This is the show for busy oil pros who quickly want to keep their finger on the pulse. You're listening to the Oil and Gas This Week podcast brought to you by Cognit, AI for the industry. This is a show for busy oil pros who want to quickly keep their finger on the pulse of the industry. Thanks for joining us for episode 374. Please save the date for Impact Cognite's annual user conference happening October 13th through the 16th here in Houston, Texas. And hey, Mark, where are we?
We're at the University of Houston Energy Industry Crawfish Boil. It's like the 34th one or something. 34th one. They've been doing this for a long time. You have a lot of companies represented here from the oil and gas industry, a lot of students here. Great food, cold drinks, got some cold beer, great band behind us.
And we're going to do something a little bit different, which, by the way, if you're listening and you have some questions for Paige and I, we have a mic here so you can ask some live questions. But at the end of the show, we're going to make an announcement about something we're doing with the University of Houston. However, you got to listen to the whole show before we get to it. Ha ha.
Joke's on you guys. Speaking of jokes, this is not a joke. We got a review. I don't know how many stars we got. He says, hi, Mark. Greetings from the UK. Even though I've never worked in all of this, I absolutely love your podcast. And Paige is fabulous.
Two, also. Let's get to news stories. All right, first up, petroleum students capture awards for research to reduce fracking expenses. How as cool as this just happens to have a University of Houston story while we're at the University of Houston. So this is at the Hydraulic Fraction Technology Conference a couple months ago, SPE put on. And Mohamed Abou-Gabri, he's a Ph. student in the Petroleum Engineer Department, actually won.
for his PhD work on his research, how to reduce fracking expenses. So what he researches around is finding practical applications for the industry. He has actually three patents. He hasn't even finished his PhD yet. And he's published 10 papers. And all the, everything that he's doing is what I love about him. This isn't stuff that he's done research on that's in the lab. It's in vitro. This is actually real world rubber hit the road out in the field, out the website.
well site ways to actually reduce the cost of fracking, which just helps everybody. So number one, congratulations, Muhammad, for winning the award. Number two, congratulations, Cullen's College of Engineering to have this type of talent working their PhDs in your program. Yeah, right on.
All right, next up, we have Penn State Shell Collaboration Fund's environmental research project. Love this. I love the collaboration between universities and the oil and gas industry. This is between Penn State and Shell, actually Shell U.S. And Shell has committed over a million dollars to focus on things like decarbonization, polymer recycle, and biodiversity. Let me break that down for you. They're spending a million dollars and working with Penn State.
to understand how we can even lessen our impact to the environment more. And when I say us, I don't necessarily mean the oil and gas industry. Remember, I mentioned just a second ago, they're doing polymer recycling. That's recycling of plastic. The whole world has a problem with recycling the plastics and Shell and Penn State are working on ways to do it.
They're also working on ways to study the impact on the biodiversity around a pipeline. It's called the Falcon Pipeline. This is a 97-mile pipeline that's been there for about 17 years. They're studying a 30-acre section of this that runs parallel to the pipeline, and they're trying to understand the right-of-way vegetation growth around the pipeline and how that affects the native biodiversity.
And you might have heard me say this before, I actually have a degree in wildlife management, so I understand exactly what they're doing. What they're doing is they're looking to see if the native wildlife, the plants and animals, the flora and the fauna.
Do they act differently? Does it change because that pipeline's there and they keep that pipeline cleared so there's different vegetations growing where that pipeline was cleared? And the reason they keep it cleared is so they can inspect the pipeline.
Now, one of the things about the vegetation is if there's ever an issue, one of the first signs of a leak at the pipeline is a change in the coloration of the vegetation. And so what they're trying to do is figure out, is there a way that we can use these negative impacts to the environment in a way to understand what vegetation works better in these right-of-ways. I love this sort of stuff. Shell, keep it up.
All right. Next up, we have Chevron in New Orleans. Score big at the big game. So this is Chevron in New Orleans for the Super Bowl. Paige, how cool is this? They brought their senior HS&E team to help. With anything that, you know, if anybody got scrapes, bumps, anybody got... Anything bad that happened, they needed some medical care. The HSE team at Chevron was there to help out.
How cool is that? Yeah, that's great. The other thing is they're part of the New Orleans Super Bowl host committee. They sponsored the Ambassadors Committee program, and this program played a huge role in creating the welcome experience by...
The people in the organizations that were coming outside of Louisiana into New Orleans, into the Big Easy. Love the fact that Chevron's doing this. Now, they had over 3,000 employees volunteer to meet and greet fans everywhere from the airport to the actual Superdome itself. And so Chevron just wanted to be a part of this. This shows you how we care about the local communities that we operate in. These people weren't paid. They volunteered to help out. And I love this sort of stuff.
Alright, now I love how you throw stuff in here that I can't pronounce correctly. But also Exxon. Okay, so Exxon Mobile, Rotana, and... Anna Kosin Bicentennial Scholarships given to university students for... 42 consecutive years. Yep. Wow. Guys, y'all come back in another minute, so don't go too far, because we're making an announcement in just a couple of minutes that involves y'all. Yeah, absolutely. So the reason Paige struggled with the pronunciation, this is in Bangkok.
Oh, that explains everything. ExxonMobil presented 20 scholarships worth equivalent of about 400,000 U.S. dollars to undergraduate students that were in STEM, science, technology, engineering, mathematics. in the university in Bangkok. Now, they're also putting scholarships out there for accounting, business, supply chain, business language. So they're kind of covering the whole spectrum. I love the fact that ExxonMobil is working with universities, not just here in the U.S.
Not just in Europe, but all over the world. They do this sort of thing all the time, and nobody ever hears about this. And so these kids who needed the money in order to go to college were able to do it because these scholarships at ExxonMobil awarded.
And like I said, ExxonMobil does this all over the world. They never talk about it. So that's the whole reason I brought this on. I just want the world to understand how these big companies care about the people that work for them to the point that they're actually helping college students all over the world. Good job, Exxon.
That and you love Exxon. I do love Exxon. All right. Next up, we've got International Women's Day. Nora Neura Musa. Yep. So this is a focus on a young woman that actually was awarded one of these scholarships. And the article is about her growth from a poor village through her undergraduate to her graduate to her success as owning her own business.
She had mentorship and training from ExxonMobil's business teams beside the scholarship. And now Nora's giving back to the local community that she's actually from. And this is an article written during International Women's Day, which I believe was just a few days ago. No, it was like...
A couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago. Okay. Anyway, so Nora's professional journey began way back in 2012. That's when she first went to school to earn her bachelor's degree. She got a degree in finance. And then she's continued education. And now that she has her master's degree.
She's actually working with her local communities, like I said earlier, but she's also a champion to show that how women can become scientists, women can start businesses, even if you're not in the Europe or in the U.S. or in parts of the world that necessarily you think of a woman.
running a business. This is a perfect example of how this happened. And it happened because of the grants that was actually given by ExxonMobil. When you think of Qatar, you don't think of a lot of women-owned businesses, but here's one right here. And I love this sort of stuff. Alright, next up we have Tammu. And HBKU student team win safety award at Shell Eco Marathon 2025. Speaking of Qatar, this actually happened in Qatar. So this is a bunch of students from Texas A&M University.
And the Shell Eco Marathon has been around at least for 15 years, probably longer than that. And basically, these young people from around the world get together, and they're trying to design the most fuel-efficient vehicle possible.
And when I say fuel efficient, these are electric vehicles. So they're trying to see whose electric vehicle can go the furthest with the least amount of electricity. And of course, whatever discoveries they make, eventually the car manufacturers adopt to help make the vehicles that you and I buy more efficient as well.
So Texas A&M has been participating in this since 2010. They've actually won quite a few times. I didn't realize A&M was all the way in Qatar. Well, their students were all the way in Qatar. Well, that was a cue. Okay. Yeah. No, they do have a subchapter there, just like there's a subchapter at University of Houston. That's really cool. Yeah. So anyway, there's a quote here by Dr. Marween, who's head of mechanical engineering at HBKU, and he's very proud of his student success at Shell.
Both institutions have collaborated closely to support this team. Now, what's interesting about their success, as Paige said in the title, they won a safety award. So not only is their electric vehicle one of the most efficient ever made, Paige, it's one of the safest.
How cool is it that these students were able to increase the safety of their vehicle while increasing the efficiency of it? Once again, big shout out to Shell for helping these young people do something this amazing. Yeah, sorry, I'm having a hot flash. we're outside and we're and we're also outside and we're in the sun and i'm slightly overhung anyway next up we have bp future talent scholarships i guess this is a scholarship show now huh this is we're at a college event i thought
This would be the first time. No, that's great. No, I love hearing about this type of stuff. All right. So BP opened its doors to this next group of young people. BP has been doing this for years. Which, by the way, if you're listening to me right now and you're a young person and you're trying to figure out how you can get a scholarship. Listen to this article. Go in the show notes. BP awards these scholarships every year. In fact, the applications open literally right now as we speak.
which is March 30th. The link's in the show notes. They have scholarships for finance students, for STEM students, and then they're looking for future talent. So not only will BP help you get a scholarship to help you pay for your education, but they also work with you, mentor you, and for the young people that they see as future talent.
They offer them paid internships and eventually full-time jobs once they graduate. Now, there's a whole bunch of these scholarships that go out. I think the lowest one is $3,500 a year. I think the top one is a full ride. So right now, if you're listening to me, go ahead and apply for the 2025 if you need it. The 2025 BP Future Talent Scholarships applications are open right now. I almost got attacked by a wasp. Don't say we don't do it live. When we say live, it's live.
I just almost sacrificed myself for you people. Anyway. All right. Next up, Halliburton Engineering Global Programs Travel Award. This is interesting that Halliburton is doing. So a lot of the articles I've read today is talking about scholarships and the way that the oil and gas industry is helping young people with their education, internships, employment. This is a little bit different. This is Halliburton has basically the version of a scholarship or it's a grant basically.
That if you're a student and you need to travel somewhere in the world to further your studies and you can't afford to travel, Halliburton says, hey. We'll pick up the dime for you. So Halliburton's awarded these grants for young people, for students that need travel to continue their education.
It's pretty simple. You must be enrolled somewhere as an undergraduate. You must have a minimum GPA of 2.5, which is not very high. And then you must be traveling in a global program that Halliburton recognizes as something. Applications will open up.
the winter of 2026. We just missed the application. However, if you're a young person and part of your education requires you to travel and you need help financially with the travel, check this out. The links in the show notes. What a great thing for Halliburton to do. Yeah, absolutely. Next up, LSU College of Engineering, in collaboration with Halliburton and ExxonMobil, will begin drilling a third research well at its PERT lab on LSU's campus.
So Paige and I are both from Louisiana. I've actually seen the other wells, so that's pretty neat. We've both seen the lab. The wells are there. And I think this is great. So what's happening is this is a research lab where young people who want a future in the oil and gas center, specifically petroleum engineering.
Instead of learning academia, instead of learning from books and from professors' lectures, they put on their steel toes, their hard hats, their FRs, and they go out there, they get dirty, they get to work. Now, we all know how much it costs to drill a well on land. If you're actually really hustling, you know, you're looking at a million dollar investment to drill a well. I don't think that this group of people are hoping to strike hydrocarbons, but still the costs are significant.
And they're having to do it over and over again as these students, petroleum engineer students, go through the program. So it's really cool that I think Halliburton ExxonMobil is partnered with LSU to fund this third well. The one thing I've heard that's not in this article is they're actually looking really, really hard page at using the same techniques and the students that do low temperature geothermal.
So besides the students learning about how to drill for hydrocarbons, they're going to learn how to basically take the same processes and techniques. and drill wells to use for geothermal energy. I love that sort of stuff. Awesome. All right. Next up, Schlumberger Early Career Internship 2025. Yeah, so once again, this is Slumberjay looking for interns. So if you're getting ready to have a break during the summer, if you're in school.
If you're getting ready to graduate, if you just want an internship where you actually make some money and learn something, this is the place to go. Unfortunately, this is March, so the internships for this summer, which starts in May, have already been filled. But if you want to get ready for next year, the link's in the show note. I love summer day. Actually, a very long time ago. Right here at the University of Houston, I used to be an official mentor for the Bayer School of Business.
And I used to run my companies on interns from the University of Houston. And SIS, Schlumberger Information Service, used to hire all my interns. And this was a long time ago, but it was a beautiful thing. Nice to see at Schlumberger still paying interns, still hiring interns.
So if you're looking for an internship, like I said, it's a little bit late now for this year, but get ready to apply for next year. Thanks, Schlumberger, for helping make our world a better place and helping our young people make a couple of dollars while you're learning. Yeah, absolutely. And then I think you have an announcement to make. So I'm going to actually let someone else sit in my chair real quick. Okay. Well, I wasn't getting my hand on Mike, but come on. So don't get nervous.
You only have 2 million people listening to you from around the world, all 205 countries on the planet. All good. Introduce yourself. Hey, guys. My name's IU SkyQuad. I'm the founder of the Undergraduate Energy Club, and we're looking for some opportunities that Mark is going to put us onto with this podcast that we're starting. Yeah, so OGGN is officially partnered with the University of Houston's Undergraduate Energy Club. We're going to start and fund a podcast that will be theirs.
So it's going to be the club members themselves running the podcast, the club members themselves bringing the guest on. And I'm hoping that our audience wants to help because all these young people that are going to be on this podcast at the energy club at some point are going to graduate, hopefully. Fingers crossed. So audience, this is OGGN's way of helping to continue to give back. It's going to be an excellent show.
we're gonna pick up the cost for all the gear all the training all the production all the editing all that stuff What we want you to do, audience, is listen to the show when it goes out. And when it goes out, if you work in the oil and gas space and you love what you hear from these students, we're going to have a way for you to reach out to them and offer them things like internships, scholarships, and hopefully jobs when they graduate.
And this isn't going to be a one-time thing. As our young people cycle through this program and get out and start entering the workforce, they'll have other young people behind them. And we want to continue this forever. So what's great about this... This is literally the first time, this is the announcement, this is the official announcement that we're partnering and launching this podcast. We don't have a name for it yet.
Like I said, this is the very end of March. I'm thinking we'll try to launch this thing live from OTC, which will be the first week of May, which means I'm going to drag y'all to OTC as press so we can do this all live. But real quick, if people want to understand about the energy program, what's it about? So, Mark, I notice, you know, until you go into the second... year of learning at the University of Houston, you're just doing your basics.
If you want to go into the energy industry, you don't start to do that until junior or senior year. I've made up a plan of where you come in and you learn about the oil industry starting from freshman year. So by the time you get to junior or senior year, when you're looking for those internships, when you're looking to graduate. and start a job in the energy industry, you already know the basics about the upstream, midstream, downstream, and IT operations of the business.
Love it, love it, love it. And if you're listening and you're a student at University of Houston and you want to join this club, there'll be a link in the show notes so you can hurry up and join. Love to see this thing grow, blow up. And like I said, audience. If you're a company and you want to help us with our world's young people, reach out to me, and I'm happy to share the details of how you can help accelerate this.
Thank you so much for coming on. Paige, Paige, we need you back when you close out the show. Thank you so much, Mark, for having us. Looking forward to doing this with you. Speaking of students, you know what students at University of Houston are really good at? I don't know. AI. Oh. And if you want to learn how AI is actually really being used in the oil and gas industry, it's really easy.
You need to check out Cognite's Industrial Data and AI conference where the users drive the content and conversations. You can learn more about Cognite and get important details before the conference sells out again at cognite.com forward slash OG podcast or just click the link in the show notes. If you're a company that is using AI, that is thinking about using AI, or have been tried to implement AI and failed, I'm telling you, reach out to Cognite.
Once again, what they do is not academia. It's not in the lab. It's real world in the oil and gas space. And they're great at it. And they're not going to try to make you buy something you don't want. They're just going to try to help you. And actually, I'm going to end up getting Cognite to see if I can get them to help us with that. Students here at the University of Houston, they don't know that yet except just they heard it. Well, now they know.
Speaking of knowing, if you want to sign up for our two newsletters, they're going out on a regular basis. The links are show notes. Our oil and gas events newsletter where you can find out things like about this crawfish boil and this energy conference. That was in the... events newsletter, all the conferences. Yeah, and if you saw that it was labeled March, it was meant to be April, but it said March. We made a mistake, yeah.
Same thing with our Sunday update where they continue to stick my face on other people's body. It's kind of weird, but people love it. But there's a bunch of cool stuff in the Sunday update. We help animals find their forever homes. We have recipes from the oil field. We have a segment on barbecue every week. Funny stuff in there as well. Behind the scenes look at OGN. So go sign up. Both links in the show notes.
You know we have the number one merch store in the world. Go check that out. If you want myself or any of our experts to come speak at your event, reach out to me. Happy to share the details. First Friday Q&A, that's where we answer the questions. Easy way to enter a question is go to OGGN.com. Oil & Gas this week, there's a place for you to enter it. Or you can hit us up on our social.
All right, Paige, you ready to get out of here? No, because I still have to do the rig count. Oh, rig count. Where is the rig count? I swear when we do this live stuff, you forget. United States is down one at 592. Canada obviously is down 17 at 163. And there's no change internationally, so it's at 9.05. Good numbers. Now you ready to get out of here? Yeah, because I'm going to finish this crawfish off. Remember, folks, do great work, pay it forward, and we will see you next time.
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