Nobody’s Lying. That’s the Problem.
Accounting says the well is doing okay. Engineering says it’s a problem child. Both teams are looking at real data. They’re just not looking at the same data. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve watched this play out. Field emails a spreadsheet. Engineering keys it into their system. Accounting copies it into another. By…
The Family Farm Didn’t See It Coming
The family farm didn’t fail because farmers and ranchers stopped working hard. It failed because hardworking people were suddenly competing against the lowest-cost producer on the planet, and their cost structure never changed to match the new reality. Sound familiar? Small independent operators are already living that movie. You don’t set the price of oil.…
Gut feeling is the last unstructured frontier in oil and gas.
Why did resource plays replace wildcatting where someone’s gut feel was the major factor driving locations? Resource plays are data-driven, repeatable, and engineered to reduce risk. That shift didn’t happen by accident. It happened because some operators got disciplined about data, process, and learning from outcomes that overcame existing paradigms. Some companies make acquisition, workover,…
First Principles thinking to Maximize Production
No, not the “philosophy class” kind of first principles. In the field, first principles is simple: every well should be producing near its maximum producibility, limited only by formation deliverability. If it isn’t, something is in the way. Surface Equipment. Setpoints. Downtime. Something. The practical question for an Ops Manager is: Which wells are not…
Modern Economies run on cheap energy
Take a second and look at this chart. Really look at it. The correlation is unmistakable; every wealthy nation sits in the upper right. No exceptions. Here in the U.S., we live with a baseline of luxury that would have stunned our great-grandparents. Clean water flows from every tap. A slice of bread from wheat…
How the world looks at Oil & Gas
When you travel outside of oil producing states, have you ever been reluctant to discuss that you work in Oil & Gas? A long time ago on a long flight next to a nosey person, the question invariably arrived. I’m not proud of myself but I said: “I am a scuba diver for Roto Rooter”…
Is Your Software Making You Money or Costing You Money?
I took a writing break during December. I didn’t intend to, but you know. Anyway, let’s talk about software. We all use it every day to do the tasks that used to take days to complete. Since even free software has a cost (our time) here is a question: Is Your Software Making You Money…
Leverage is what separates busy people from effective people.
A small, well-aimed push can move a massive load. It’s true with a crowbar, and it’s true in our work. I think that it was Tim Ferris that asked “What would this look like if this was easy?” Most people try to get ahead by adding effort. The real gains come from finding the few…
Is efficiency within your business the new exploration?
For most of my career, growth meant one thing: drill more wells. Production was the scoreboard, and volumes produced was how you kept score. The lowest cost reserves additions you’ll find this year may be hiding in plain sight. They’re in your operations and hidden in downtime, inefficient lift systems, and disconnected data systems. All…
Three systems. Zero answers. What’s wrong?
You have a systems problem. Most people blame the data. They’re looking in the wrong place. Here’s what’s really happening: You need accounting numbers, so you pull up one system. Then you track down a landman for ownership verification. Then you switch to another program to run economics before making an offer. That’s not a…
Your wells are running. But are they racing?
Your wells are running. But are they producing at their maximum safe capability? The difference between the two could represent 20-30% unrealized EUR over a well’s lifetime and may be hidden beneath decline curves that appear perfectly normal. There are many possible limiters of a well’s production rates. The production volumes of oil and gas…
Software Silos Slow Teams Down
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched good people waste hours moving the same numbers around in different systems. The field emails a spreadsheet, engineering keys it into their database, and accounting copies it into another. By the time everyone’s “in sync,” the decision moment has stalled. It’s not that the tools are…
Don’t Replace People. Make Them 10x Faster.
I want to get something off of my chest. I have noticed that too many leaders chase Automation as if efficiency alone were the goal. It isn’t. Automation cuts people out. Augmentation makes them more capable. One deletes experience; the other compounds it. In oil and gas, that distinction decides who gets better and who…
How Data Reveals What Your Gut Misses
Margins are tight. Teams are lean. Everyone’s working hard, yet not everyone’s equally productive. After decades in the oil patch, I’ve noticed a few operators consistently outperform the rest. Their secret? Not necessarily more effort but better focus, better tools, and better judgment about what actually moves the needle. The others? They’re stuck guessing. Guessing…
The Real ROI of AI Minutes Saved
Engineers used to call it the “Knack”, that mix of critical thinking, questioning, and a relentless respect for real world results. Tools have always been part of that craft. Slide rules gave way to calculators and then computers, and now AI is the next instrument on the workbench. Think of AI as a faster calculator.…
AI and the Work That Still Belongs to Us
A hammer doesn’t build a house. People do. AI is a new tool for our toolbelt. It can spot patterns, draft options, surface blind spots, but it needs direction. Our work still leans on judgment, context, and the hard won sense for what matters most when money and safety are on the line. I am…
From Fire Drills to Smart Analytics
Remember the pre-SCADA days? When your boss called asking why production and revenue tanked, triggering the dreaded “fire drill.” Production engineers frantically dialing field superintendents. Pumpers scrambling to check offline wells. Reservoir engineers buried under stacks of decline curves, hunting for underperformers like detectives at a crime scene. Those reactive days are over. Modern workflows…
Digitization was step one. AI is step two. Did your business keep up?
When I started in the oilfield, engineering meant pencils, paper decline curves, and chasing data by hand. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was the only way. The last twenty years changed everything. Half of all digitization has happened in that short span. Workflows that once dragged on for days now finish in hours, sometimes minutes.…
Passing the Torch Without Passing a Burden
Early in my career, my focus was on the effort required to become a strong provider. Today, I think more broadly about building and protecting a legacy for the next generation. Every family oil and gas operator hopes to pass down their hard-earned assets. But the reality is this: if those assets are complex, poorly…
Engineering in the Age of Thinking Machines
Have you tried AI yet? You should. Engineering is entering a new era where machines don’t just calculate. Thinking machines will create new augmented workflows that allow more to be accomplished in a single day. The skills that matter most will shift. Data fluency will become a baseline requirement, much like spreadsheets are today. The…
What If Your Wells Could Explain Themselves to the Next Generation?
I think a lot about the next generation these days. At the beginning of my career, knowledge was stored in memory and on paper. When the time comes to pass your oil & gas business to the next generation, you’re not just handing over assets, you’re also handing over decades of hard-earned knowledge. What is…
Passing O&G Assets to the Next Generation
Is it your dream to pass on your hard-earned assets to the next generation? You’re not alone. Every Family operator faces this same challenge, that is: how to build something that lasts beyond your own career. Our legacy becomes more important as time passes. What started as a simple business has transformed into something much…
3 ways to deal with low oil prices
Here we go again, oil prices have dropped significantly. Have you reacted? Here are three ideas.
I feel the need for speed
Said Goose in the movie Top Gun. Likewise, Reservoir engineers face a near impossible task: make speedy forecasts that hit financial targets dead-on. Sounds simple. It’s not. The culprit? The Visibility Gap. Back in the 1980s, I watched this gap destroy forecasts. Current production data was unavailable or disconnected from aged accounting numbers. Downtime anomalies…
7 Common & Expensive Industry Mistakes
I have enjoyed a front row seat to the workflows of people actually managing Oil & Gas assets. Often, I see many companies suffer from economic underperformance. Here is my list of Common & Expensive Mistakes. 1. Chasing production volumes instead of revenue.Comment: You are in the business to make money, not hydrocarbons.2. Infrequent wellbore…
Oilfield Supermodels
No, not THAT kind of Supermodel. Modeling was not practical early in my career. Prior to computers, manual computations would have taken too much time away from other priorities. With computers, modeling has become a tool in our toolbelt. Models allowed economics of a waterflood or creative drilling scenarios to be run digitally first, vastly…
This time it’s different
Let’s face it, most operators have insufficient profits from their business much of the time. Being an operator is humbling because it is hard to execute well, even in good times. There is a bumper sticker in Midland, Texas that reads: “This time it’s different”. It’s a sarcastic warning to the oil field to not…
Larry Brazile 