04:54):
had started a wireline company, andI had always had aspirations of doing that.
I basically asked him how he didit, and Uh, two weeks
later, I'm sitting in a ina boardroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in
front of a bunch of investors,and they're agreeing to basically finance my new
company. So started that company intwo thousand and four. That was called
(05:16):
Sooner Pressure Control. And then andthen from there, you know, we
grew that company was it was verysuccessful. Within a few years, we
had five low locations across the UnitedStates. And uh, but that's when
I learned about the business side ofthe oil and gas industry. So we
(05:38):
had an opportunity to sell. Anduh, it was a couple of days,
a couple of days before we wereclosing on the sale of that business,
and you know, the investors cameand said, you know, they
called a special meeting and said,we think we want to wait another six
months. We think we can squeezesome more money out of them. And
(05:59):
well about two months out after that, the Great Recession hit. So that
was devastating to our business. Youknow, our our value probably fell by
ninety percent during that time. Andand and then they viewed that at a
perfect time to get my equity back. So they I built the business and
(06:21):
it pretty much was on cruise controlat that point, and so they voted
me out when my value was atthe lowest it could possibly be. And
so that was my first hard lessonin the industry of just how tough the
business itself is. So they theydid not do well after that, I
(06:45):
can put it to you that way. And the seven years I ran that
business, I only had one personquit. And that that is the one
thing from that company that I've alwaysbeen the most proud of. You know,
seven years, five locations across theUnited States, and I only had
one person ever resign. And that'sbecause you know, that's just a testament
to the way we treat people inthe business. The way they should be
(07:06):
treated. So uh, from thereI started, Uh, I was going
to start another company, and endedup consulting for sand Ridge. And then
one day Big Oil called and Iended up working for Big Oil. And
that's when I really was able todevelop my skills, because those are the
(07:27):
companies that invest a lot of moneyin you personally and developing your knowledge and
your skills. And I had alreadydecided that I was going to develop myself
as much as I could because whathappened to me with my prior company was
never going to happen again. Iwas going to ensure that never happened again.
So that was with Shell, right, yes, yes, yeah,
(07:48):
And I had a lot of greatopportunities at Shell. I was I was
able to study abroad, That's whereI received my formal appointment as a hydraulic
fracturing expert. I was able toparticipate in all of the research and development
projects and really doing what I waspassionate about. You know, I went
(08:11):
to college. I wanted to bean educator. I always wanted to be
a teacher, and I just lovedteaching people. And so the thing I
love the most about working at Showwas being a mentor for graduate engineers,
and I did it the whole timeI was there. I volunteered for every
single kid that came out of college. And it was a little bit self
(08:33):
serving, to be honest, becausewhat they didn't realize is that I was
learning as much from them as theywere learning from me. That's one of
the reasons I love teaching, youknow. I have all these young people
coming in with these you know,petroleum engineering degrees and chemical engineering degrees from
very prestigious universities. That was somethingI was not, you know, I
(08:56):
didn't have the opportunity to do whenI was young. And I learned so
much from these graduates and I talkedto them so much, and they helped
me, you know, develop myskill set as much as anybody. So
after I left Shell, I cameback home and we have a couple of
businesses here in Elk City where Ilived, and I had pretty much decided
(09:20):
that I was out of the businessat that point. I had, you
know, thirty years in and justkind of tired of it. And then,
you know, my phone rings oneday and it's a guy named Steve
McDaniel, you know, the formerfounder of Mid States Petroleum and he said,
hey, I want to I wantto start a new old company and
I want you to do it withme. I want you to come with
me. And I was like,you know, it's not every day a
(09:43):
guy like Steve McDaniel calls you andsays, let's go do something. So
I jumped on that opportunity as fastas I could. And it was the
story he told me was amazing becausehe was referred to me, apparently by
a guy named Marvin Oh to Them, who you may have heard of them,
was former president of Shell Unconventionals.And how Marvin knew me, I
(10:05):
have no idea because I'd only evermet him once, but apparently I left
an impression on them. So hereI am today, you know, building
an oil company. That's That's whatI'm doing today. So it's I'm really
excited about it. Yeah. Soit's very interesting to me to see how
your career is gone, because it's, uh, you know, people may
(10:26):
know you're you grew up in Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma. You
went to work for Shell. Iwent to work for Conical Phillips, and
I echo a lot of what yousay that you know young engineers. I'll
tell them. You know, ifyou work for a small company, try
to take a tour through a largeoil and gas company, because you will
learn a lot there that you willnot necessarily learn at a small company.
(10:48):
Sometimes small company you're wearing multiple hats, and uh, you know, some
of the things fall through the cracks. I think that, you know,
you miss some things. You know. My my current company, I went
to work for them, and theydidn't know what a hazop was, you
know. I said, you know, we got to do a hasup on
this project. And they're like,you know, what is it? And
I learned that, you know,working for a big oil and gas company,
(11:09):
I learned how to do those things. And so I would recommend everybody,
you know, if you get achance, go to work for a
big oil and you know. Andand I'm the same way. Somebody came
knocking on my door one day andI was on an ex pat assignment in
the Netherlands, I mean in Scotland, and somebody from the Netherlands called and
said, hey, we'd like toget you to come to work. It
was a really hard decision, butlike you, I said, well,
(11:31):
it was an opportunity that that Ihad to take, so we need to
take a quick break. When wecome back, I'd like to talk to
you about, you know, howthe TikTok thing happened, because you know,
that's where people know you from,and I'd really be interested in how
that came about and how you developeda following there. So let's take a
(11:52):
quick commercial break, and then afterthe break, I'll ask you a little
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(13:01):
In the Old Patch Radio. I'mRobert Rapier today with my guest Matt Randolph.
So, Matt, just before thebreak, we're talking about TikTok and
how that came about, because Ican tell you, for years, I've
had people asking me, Hey,do you know this guy on TikTok.
He's from Oklahoma, like you.He seems to have a lot of the
(13:22):
same views that you have, andit seems like somebody you would know.
And I over time, i'd checkin and I'd look and I'd say,
Yep, that sounds like exactly thatI feel the same way about the issue
that he said. And I hadnot just one, but I had multiple
friends from all over the country pingingme and saying, Hey, check this
(13:43):
guy out. And so you finallyinspired me to sign up. I signed
up just so I could comment.You know, I had kind of shunned
TikTok because I said, you know, younger people don't care that much about
energy, but I see the engagementyou get, and I'm like, I'm
very impressed because you know, theyouth of the future, and I'm glad
to see you out there kind ofcorrecting a lot of the misconceptions. So
(14:05):
tell me about that journey and howthat's been so. Uh, you know,
I was, I kind of wasoff social media for the most part
there for for quite a while becausethere's just it it's it's there's so much
misinformation, you know what I mean. Uh, And I had kind of
(14:26):
gotten off social media. There wasa bunch of guys that I worked with
that had gotten on that app andI never got on it. And I
had written a book that I wantedto I self published it, and I
wanted to promote it. And someonetold me, you know, there's people
on TikTok that do that do bookreviews, and if you you know,
(14:48):
sign up and go in there andyou make a couple of videos promoting your
book, and you know, maybeit'll catch on. And uh, so
that's initially why I got on TikTok, and I on there made a couple
of videos. I'll be completely honestI hated the app. I hated everything
about it. I hated what Iwas watching. But that was because I
(15:09):
didn't understand the algorithm and how itworks, and I didn't understand that it
would show me what I was interestedin if I just went and looked for
it. I didn't, you know, I was new to it. So
made a couple of videos kind ofleft it at that. One day,
I'm scrolling through and there was thisguy that I had followed on the app
is He's an artist and his nameis Casey van Arsdale and he does great,
(15:35):
you know, the spray paint art. His entire living is doing that
and he's just really great at it. And so I started watching him and
seeing the art that he would create. And one day he posted a question
about electric vehicles, and he wasbasically just asking, you know, does
(15:56):
anybody know, you know, arethese actually clean? You know, are
they actually carbon neutral? Like whatyou know? Because you know, the
discussion had been started about you know, the intensity of carbon emissions and the
manufacturing process with the batteries and allthat. And I thought, hey,
this is something I can respond to. I know a little bit about this,
(16:18):
So I made a video and Ikind of announced who I was and
what I did for a living inmy background, and then I said,
you know, if it really dependson where you live. If you live
in the Pacific Northwest, where almostall of the energy is renewable, then
you know your your your carbon footprintis reduced greatly. And you know,
(16:41):
if you live in Oklahoma, orif you live in a place where there's
a lot of coal or natural gasburned, then it takes you know,
X amount of years before you,you know, reach that carbon neutral as
opposed as compared to, you know, an internal combustion engine. And I
kind of laid all that out andI posted it as a response, and
(17:02):
I didn't really think much about it, and I got up the next day.
I was milling around the house doingsomething and I opened up my phone
and I looked at it, andI don't know, it had like a
million views, and I had likefifty something thousand followers, and I'm like,
what in the world is going on? And people loved that. People
(17:23):
loved that there was someone just speakingplainly and truthfully about how they work and
their benefits and the positives and thenegatives, and people just were eating it.
Up. So I took that andthat's kind of how social media hooks
you. It hooks you by givingyou a lot of attention, you know,
(17:45):
That's how it hooks you and getsyou sucked in. And so yes,
it is like a dopamine fix.And so I started answering a bunch
of questions because that video led tothousands of questions about the oil and gas
industry, and most of them werebecause I think people knew people know that
(18:10):
they are misinformed. They do likeyou know, when they listen to a
politician or a political pundent or someoneon the media talking about our industry,
they know that person's not being truthful. They just don't know anything about it
or know how to find out whyor any of that. So I was
I was their avenue to get thecorrect information and from there it just grew
(18:33):
and grew and a lot of opportunitieshave come away from that. But the
thing that the feedback that I getevery day is that people know that I'm
telling them the truth. That there'sthere's like, there's not any spin on
it, because I don't care aboutyour politics. This is what it is,
and people trust that. And forme, as an expert. That's
(18:56):
the only thing I have. Ioften say that I am the most fact
checked person on TikTok I am.I am the single most fact checked person
on that app, because every singlething I say is heavily scrutinized, heavily
fact checked, you know, andif I'm not right one percent of the
(19:18):
time, I catch a lot ofgrief for that. So I work really
hard to ensure that I'm giving peoplethe absolute correct information and not just my
perspective on things. So that that'skind of how that has gone. So
I can tell you that it hastriggered fodder for me to write about at
(19:42):
times. You know, sometimes I'llhave writer's block, and I'll go and
I'll say, what are people talkingabout? What are they interested in?
And I sometimes get ideas off ofwatching either your videos or some comments some
responses to your videos. So wegot to take another break. But when
we come back, I'd like toget into what's some of the most common
(20:03):
misconceptions that you run into regarding theenergy industry are, so that we'll be
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Welcome back to you the Old PatchRadio. I'm Robert Ray Pierre sitting in
for Kim Balato this week with myguest Matt Randall. Matt before the break,
you were telling me about your TikTokjourney and about a lot of the
(21:33):
misinformation out there. And I've dealtwith the same many times, and I
wonder if you find the same sortsof misconceptions that I often have to deal
with. So I'm curious, whatare some of the misconceptions that you run
into most frequently about the energy industry. I think I think the probably the
(21:55):
single most thing I've talked about onthat app, and it's and it's because
it was such a politically charged issuewas the Keystone XL And you probably could
have guessed that. But that andthe fact that people believe that oil companies
just charge whatever they want for agallon of gas, right, and and
that oil companies just charge whatever theywant for a barrel of oil. Those
(22:18):
are basically the main misconceptions and andand all of those misconceptions are driven by
misinformation that's been fed to them throughthe media, through the government both sides,
and through all of the social media. You know, so called social
(22:40):
media experts that that know how todo a Google search and suddenly can form
a complex opinion on something. Asyou know, complex is the global oil
and gas industry supply chain, like, so that's that's what feeds that and
I'm sure you're very familiar with that, right. Another one, I find
(23:02):
people very very misinformed about our subsidies. I mean, they always think that
the oil industry is being propped upby subsidies, and I have to explain,
I've written many articles about that.I have to explain, no,
you know, they see it andthey think there is a net flow of
cash from the government to the oilcompanies. I have to explain that is
not the case at all. You'retalking about tax breaks that other companies get,
(23:25):
and there's actually a strong net flowof cash from the oil companies back
into the government. Yeah. Andwhen I explain that to people, they
literally think that the government is writingchecks to oil companies. And when I
tell them how much of a cashcow is the oil and gas industry is
a cash cow for the US governmentand for the States, a lot of
(23:52):
them are really perceptive to it,and a lot of them are like,
well, you're in the industry,that's what you're going to say. But
you know, the people that goback and research what I say, they
find that I'm that I'm correct.In my assertions. So, yeah,
the subsidies is a huge thing.Yeah, I run into that frequently.
Prices is one, and you know, I try to, like you,
(24:17):
try to keep the politics out ofit, but always, you know,
when you're contradicting, you know,a politician. I've been attacked by the
right and the left because you know, I may be attacking Bernie Sanders who
is complaining about subsidies. At thesame time he's demanding they keep certain subsidies
in place. And I say,the irony there is, you know,
(24:37):
he doesn't want old subsidies except forthose ones that he really wants, the
Low income Heating Assistance program and soforth. I said, that's the problem.
You know, people don't really wantto get away get get away from
subsidies. They just don't like thekind that you know, certain kinds.
You know, the biggest subsidies inthe world are consumer subsidies like like Venezuela
(24:59):
paying way onunderneath the market price.And but you know, politician left don't
want to get rid of that,and politician will right, you know,
don't want to get rid of certaintax breaks that you know, all companies
benefit from. And I find thata lot of inconsistency, and depending on
who I'm attacking, I get attackedright back and called all kinds of names.
(25:23):
Yeah, if you've noticed in thecomment sections of my videos, there'll
be thousands of comments, and alot of them will be, hey,
you need to listen to this guy. He's a conservative. And then you
go down a couple of comments andit comments and someone's saying, hey,
you need to listen to this guy. He's a Democrat. And then you
know because nobody knows, and nobodyknows my political leanings, which is because
(25:48):
I'm an independent, but that's neitherhere nor there. When you're speaking just
the truth about something, it makesit very difficult for anyone to try to
figure out your political leanings because youknow, politics and the truth don't often
intersect each other. That is avery rare thing that happens. So I
(26:11):
laugh watching people trying to figure outwhat I am politically. People get upset
when you contradict with facts. Imean, somebody will make an assertion you
contradict with facts, and then youget attacked for being a partisan when all
you're doing is presenting facts. Sowe got to take another break here after
this. I want to talk alittle bit more about your company and kind
(26:33):
of what you do on a dayto day basis. So take me through
a day in the life of MattRandolphins company with commercial break and we'll be
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(27:23):
back to in the Old Patch Radio. I'm Robert ray Peer with my guest
Matt Randolph. When I'm watching yourvideos, you know, you answer a
lot of questions and I'm always wondering, you know, what, what's a
they like in the life of MattRandoff? What what does your company do?
What are you you know? Whatwhat role do you fill? In
that company and exactly I know you'rea principle, but can you explain to
(27:45):
people what does that mean and whatyou know, what kinds of things might
you do on a daily basis.Well, you know, we're a small
we're a small business, and we'rewe're building an oil company that is,
you know, the the parent companyto our own oil field services company,
our own technology company, our ownmidstream company, and our own environmental company
(28:10):
and and and so basically what wedid was, you know, during covid
UH when everything crashed, you couldbuy pretty much anything you wanted at an
auction that you know, oil fieldequipment. And so the business model was
to stand up an all field servicecompany so you didn't have to basically hire
anybody to go work on your wells. And so we stood up this oil
(28:36):
field services company and and that's thecompany that we use to work on our
wealth, which makes our break evencost extremely low. I tell people all
the time, we're a lot likefarmers. You know, when some work
needs to be done, we justgo out and do it ourselves. We
don't we don't have to spend alot of money on service providers. So
(28:59):
you know, when I joined thecompany. We had fourteen wells total when
I joined the company, and asof today, we hold a position of
over eighty thousand acres and roughly onehundred and fifty wells across the end of
Darko Basin, Western Enda Darko Basinand the Haines Full And that is that
(29:19):
is all bootstrap and sweat equity.We didn't borrow a dime. We just
went and worked our tails off andmade that happen, and we just put
our own money in. So it'sreally exciting what I do on a day
to day basis. I usually don'tknow what I'm going to do on any
(29:40):
given day until ten o'clock at nightthe night before that day. But if
you notice in most of my videos, I'm sitting in my pickup as I'm
doing right now on this show,I'm sitting in my pickup. That's because
I'm I'm either going out to locationsor I'm traveling somewhere. I'm meeting people,
(30:02):
you know, it is. Ourworkload is insane. Our workload is
absolutely insane. But we have anamazing team of people that are cross trained.
I have guys and women that canliterally run any piece of equipment in
the oil field. And then thatwas one of our goals was to make
(30:23):
our people, to develop our peoplewhere they could do literally anything. So
if we want to go clean outa well, our people can run any
of that equipment, you know,if we want to go swab or run
slick line or run E line oryou know, we do all of our
own well plugging, so our guyscan ceement. They can do the E
line and the c meaning work likewe can do it all. And that's
(30:47):
the what I really love about thisbusiness is because it makes me personally feel
recession proof. You know, itmakes me feel recession proof because we just
do it all ourselves and it's reallya team effort by everyone. And uh,
I'm I'm I'm excited to be apart of it. So tell me
(31:07):
about what happens at an oil well, one of your oil wells. You're
pumping all out of the ground.I guess you're separating off the gas.
Uh, where's it all going?Where's the gas going? What? What?
What happens on a typical well?Yeah, you know, the oil
is produced and runs through a typicallya three phase knockout, and and the
(31:30):
oil and water is separated and goesinto their tanks and the gas goes down
the south line. A lot ofour our wells, we have a lot
of rod lift wells. We hada lot, we have a lot of
plunger lift, and we have alot of UH gas ascended gas assisted plunger
lift. That's that's what most ofour wells are. But our business model
(31:52):
is basically, you know, oilcompanies came out here in the seventies and
eighties and and back then you cannotyou cannot co mingle separate formations. If
you drill the well, you hadto you had to complete one formation.
And there are stacked pays out herethat were left behind. And we often
go into old wells and plug backthose old zones that were completed and open
(32:16):
up new zones and you know,and frack them and put those wells back
online. And it's a really it'sit's it's a high risk thing because sometimes
you completely fail. But when youwin, you win huge. You know,
when you win, you win huge. So it's also the hardest thing
I've ever done in my life.I've always I've always worked in constructing and
(32:40):
completing a brand new well and allof the issues and trouble and problems that
can be brought to you by workingon a well that's forty years old and
trying to figure out, you know, how to how to resolve casing issues
and just all of the things.There's so many things. It's a much
(33:01):
more difficult thing than I've ever done. And that's what I love about it,
is that it's so challenging because I'mI'm one of those people. I
have to be challenged or or I'llgo take a nap. I just my
my adrenaline is is manufactured by challenges, is the best way to say it.
So you collect oil on site thereand tanks if someone comes and picks
(33:22):
it up, or you have littlecollection lines that go into larger lines.
How does your oil get from yourwell to the market? Where where does
it end up? It's currently alltrucked, Yeah it is. It is
currently all trucked. And and someof our you know up in you know,
the Beaver County area, we havea lot of wells up there.
(33:44):
Uh, most of our water ispiped directly to a large disposal that we
own out here in the Oylk Cityarea. You know, we truck our
own water. We don't call companiesto come truck our water. We do
it ourselves. That's you know,why why pay somebody to do something you
can do? But our oil isis trucked and ends up at you know,
(34:08):
planes marketing distribution hub there and Cushing, and that's that's where I'm pretty
sure that's where all of it goes. So we need to take a break
again here and we're gonna come upon our last second. I said,
a lot of questions left to askyou, but I'll try to pooritize and
get the important ones out of theway. But with that will take a
break and we'll be rocked back.I'm Robert ray Pier with in the Old
(34:29):
Patch Radio with my guest Matt Brandolf. Hey, when you're in business,
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welcome back to in the Old PatchRadio. I'm ROBERTI Pierre sitting in today
for Kim Balado. My guest MattRandolph and I were talking about a little
(36:21):
bit about his company. Matt oneother questions I wanted to ask you,
you know what, how do youdeal with the environmental issues regarding a company?
You know, you produce water.I guess somebody hauls that off.
You're fracking, you know what whatsteps is your company taking to address concerns
about environmental impacts of oil and gasextraction. Well. One of the things
(36:43):
we we have a lot of focuson is we we have a couple of
different avenues. One of the thingswe put a lot of focus and attention
on is are well plugging. Youknow, as I told you, we
plug our own wells, and there'sbeen some issues there. There's been some
issues around the country with with wellsthat have been plugged, you know,
ten twenty years ago, basically springingleaks. You know, So we put
(37:07):
a lot of emphasis on our end. Since we plug our own wells and
can actually turn profit plugging our ownwells, that gives us a lot of
room to to really perform a highspec plugging operation and go way above and
beyond you know, the state regulationson what we should do. So you
(37:30):
know, if if the state sayswe need a hundred foot of semen across
this shoe, we put two hundredfoot of cement there. You know,
where the state says we want fiftyfoot a cement here, we put one
hundred feet of cement there. Sowe really, you know, spend a
lot of time and focus on ensuringthat that is done properly because that is
a huge thing. Does you knowwe do soil testing. We have all
(37:51):
of our own equipment to remediate theland and restore it back to the way
it was. We can do thesoil testing for that. So so plugging
is a huge issue because wells thatneed to be plugged is a huge environmental
concern obviously, and that's where ourtechnology company comes in. We've we've teamed
up with a couple of guys atStanford University. We've created some products.
(38:15):
It's the pad I system is whatwe call it. Currently in testing,
we're testing it in our company,have another large publicly traded company that is
also testing it as well. Wehave all of our well not all of
our locations. But at this point, most of our locations have cameras on
them regular you know everyday cameras andalso you know, thermal imaging cameras.
(38:40):
We've we've developed a system to wherewhat these cameras do is they take a
snapshot and you can set that camerato take a to take a picture,
you can do it. You canset it to take a picture every five
seconds, every ten seconds, youknow, every minute, however you want
to do it. And all ofthat data is uploaded to a cloud based
system. When you when you winand look at that, what it does
(39:01):
is it puts all those single framestogether and almost makes a video, is
how that works. So but weare looking at ways to pair that technology
with artificial intelligence and our ultimate goalis to be able to monitor emissions on
wells twenty four hours a day remotely, which is a huge thing for us,
(39:25):
and that's what we're working towards andwe're going to get there. We're
absolutely going to get there. Sothose are some really big things that that
we focus on regarding the environment inour business. Okay, so stay on
that theme environment, carbon emissions.You know, there's a lot of talk
(39:46):
the energy transition has been a bigtheme. How do you see that plan
out over the next you know,ten to twenty years, and how do
you think that will impact you doyou do you think twenty years from now
you'll still be you know, yourcompany will still be producing oil at this
level, and there'll still be thiskind of demand for oil. Are you
(40:07):
speaking of global demand or I don'tknow twenty years out. I'm guessing twenty
years out, we've probably hit peakdemand and we're probably in that plateau and
it's starting to decline just a littlebit. I personally, you know,
and opinions around the world vary onthis. A lot of people believe that,
(40:30):
you know, we're going to reachpeak oil demand, you know,
next week or something, and it'sjust not a thing. It's not a
thing. Oil demand is growing fasterthan we can build renewable energy, or
total energy demand is growing faster thanwe can build renewable energy. I've told
people for years, you know,a lot of people in our industry are
(40:52):
afraid of renewable energy, and I'vebeen telling them, you know, it's
not renewable energy you need to beafraid of. What you need to be
afraid of is far as your jobis automation and efficiency, because by the
time renewable energy takes your job,you will have been out of work for
twenty years due to automation and efficiency, and that's what you need to focus
on and broaden your skill set.But there's and I am not an opponent
(41:15):
of renewable energy at all. Ijust feel like I have a good understanding
of the energy needs of this countryand you know, and the world,
and if you even if you takeclimate change completely out of the conversation,
we still need renewable energy to meetour future energy demands. We're just gonna
(41:35):
need it, whether climate change isa thing or not. We need all
of the energy we can muster.And so I think oil is going to
be around for a very long time, and even when it starts to decline,
it's going you know, it isnot going to be in my lifetime
or I don't believe my son's lifetimethat that oil is really taking a hit
from renewable energy. I just Ijust don't see it happening. It's it's
(42:00):
a bumpy road. It's not easyto change the foundation the entire world was
built on, and that is literallywhat we're trying to do the only gas
industry built the world. Okay,without the oil and gas industry, we
would be living in the dark ages. And to think that we can change
the very foundation that our whole lifeis built on and do that in any
(42:24):
you know, meaningful amount of timeis very shortsighted. This is a much
larger task than most people think itis. Yeah, the perception. I
think there's such a perception gap betweenwhat the oil and gas industry does for
America and how people view the oiland gas industry. I mean, the
only gas industry is viewed about likecigarette companies. And yet you know,
(42:46):
if all on gas shut down tomorrow, you know, cigarette industry shutdown tomorrow,
it wouldn't affect anything. I mean, people start living longer. But
if the only gas industry shut downtomorrow, the world would come to a
grinding halt. And it's amazing tome. Yeah, I've lived in other
countries, you know, the Netherlands. They are very positive about Shell.
I mean when I was living overthere in Shell's headquartered there, and they
(43:08):
viewed Shell very positively. And wejust don't look at our oil companies that
way. We've got about a minuteleft, I wanted to get in a
question from a reader who asked meon Facebook. I know you're upstream,
but did a downstream question. What'sgoing on with refining? What does the
US need to do to fix it? And we've got one minute. Well,
(43:30):
I think we're in a spot where, you know, people don't want
to invest in that business. Youknow, there's too much legal headache.
And we lost twelve refineries between twentyfifteen and twenty twenty if I'm correct,
maybe twenty sixteen and twenty twenty,but we lost twelve refineries. There,
(43:51):
we lost a million barrels a dayof refining capacity. That's what's really been
driving our high gas prices lately,you know, is the refining capacity.
Super excited about potentially a new twohundred and fifty thousand barila day refinery being
built in Cushing. But you know, I just don't see people, you
know, the people that have themoney putting it towards refining. There's too
(44:15):
many legal issues, it's it's toounpopular, it's bad for the brand,
however you want to say it.And that is our problem right now.
So until we need to become muchmore efficient and that will that to me
that's what's going to help our refiningissues is fuel efficiency. We'll bring that
more in line more than anything.And that's my take on that. All
(44:37):
right, well, that's all thetime we have. Thank you. I
wanted to get that question in becausesomebody wanted to ask you. I want
to thank my guest Matt Randolph todayfor being on the in the Old Patch
Radio. Please tune in next timeand thank you for joining us today.
Thank you Robert in the Oil Patches, where together we explore topics that affect
us all in oil gas business andin your community. Every week, your
(45:00):
host kimball Otto will visit with themovers and shakers in this fast paced industry.
You'll hear from industry experts, electedofficials, and many more right here
on in the oil Patch.
Welcome to in the oil Patch,presented by Shale Magazine, broadcasting from the
oil Field Experts Studios. Oil FieldExperts where you get the right products right
now in the oil patches, wheretogether we explore topics that affect us all
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Kim Balatto will visit with the moversand shakers in this fast paced industry.
(00:21):
You'll hear from industry experts, electedofficials, and many more right here on
in the oil Patch. Welcome toin the oil Patch Radio. I'm Robert
ray Pier, senior contributor from Forbes, sitting in for Kim Blago. This
is my first time sitting on thisside of the interview chair, so bear
with me a little bit. I'vegot a very interesting guest today. We'll
get to But this morning I gota text from my sister, who teaches
(00:45):
high school in Oklahoma, and shetold me she's using one of my Forges
articles to teach her class something aboutenergy. I was really tickled by this
because I am passionate about educating peopleon energy issues. But to me,
it always feels like the public,and especially younger generations, aren't that interested
in energy issues. It seems likeinterest only really spikes when gas prices spike
(01:07):
or there's some oil issue in theMiddle East. That's when suddenly everybody becomes
interested in energy issues. Well,today's guest has convinced me that's not true.
So when they told me I couldask anyone I wanted to be on
the show, the choice for mewas very clear. Today's guest, Matt
Randolph, is not only a VPand principal partner of the oil companies Set
(01:29):
On Energy LLC, He's also aTikTok Sensation. Matt or mister Global as
he goes by on TikTok, hasover three undred and fifty thousand followers and
his videos have been viewed hundreds ofmillions of times, he says, a
YouTube channel where he has around eleventhousand subscribers. His videos are educational and
entertaining, and they are especially embracedby younger people. Matt, thank you
(01:52):
very much for joining us today.Robert, thank you very much for having
me. I've been looking forward tothis absolutely, so in this first segment,
I want to do a couple ofthings. So I watched a lot
of your videos and I haven't seenone where you really describe your journey in
the oil industry, like how didit start, what drew you to that
(02:13):
career, and what are you doingtoday? And then either in this segment
or the next segment, I'd liketo talk to you about how you got
involved in TikTok. So first,you know what drew you to the oil
industry. Well, Robert, Iwas planted in western Oklahoma in nineteen seventy
nine as a five year old.And I'm sure you're familiar with the history,
(02:38):
so you know, the oil fieldwas booming. This was I currently
live in Elk City, and itwas just a massive boom town at the
time, and that's kind of whatI grew up in. It wouldn't be
unusual, you know, for usto take the pickup out and sit on
the tailgate and watch your rig burnto the ground. Like that was not
an atypical, you know day forme. I got to sit at the
(03:02):
edge of a massive crater and watchthe apache keys blowout in Allison, Texas
when I was seven years old.They would literally let you drive right up
to it and watch it. Backthen, you know, they were little.
Times were a little different back then, you know, So I was
fascinated with this industry at a veryearly age. And everyone I knew,
(03:22):
you know, my family and friends, everyone worked in this industry. I
think we had about four thousand rigsup in nineteen eighty one, and I
think they tried to stick half ofthem right here in Elba City, Oklahoma.
So when I got, you know, out of high school where I'm
from, you either go to collegeor you get in the wall field,
(03:43):
and I decided to do both.So I worked nights on a on a
drilling rig for Anadarko Drilling and whenI would get off work in the morning,
I'd run over to Southwestern and takemy classes, you know, my
college classes. And I did thatfor a while, and it was exhausting,
and I made the mistake that alot of young kids make. I
decided, Wow, you know,I'm making probably three times more money on
(04:06):
this rig than I'll make when Igraduate. Why am I going to school?
So I quit school and that kindof started my career in the industry.
I do want to add I didgo back later and get my degree,
but I spent a few years indrilling, most of it with H
and P. But then when Igot on the completion side of the business.
(04:29):
That's when I really fell in lovewith it. I just I loved
it a lot more than the drillingside. And I spent my career right
here in Elk City, working fordifferent companies and just just worked my way
up. I eventually and you know, two thousand and four, I reached
out to a friend who had startedan oil and gas service company. He
(04:54):
had started a wireline company, andI had always had aspirations of doing that.
I basically asked him how he didit, and Uh, two weeks
later, I'm sitting in a ina boardroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in
front of a bunch of investors,and they're agreeing to basically finance my new
company. So started that company intwo thousand and four. That was called
(05:16):
Sooner Pressure Control. And then andthen from there, you know, we
grew that company was it was verysuccessful. Within a few years, we
had five low locations across the UnitedStates. And uh, but that's when
I learned about the business side ofthe oil and gas industry. So we
(05:38):
had an opportunity to sell. Anduh, it was a couple of days,
a couple of days before we wereclosing on the sale of that business,
and you know, the investors cameand said, you know, they
called a special meeting and said,we think we want to wait another six
months. We think we can squeezesome more money out of them. And
(05:59):
well about two months out after that, the Great Recession hit. So that
was devastating to our business. Youknow, our our value probably fell by
ninety percent during that time. Andand and then they viewed that at a
perfect time to get my equity back. So they I built the business and
(06:21):
it pretty much was on cruise controlat that point, and so they voted
me out when my value was atthe lowest it could possibly be. And
so that was my first hard lessonin the industry of just how tough the
business itself is. So they theydid not do well after that, I
(06:45):
can put it to you that way. And the seven years I ran that
business, I only had one personquit. And that that is the one
thing from that company that I've alwaysbeen the most proud of. You know,
seven years, five locations across theUnited States, and I only had
one person ever resign. And that'sbecause you know, that's just a testament
to the way we treat people inthe business. The way they should be
(07:06):
treated. So uh, from thereI started, Uh, I was going
to start another company, and endedup consulting for sand Ridge. And then
one day Big Oil called and Iended up working for Big Oil. And
that's when I really was able todevelop my skills, because those are the
(07:27):
companies that invest a lot of moneyin you personally and developing your knowledge and
your skills. And I had alreadydecided that I was going to develop myself
as much as I could because whathappened to me with my prior company was
never going to happen again. Iwas going to ensure that never happened again.
So that was with Shell, right, yes, yes, yeah,
(07:48):
And I had a lot of greatopportunities at Shell. I was I was
able to study abroad, That's whereI received my formal appointment as a hydraulic
fracturing expert. I was able toparticipate in all of the research and development
projects and really doing what I waspassionate about. You know, I went
(08:11):
to college. I wanted to bean educator. I always wanted to be
a teacher, and I just lovedteaching people. And so the thing I
love the most about working at Showwas being a mentor for graduate engineers,
and I did it the whole timeI was there. I volunteered for every
single kid that came out of college. And it was a little bit self
(08:33):
serving, to be honest, becausewhat they didn't realize is that I was
learning as much from them as theywere learning from me. That's one of
the reasons I love teaching, youknow. I have all these young people
coming in with these you know,petroleum engineering degrees and chemical engineering degrees from
very prestigious universities. That was somethingI was not, you know, I
(08:56):
didn't have the opportunity to do whenI was young. And I learned so
much from these graduates and I talkedto them so much, and they helped
me, you know, develop myskill set as much as anybody. So
after I left Shell, I cameback home and we have a couple of
businesses here in Elk City where Ilived, and I had pretty much decided
(09:20):
that I was out of the businessat that point. I had, you
know, thirty years in and justkind of tired of it. And then,
you know, my phone rings oneday and it's a guy named Steve
McDaniel, you know, the formerfounder of Mid States Petroleum and he said,
hey, I want to I wantto start a new old company and
I want you to do it withme. I want you to come with
me. And I was like,you know, it's not every day a
(09:43):
guy like Steve McDaniel calls you andsays, let's go do something. So
I jumped on that opportunity as fastas I could. And it was the
story he told me was amazing becausehe was referred to me, apparently by
a guy named Marvin Oh to Them, who you may have heard of them,
was former president of Shell Unconventionals.And how Marvin knew me, I
(10:05):
have no idea because I'd only evermet him once, but apparently I left
an impression on them. So hereI am today, you know, building
an oil company. That's That's whatI'm doing today. So it's I'm really
excited about it. Yeah. Soit's very interesting to me to see how
your career is gone, because it's, uh, you know, people may
(10:26):
know you're you grew up in Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma. You
went to work for Shell. Iwent to work for Conical Phillips, and
I echo a lot of what yousay that you know young engineers. I'll
tell them. You know, ifyou work for a small company, try
to take a tour through a largeoil and gas company, because you will
learn a lot there that you willnot necessarily learn at a small company.
(10:48):
Sometimes small company you're wearing multiple hats, and uh, you know, some
of the things fall through the cracks. I think that, you know,
you miss some things. You know. My my current company, I went
to work for them, and theydidn't know what a hazop was, you
know. I said, you know, we got to do a hasup on
this project. And they're like,you know, what is it? And
I learned that, you know,working for a big oil and gas company,
(11:09):
I learned how to do those things. And so I would recommend everybody,
you know, if you get achance, go to work for a
big oil and you know. Andand I'm the same way. Somebody came
knocking on my door one day andI was on an ex pat assignment in
the Netherlands, I mean in Scotland, and somebody from the Netherlands called and
said, hey, we'd like toget you to come to work. It
was a really hard decision, butlike you, I said, well,
(11:31):
it was an opportunity that that Ihad to take, so we need to
take a quick break. When wecome back, I'd like to talk to
you about, you know, howthe TikTok thing happened, because you know,
that's where people know you from,and I'd really be interested in how
that came about and how you developeda following there. So let's take a
(11:52):
quick commercial break, and then afterthe break, I'll ask you a little
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Safety Group member, go to Texasmutualdot com slash TXOGA. Welcome back to
(13:01):
In the Old Patch Radio. I'mRobert Rapier today with my guest Matt Randolph.
So, Matt, just before thebreak, we're talking about TikTok and
how that came about, because Ican tell you, for years, I've
had people asking me, Hey,do you know this guy on TikTok.
He's from Oklahoma, like you.He seems to have a lot of the
(13:22):
same views that you have, andit seems like somebody you would know.
And I over time, i'd checkin and I'd look and I'd say,
Yep, that sounds like exactly thatI feel the same way about the issue
that he said. And I hadnot just one, but I had multiple
friends from all over the country pingingme and saying, Hey, check this
(13:43):
guy out. And so you finallyinspired me to sign up. I signed
up just so I could comment.You know, I had kind of shunned
TikTok because I said, you know, younger people don't care that much about
energy, but I see the engagementyou get, and I'm like, I'm
very impressed because you know, theyouth of the future, and I'm glad
to see you out there kind ofcorrecting a lot of the misconceptions. So
(14:05):
tell me about that journey and howthat's been so. Uh, you know,
I was, I kind of wasoff social media for the most part
there for for quite a while becausethere's just it it's it's there's so much
misinformation, you know what I mean. Uh, And I had kind of
(14:26):
gotten off social media. There wasa bunch of guys that I worked with
that had gotten on that app andI never got on it. And I
had written a book that I wantedto I self published it, and I
wanted to promote it. And someonetold me, you know, there's people
on TikTok that do that do bookreviews, and if you you know,
(14:48):
sign up and go in there andyou make a couple of videos promoting your
book, and you know, maybeit'll catch on. And uh, so
that's initially why I got on TikTok, and I on there made a couple
of videos. I'll be completely honestI hated the app. I hated everything
about it. I hated what Iwas watching. But that was because I
(15:09):
didn't understand the algorithm and how itworks, and I didn't understand that it
would show me what I was interestedin if I just went and looked for
it. I didn't, you know, I was new to it. So
made a couple of videos kind ofleft it at that. One day,
I'm scrolling through and there was thisguy that I had followed on the app
is He's an artist and his nameis Casey van Arsdale and he does great,
(15:35):
you know, the spray paint art. His entire living is doing that
and he's just really great at it. And so I started watching him and
seeing the art that he would create. And one day he posted a question
about electric vehicles, and he wasbasically just asking, you know, does
(15:56):
anybody know, you know, arethese actually clean? You know, are
they actually carbon neutral? Like whatyou know? Because you know, the
discussion had been started about you know, the intensity of carbon emissions and the
manufacturing process with the batteries and allthat. And I thought, hey,
this is something I can respond to. I know a little bit about this,
(16:18):
So I made a video and Ikind of announced who I was and
what I did for a living inmy background, and then I said,
you know, if it really dependson where you live. If you live
in the Pacific Northwest, where almostall of the energy is renewable, then
you know your your your carbon footprintis reduced greatly. And you know,
(16:41):
if you live in Oklahoma, orif you live in a place where there's
a lot of coal or natural gasburned, then it takes you know,
X amount of years before you,you know, reach that carbon neutral as
opposed as compared to, you know, an internal combustion engine. And I
kind of laid all that out andI posted it as a response, and
(17:02):
I didn't really think much about it, and I got up the next day.
I was milling around the house doingsomething and I opened up my phone
and I looked at it, andI don't know, it had like a
million views, and I had likefifty something thousand followers, and I'm like,
what in the world is going on? And people loved that. People
(17:23):
loved that there was someone just speakingplainly and truthfully about how they work and
their benefits and the positives and thenegatives, and people just were eating it.
Up. So I took that andthat's kind of how social media hooks
you. It hooks you by givingyou a lot of attention, you know,
(17:45):
That's how it hooks you and getsyou sucked in. And so yes,
it is like a dopamine fix.And so I started answering a bunch
of questions because that video led tothousands of questions about the oil and gas
industry, and most of them werebecause I think people knew people know that
(18:10):
they are misinformed. They do likeyou know, when they listen to a
politician or a political pundent or someoneon the media talking about our industry,
they know that person's not being truthful. They just don't know anything about it
or know how to find out whyor any of that. So I was
I was their avenue to get thecorrect information and from there it just grew
(18:33):
and grew and a lot of opportunitieshave come away from that. But the
thing that the feedback that I getevery day is that people know that I'm
telling them the truth. That there'sthere's like, there's not any spin on
it, because I don't care aboutyour politics. This is what it is,
and people trust that. And forme, as an expert. That's
(18:56):
the only thing I have. Ioften say that I am the most fact
checked person on TikTok I am.I am the single most fact checked person
on that app, because every singlething I say is heavily scrutinized, heavily
fact checked, you know, andif I'm not right one percent of the
(19:18):
time, I catch a lot ofgrief for that. So I work really
hard to ensure that I'm giving peoplethe absolute correct information and not just my
perspective on things. So that that'skind of how that has gone. So
I can tell you that it hastriggered fodder for me to write about at
(19:42):
times. You know, sometimes I'llhave writer's block, and I'll go and
I'll say, what are people talkingabout? What are they interested in?
And I sometimes get ideas off ofwatching either your videos or some comments some
responses to your videos. So wegot to take another break. But when
we come back, I'd like toget into what's some of the most common
(20:03):
misconceptions that you run into regarding theenergy industry are, so that we'll be
right back on in the old Patchradio. Are you a business owner feeling
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Welcome back to you the Old PatchRadio. I'm Robert Ray Pierre sitting in
for Kim Balato this week with myguest Matt Randall. Matt before the break,
you were telling me about your TikTokjourney and about a lot of the
(21:33):
misinformation out there. And I've dealtwith the same many times, and I
wonder if you find the same sortsof misconceptions that I often have to deal
with. So I'm curious, whatare some of the misconceptions that you run
into most frequently about the energy industry. I think I think the probably the
(21:55):
single most thing I've talked about onthat app, and it's and it's because
it was such a politically charged issuewas the Keystone XL And you probably could
have guessed that. But that andthe fact that people believe that oil companies
just charge whatever they want for agallon of gas, right, and and
that oil companies just charge whatever theywant for a barrel of oil. Those
(22:18):
are basically the main misconceptions and andand all of those misconceptions are driven by
misinformation that's been fed to them throughthe media, through the government both sides,
and through all of the social media. You know, so called social
(22:40):
media experts that that know how todo a Google search and suddenly can form
a complex opinion on something. Asyou know, complex is the global oil
and gas industry supply chain, like, so that's that's what feeds that and
I'm sure you're very familiar with that, right. Another one, I find
(23:02):
people very very misinformed about our subsidies. I mean, they always think that
the oil industry is being propped upby subsidies, and I have to explain,
I've written many articles about that.I have to explain, no,
you know, they see it andthey think there is a net flow of
cash from the government to the oilcompanies. I have to explain that is
not the case at all. You'retalking about tax breaks that other companies get,
(23:25):
and there's actually a strong net flowof cash from the oil companies back
into the government. Yeah. Andwhen I explain that to people, they
literally think that the government is writingchecks to oil companies. And when I
tell them how much of a cashcow is the oil and gas industry is
a cash cow for the US governmentand for the States, a lot of
(23:52):
them are really perceptive to it,and a lot of them are like,
well, you're in the industry,that's what you're going to say. But
you know, the people that goback and research what I say, they
find that I'm that I'm correct.In my assertions. So, yeah,
the subsidies is a huge thing.Yeah, I run into that frequently.
Prices is one, and you know, I try to, like you,
(24:17):
try to keep the politics out ofit, but always, you know,
when you're contradicting, you know,a politician. I've been attacked by the
right and the left because you know, I may be attacking Bernie Sanders who
is complaining about subsidies. At thesame time he's demanding they keep certain subsidies
in place. And I say,the irony there is, you know,
(24:37):
he doesn't want old subsidies except forthose ones that he really wants, the
Low income Heating Assistance program and soforth. I said, that's the problem.
You know, people don't really wantto get away get get away from
subsidies. They just don't like thekind that you know, certain kinds.
You know, the biggest subsidies inthe world are consumer subsidies like like Venezuela
(24:59):
paying way onunderneath the market price.And but you know, politician left don't
want to get rid of that,and politician will right, you know,
don't want to get rid of certaintax breaks that you know, all companies
benefit from. And I find thata lot of inconsistency, and depending on
who I'm attacking, I get attackedright back and called all kinds of names.
(25:23):
Yeah, if you've noticed in thecomment sections of my videos, there'll
be thousands of comments, and alot of them will be, hey,
you need to listen to this guy. He's a conservative. And then you
go down a couple of comments andit comments and someone's saying, hey,
you need to listen to this guy. He's a Democrat. And then you
know because nobody knows, and nobodyknows my political leanings, which is because
(25:48):
I'm an independent, but that's neitherhere nor there. When you're speaking just
the truth about something, it makesit very difficult for anyone to try to
figure out your political leanings because youknow, politics and the truth don't often
intersect each other. That is avery rare thing that happens. So I
(26:11):
laugh watching people trying to figure outwhat I am politically. People get upset
when you contradict with facts. Imean, somebody will make an assertion you
contradict with facts, and then youget attacked for being a partisan when all
you're doing is presenting facts. Sowe got to take another break here after
this. I want to talk alittle bit more about your company and kind
(26:33):
of what you do on a dayto day basis. So take me through
a day in the life of MattRandolphins company with commercial break and we'll be
right back. Attention, small andmedium sized business owners. Are you feeling
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two six three ninety two. Uniquehr the partner you can trust. Welcome
(27:23):
back to in the Old Patch Radio. I'm Robert ray Peer with my guest
Matt Randolph. When I'm watching yourvideos, you know, you answer a
lot of questions and I'm always wondering, you know, what, what's a
they like in the life of MattRandoff? What what does your company do?
What are you you know? Whatwhat role do you fill? In
that company and exactly I know you'rea principle, but can you explain to
(27:45):
people what does that mean and whatyou know, what kinds of things might
you do on a daily basis.Well, you know, we're a small
we're a small business, and we'rewe're building an oil company that is,
you know, the the parent companyto our own oil field services company,
our own technology company, our ownmidstream company, and our own environmental company
(28:10):
and and and so basically what wedid was, you know, during covid
UH when everything crashed, you couldbuy pretty much anything you wanted at an
auction that you know, oil fieldequipment. And so the business model was
to stand up an all field servicecompany so you didn't have to basically hire
anybody to go work on your wells. And so we stood up this oil
(28:36):
field services company and and that's thecompany that we use to work on our
wealth, which makes our break evencost extremely low. I tell people all
the time, we're a lot likefarmers. You know, when some work
needs to be done, we justgo out and do it ourselves. We
don't we don't have to spend alot of money on service providers. So
(28:59):
you know, when I joined thecompany. We had fourteen wells total when
I joined the company, and asof today, we hold a position of
over eighty thousand acres and roughly onehundred and fifty wells across the end of
Darko Basin, Western Enda Darko Basinand the Haines Full And that is that
(29:19):
is all bootstrap and sweat equity.We didn't borrow a dime. We just
went and worked our tails off andmade that happen, and we just put
our own money in. So it'sreally exciting what I do on a day
to day basis. I usually don'tknow what I'm going to do on any
(29:40):
given day until ten o'clock at nightthe night before that day. But if
you notice in most of my videos, I'm sitting in my pickup as I'm
doing right now on this show,I'm sitting in my pickup. That's because
I'm I'm either going out to locationsor I'm traveling somewhere. I'm meeting people,
(30:02):
you know, it is. Ourworkload is insane. Our workload is
absolutely insane. But we have anamazing team of people that are cross trained.
I have guys and women that canliterally run any piece of equipment in
the oil field. And then thatwas one of our goals was to make
(30:23):
our people, to develop our peoplewhere they could do literally anything. So
if we want to go clean outa well, our people can run any
of that equipment, you know,if we want to go swab or run
slick line or run E line oryou know, we do all of our
own well plugging, so our guyscan ceement. They can do the E
line and the c meaning work likewe can do it all. And that's
(30:47):
the what I really love about thisbusiness is because it makes me personally feel
recession proof. You know, itmakes me feel recession proof because we just
do it all ourselves and it's reallya team effort by everyone. And uh,
I'm I'm I'm excited to be apart of it. So tell me
(31:07):
about what happens at an oil well, one of your oil wells. You're
pumping all out of the ground.I guess you're separating off the gas.
Uh, where's it all going?Where's the gas going? What? What?
What happens on a typical well?Yeah, you know, the oil
is produced and runs through a typicallya three phase knockout, and and the
(31:30):
oil and water is separated and goesinto their tanks and the gas goes down
the south line. A lot ofour our wells, we have a lot
of rod lift wells. We hada lot, we have a lot of
plunger lift, and we have alot of UH gas ascended gas assisted plunger
lift. That's that's what most ofour wells are. But our business model
(31:52):
is basically, you know, oilcompanies came out here in the seventies and
eighties and and back then you cannotyou cannot co mingle separate formations. If
you drill the well, you hadto you had to complete one formation.
And there are stacked pays out herethat were left behind. And we often
go into old wells and plug backthose old zones that were completed and open
(32:16):
up new zones and you know,and frack them and put those wells back
online. And it's a really it'sit's it's a high risk thing because sometimes
you completely fail. But when youwin, you win huge. You know,
when you win, you win huge. So it's also the hardest thing
I've ever done in my life.I've always I've always worked in constructing and
(32:40):
completing a brand new well and allof the issues and trouble and problems that
can be brought to you by workingon a well that's forty years old and
trying to figure out, you know, how to how to resolve casing issues
and just all of the things.There's so many things. It's a much
(33:01):
more difficult thing than I've ever done. And that's what I love about it,
is that it's so challenging because I'mI'm one of those people. I
have to be challenged or or I'llgo take a nap. I just my
my adrenaline is is manufactured by challenges, is the best way to say it.
So you collect oil on site thereand tanks if someone comes and picks
(33:22):
it up, or you have littlecollection lines that go into larger lines.
How does your oil get from yourwell to the market? Where where does
it end up? It's currently alltrucked, Yeah it is. It is
currently all trucked. And and someof our you know up in you know,
the Beaver County area, we havea lot of wells up there.
(33:44):
Uh, most of our water ispiped directly to a large disposal that we
own out here in the Oylk Cityarea. You know, we truck our
own water. We don't call companiesto come truck our water. We do
it ourselves. That's you know,why why pay somebody to do something you
can do? But our oil isis trucked and ends up at you know,
(34:08):
planes marketing distribution hub there and Cushing, and that's that's where I'm pretty
sure that's where all of it goes. So we need to take a break
again here and we're gonna come upon our last second. I said,
a lot of questions left to askyou, but I'll try to pooritize and
get the important ones out of theway. But with that will take a
break and we'll be rocked back.I'm Robert ray Pier with in the Old
(34:29):
Patch Radio with my guest Matt Brandolf. Hey, when you're in business,
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of these areas really affect how Googleranks your entire listing. So if ranking
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two ten two four zero seventy oneeighty eight, or simply go to shale
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ten two four zero seven you wanteighty eight, or simply go to shale
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welcome back to in the Old PatchRadio. I'm ROBERTI Pierre sitting in today
for Kim Balado. My guest MattRandolph and I were talking about a little
(36:21):
bit about his company. Matt oneother questions I wanted to ask you,
you know what, how do youdeal with the environmental issues regarding a company?
You know, you produce water.I guess somebody hauls that off.
You're fracking, you know what whatsteps is your company taking to address concerns
about environmental impacts of oil and gasextraction. Well. One of the things
(36:43):
we we have a lot of focuson is we we have a couple of
different avenues. One of the thingswe put a lot of focus and attention
on is are well plugging. Youknow, as I told you, we
plug our own wells, and there'sbeen some issues there. There's been some
issues around the country with with wellsthat have been plugged, you know,
ten twenty years ago, basically springingleaks. You know, So we put
(37:07):
a lot of emphasis on our end. Since we plug our own wells and
can actually turn profit plugging our ownwells, that gives us a lot of
room to to really perform a highspec plugging operation and go way above and
beyond you know, the state regulationson what we should do. So you
(37:30):
know, if if the state sayswe need a hundred foot of semen across
this shoe, we put two hundredfoot of cement there. You know,
where the state says we want fiftyfoot a cement here, we put one
hundred feet of cement there. Sowe really, you know, spend a
lot of time and focus on ensuringthat that is done properly because that is
a huge thing. Does you knowwe do soil testing. We have all
(37:51):
of our own equipment to remediate theland and restore it back to the way
it was. We can do thesoil testing for that. So so plugging
is a huge issue because wells thatneed to be plugged is a huge environmental
concern obviously, and that's where ourtechnology company comes in. We've we've teamed
up with a couple of guys atStanford University. We've created some products.
(38:15):
It's the pad I system is whatwe call it. Currently in testing,
we're testing it in our company,have another large publicly traded company that is
also testing it as well. Wehave all of our well not all of
our locations. But at this point, most of our locations have cameras on
them regular you know everyday cameras andalso you know, thermal imaging cameras.
(38:40):
We've we've developed a system to wherewhat these cameras do is they take a
snapshot and you can set that camerato take a to take a picture,
you can do it. You canset it to take a picture every five
seconds, every ten seconds, youknow, every minute, however you want
to do it. And all ofthat data is uploaded to a cloud based
system. When you when you winand look at that, what it does
(39:01):
is it puts all those single framestogether and almost makes a video, is
how that works. So but weare looking at ways to pair that technology
with artificial intelligence and our ultimate goalis to be able to monitor emissions on
wells twenty four hours a day remotely, which is a huge thing for us,
(39:25):
and that's what we're working towards andwe're going to get there. We're
absolutely going to get there. Sothose are some really big things that that
we focus on regarding the environment inour business. Okay, so stay on
that theme environment, carbon emissions.You know, there's a lot of talk
(39:46):
the energy transition has been a bigtheme. How do you see that plan
out over the next you know,ten to twenty years, and how do
you think that will impact you doyou do you think twenty years from now
you'll still be you know, yourcompany will still be producing oil at this
level, and there'll still be thiskind of demand for oil. Are you
(40:07):
speaking of global demand or I don'tknow twenty years out. I'm guessing twenty
years out, we've probably hit peakdemand and we're probably in that plateau and
it's starting to decline just a littlebit. I personally, you know,
and opinions around the world vary onthis. A lot of people believe that,
(40:30):
you know, we're going to reachpeak oil demand, you know,
next week or something, and it'sjust not a thing. It's not a
thing. Oil demand is growing fasterthan we can build renewable energy, or
total energy demand is growing faster thanwe can build renewable energy. I've told
people for years, you know,a lot of people in our industry are
(40:52):
afraid of renewable energy, and I'vebeen telling them, you know, it's
not renewable energy you need to beafraid of. What you need to be
afraid of is far as your jobis automation and efficiency, because by the
time renewable energy takes your job,you will have been out of work for
twenty years due to automation and efficiency, and that's what you need to focus
on and broaden your skill set.But there's and I am not an opponent
(41:15):
of renewable energy at all. Ijust feel like I have a good understanding
of the energy needs of this countryand you know, and the world,
and if you even if you takeclimate change completely out of the conversation,
we still need renewable energy to meetour future energy demands. We're just gonna
(41:35):
need it, whether climate change isa thing or not. We need all
of the energy we can muster.And so I think oil is going to
be around for a very long time, and even when it starts to decline,
it's going you know, it isnot going to be in my lifetime
or I don't believe my son's lifetimethat that oil is really taking a hit
from renewable energy. I just Ijust don't see it happening. It's it's
(42:00):
a bumpy road. It's not easyto change the foundation the entire world was
built on, and that is literallywhat we're trying to do the only gas
industry built the world. Okay,without the oil and gas industry, we
would be living in the dark ages. And to think that we can change
the very foundation that our whole lifeis built on and do that in any
(42:24):
you know, meaningful amount of timeis very shortsighted. This is a much
larger task than most people think itis. Yeah, the perception. I
think there's such a perception gap betweenwhat the oil and gas industry does for
America and how people view the oiland gas industry. I mean, the
only gas industry is viewed about likecigarette companies. And yet you know,
(42:46):
if all on gas shut down tomorrow, you know, cigarette industry shutdown tomorrow,
it wouldn't affect anything. I mean, people start living longer. But
if the only gas industry shut downtomorrow, the world would come to a
grinding halt. And it's amazing tome. Yeah, I've lived in other
countries, you know, the Netherlands. They are very positive about Shell.
I mean when I was living overthere in Shell's headquartered there, and they
(43:08):
viewed Shell very positively. And wejust don't look at our oil companies that
way. We've got about a minuteleft, I wanted to get in a
question from a reader who asked meon Facebook. I know you're upstream,
but did a downstream question. What'sgoing on with refining? What does the
US need to do to fix it? And we've got one minute. Well,
(43:30):
I think we're in a spot where, you know, people don't want
to invest in that business. Youknow, there's too much legal headache.
And we lost twelve refineries between twentyfifteen and twenty twenty if I'm correct,
maybe twenty sixteen and twenty twenty,but we lost twelve refineries. There,
(43:51):
we lost a million barrels a dayof refining capacity. That's what's really been
driving our high gas prices lately,you know, is the refining capacity.
Super excited about potentially a new twohundred and fifty thousand barila day refinery being
built in Cushing. But you know, I just don't see people, you
know, the people that have themoney putting it towards refining. There's too
(44:15):
many legal issues, it's it's toounpopular, it's bad for the brand,
however you want to say it.And that is our problem right now.
So until we need to become muchmore efficient and that will that to me
that's what's going to help our refiningissues is fuel efficiency. We'll bring that
more in line more than anything.And that's my take on that. All
(44:37):
right, well, that's all thetime we have. Thank you. I
wanted to get that question in becausesomebody wanted to ask you. I want
to thank my guest Matt Randolph todayfor being on the in the Old Patch
Radio. Please tune in next timeand thank you for joining us today.
Thank you Robert in the Oil Patches, where together we explore topics that affect
us all in oil gas business andin your community. Every week, your
(45:00):
host kimball Otto will visit with themovers and shakers in this fast paced industry.
You'll hear from industry experts, electedofficials, and many more right here
on in the oil Patch.
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