Oil & Gas Update with Lynn Granger, API Colorado - Uptime Logistics
The price of oil & gas (both natural gas and gasoline) have been noticably increasing. External economic factors are playing the primary role in setting the prices of these commodities on the open global market. Locally though, we all still have some opportunies for positive influence as Doug Draper of ACME Distribution learns in today’s insightful discussion with Lynn Granger, Executive Director of API Colorado. In order to help consumers at the pump each day, individuals, businesses, and entire communities can support the good work being done through innovation, sustainable production practices, and stable regulatory environments.
Here in Colorado, in fact, we have been able to quadruple production through technology, while simultaneously reducing our emissions by 50% - which is incredible. I’m so proud of our industry, because a lot of folks want to talk about climate change and reducing emissions. Those things are very important - our industry is at the table. And it’s not just words, it’s actions.
Historically, our operators here in the state are able to plug vertical wells and replace them with horizontal wells with hydraulic fracturing that then reduce the footprint of the operations. And so you could go from 100 vertical wells now to maybe 15 or 20 horizontal wells, which is a huge benefit for both emissions and footprint of operations.
Actions on Energy Security Should Match Reassuring Words on Ukraine Crisis by Mike Sommers
Learn more about API at
https://www.api.org
https://www.linkedin.com/company/americanpetroleuminstitute
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https://twitter.com/API_Colorado
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Doug Draper
I was talking to my wife about it just the other day and she said that I should learn about gas from you.. What the heck happened in the last, you know, in the last four to five months, that has caused gas prices to really skyrocket. It affects so many individuals, in so many ways.
Lynn Granger
Yes, absolutely. It’s a huge concern. It's a concern in my household. I'm sure it's a concern in your household as well.
Doug Draper
Hello, everybody, I'm Doug Draper, your host of UPTIME LOGISTICS. I want to thank you for joining us today. UPTIME LOGISTICS is powered by CAP Logistics. I'm really excited about today’s guest and toplc. It's very relevant to what we're all experiencing right now.
We are speaking to Lynn Granger, Lynn is the executive director of the American Petroleum Institute, Colorado. I'm going to give everybody a quick lowdown of of API and then then we'll start a conversation.
API represents all segments of American oil and natural gas industry. 600 members producing, processing and distributing the nation's energy industry supports 10 million US jobs. That's pretty impressive. And growing by grassroots movement of millions of Americans. It was formed in 1919. In the first 100 years API's developed more than 700 standards to enhance operations and environmental safety and efficiency. That's an impressive history of the organization. Before we jump in, tell us about yourself. You know, there's a journey to everybody's a current stage. So tell us, your history, your background on kind of how you got to where you are now with API.
Lynn Granger
Tthanks for having me, Doug. I'm super excited to be here. My journey began, actually, in the United States Army, I joined the Army right out of high school, here in Colorado, and shipped to basic training, I joined as a 46 Romeo, which is a broadcast journalist. They really wanted me to be a light wheel mechanic, but that just wasn't in my wheelhouse at the time. But I was very interested in journalism. So I enlisted in the Army. I was shipped to basic training in South Carolina, and then my first duty station was in South Korea. I lived there for about three years, my oldest son was born there, had a really great time. I transitioned from the army there and became a Department of the Army civilian and just got a lot more experience in communications and media relations. I really enjoyed my time and from there moved to Fort Meade, Maryland and continued that path and was the editor for a base newspaper for a little while. Then I headed over to Germany with the Army for about seven years, and continued and Communications and Media Relations and ended with the US Army as a strategic communications adviser for the three star general in charge of US Army, which was really exciting. I happened to be in Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded Crimea in 2015 and so I've seen firsthand what we're dealing with right now. It’s very interesting to be in the oil and natural gas industry, and have this conflict going on in our world right now as well. from there wanted to move back to Colorado.
I've got three beautiful boys and really wanted to raise them here in my home state, and so moved back here and worked for the state for a little bit and then was tapped for this position about three years ago. And it's been a wild ride ever since there's never a dull moment. So I'm in I'm enjoying it. But it's it's definitely very challenging to be in this industry in the state of Colorado.
Doug Draper
Yes. And also not to embarrass you a little bit, but I think I might. There's an award that you I was reading that you were recognized as one of the top five young professionals by Colorado, big men is magazine back in, in 2020. So that's pretty cool.
Lynn Granger
Yeah, it was definitely an honor. I was very surprised. And very humbled. It was meant a lot to be recognized again in my home state, and be part of such, you know, an amazing group of young professionals here. So that was very cool. So thank you.
Doug Draper
I know there was a lot of activity happening in the last couple of months that just ended at the first part of May and it was the legislative General Assembly General Sessions. and tell us how that went. And you know what, let me back up. You work with API I did probably a below average introduction of of your organization. So I'm gonna backtrack and say why don't you give our audience kind of a quick summary cuz that'd be a great transition, tell us what API is and what you do. And then we can just roll into that question about what transpired at the legislative session, and how that impacted your members and support.
Lynn Granger
Sure. So you mentioned a few facts about API already. But one of them I really wanted to hit on because I don't think a lot of people realize this API is 100 year old organization. We've been around for a very long time. And, you know, I always say that we are very focused on public health, safety and mitigating environmental impacts. And that's not new.
As you mentioned, we are we started out as a standard setting organization to set standards or operators within this industry to promote health, safety and mitigate environmental impacts. And we've been doing that for 100 years. So I just wanted to touch on that. Because again, I don't I don't think a lot of people realize that. But outside of the standard setting piece of our organization, we are an advocacy organization, we advocate on behalf of the industry and the hard working men and women that comprise this industry and work hard every day to give us the energy that we all need and use on a daily basis.
I'm very proud of that work. We do a lot of work at the legislature. Over at the regulatory agencies here in Colorado, we're governed by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. We also have a lot of rulemaking that goes on over at the Air Quality Control Commission. On the regulatory front, we stay very busy. And then on the legislative front, we also stay very busy, although we always hope to not be busy in that arena every session. But somehow we're we usually are.
Doug Draper
Well, we're a good tag team, because that's exactly the transition I was looking for you were busy. In the legislative session recently, what when did it actually end? And maybe give our audience kind of give us a feel like what's it like in the room? What do you guys doing, specifically, and then let's talk about two or three initiatives that you had during the during the session?
Lynn Granger
Sure. So we adjourn Cindi die from the Colorado legislature on May 11. And it couldn't come soon enough, it was a very long session. So here in the state of Colorado, it runs about the first or second week of January through the second week of May. So it's pretty long, comparative to other states. And that's every year.
Usually before the session, we sit down with lawmakers and provide information and education about the industry and what's going on and kind of the state of the energy industry here, so that lawmakers have a good understanding of that heading into session. .
In Colorado, how many rigs do we have running?
What does it look like?
How many rulemakings have we been through?
What is the lay of the land right now
We always try to find out what's coming up that so that its on our radar,so we can be aware and prepare.
We were told, on't worry, we don't have anything targeted specifically at oil and gas. So I always get a little nervous when I hear Don't worry. And so, you know, we headed into session. And we, again, as we thought did have a lot of targeted pieces of legislation at our industry, which is is pretty frustrating for us, we had a very large, sweeping bill back in 2019. It was Senate Bill 181, that really transformed the way that this industry is regulated in the state. And we've had over a dozen rulemakings we've been very busy over the past few years. And we are just now heading out of those rulemakings per that piece of legislation. And so, you know, what we would really like to see is this pause of no additional legislation, let's let these rules work.
We've really rewritten almost every rule in the books as it relates to oil and gas. And so we feel strongly that the industry really needs some stability and some certainty and we need some time to just let this framework work for our state or our industry. Its always a little disappointed to then see additional pieces of legislation that we have to work through.
However, I think at the end of session, we were able to get quite a bit of amendments to some of these bills to make them a little more workable for industry but this session we faced legislation around oil and gas reporting. We face legislation around chemical disclosure and trade secrets and how that works within our industry we also face Some air quality bills that will affect us. And we also faced some changes to our severance tax system as well. So there were quite a few bills that really affected us that we had to work on.
Doug Draper
Yeah, that's great. You know, the one piece that you that you made mention of related to what I would for kind of the climate action framework. Talk to us a little bit about the industry and the advocacy that you're having. Because I know 400 Plus, first of all the organization's 100 plus year years old, which is, is amazing and impressive. But the climate change, carbon footprint output, those things have gotten a lot of attention in the last decade, but you've been talking about it for a long time. So talk about the environmental stewardship of your organization and the message messaging that you want to get out there.
Lynn Granger
As I mentioned, I've been in this position for about three years. I did not have an industry background prior to taking this position. So I've learned quite a bit and one of the reasons why I took this position and why I'm excited about it is because the technology and the innovation in this industry is top notch. And it's really amazing to see, I mean, just in my short amount of time, three years with this industry, I have seen just leaps and bounds from where it was three years ago, all in an effort to reduce our footprint, and reduce emissions to mitigate environmental impacts, improve health and safety. It’s literally top of mind for our industry every day. And the innovation and technology is super impressive.
Here in Colorado. In fact, we have been able to quadruple production here in the state through technology, while simultaneously reducing our emissions by 50%, which is incredible.I'm so proud of our industry, because well a lot of folks want to talk about climate change and reducing emissions. Those things are very important. Our industry is at the table. And it's not just works, its actions. We are delivering on that every day, while also realizing that our work isn't done. And we're going to continue to look for ways to make improvements and continuing to reduce emissions. We're really proud of that.
Doug Draper
The innovation pieces is really cool to hear that. Do you have any examples of innovation that helped quadruple output and at the same time reduce emissions. It's very intriguing to me, and I'm like, Okay, those are big numbers. How does it work? Do you have any examples?
Lynn Granger
So a few. So obviously, there's a lot of things that go into that. But you know, what I would say is, again, the technology piece. I will throw a number out there 100 vertical wells, historically, our operators here in the state are able to plug those vertical wells and replace them with horizontal wells with hydraulic fracturing that then reduce the footprint of the operations. And so you could go from 100 vertical wells now to maybe 15 or 20, horizontal wells, which is a huge benefit for both emissions and just footprint of operations.
Other examples are tankless systems, and really kind of closed loop systems that don't allow for emissions. We have prevented flaring here in the state of Colorado. So you can't just flare off natural gas, which occurs in other places. There are probably dozens and dozens more that all contribute to those emission reductions, but it's that sort of innovation and technology and again, improvements that are literally being made on a daily basis that are getting us to our goals.
Doug Draper
How do you get that that messaging out? I know you're sitting with legislators and talking about it from the from the general public. A lot of folks probably don't understand kind of what those means and the direct impact what what type of advocacy are you doing? I know if advocacy is the right word, but you know, getting the word out, because those are impressive statistics. And it's very tangible things that you're doing. And that's important for the general public. Talk about what you're doing to help average Joe's like me understand that?
Lynn Granger
What's challenging is that there are a lot of industry spaces in our industry, and it is avery technical industry. There are a lot of folks that don't quite understand all of the ins and outs, Trying to explain can take a rather long time, so we might not get to the place that we were hoping. What we have tried to do is whittle it down and talk to folks about how does this impact them, because people really don't realize that almost everything in their lives is powered by oil and natural gas, whether it's products they use in their home that are petroleum byproducts to the gas in their cars to flip your your light switch or their fireplace. My sire was telling my sons like, Hey, your iPads, you love your iPads and your games, all of those things are petroleum byproducts. And so we really, it fuels and drives our lives on a daily basis. So we try to really bring it back down to that level. We understand the environmental concerns, and , we're working on those every day: but you need these products, you need this industry. We can have, a clean environment, and we can do this safer and cleaner, while also providing the energy and the products that you need and use every day, it doesn't have to be a choice, we can have both, and that's what we are working so hard on.
Doug Draper
Yeah, that's great. You know, in the supply chain and logistics world with everything, I think if you buy it, touch it, look at it, you know, a truck, brought it to the end mile. A vehicle, the truck is using fuel means natural gas to move forward. So that's definitely very, very tangible So speaking of gas, right, again, when the reason I love this and have an interview is I'm kind of a guy that knows enough to be dangerous. So I can ask the simple questions. Right. And I know when we were doing some prep for this announcement, I was talking to my wife about it just the other day. And she's like, well, you should talk to Lynn about like, what's the deal with the gas, right? And so I know, there's probably some misnomers out there about doesn't have to be a winner and a loser with the gas prices and what's happening. And I know that there's a lot of finger pointing on why this is happening and happened, right, during, you know, the invasion of Ukraine. And there's a lot of factors involved. So maybe talk to the audience a little bit about what the heck happened in the last, you know, four to five months, that has really skyrocketed the gas prices that affect a lot of individuals that are listening.
Lynn Granger
Yeah, absolutely. And that is a huge concern. It's a concern in my household, I'm sure it's a concern in your household as well. But at the end of the day, our product is a global commodity. So those prices are all based on market, it's simple- Supply and demand. What we have seen over the last couple of years were a lot of things that were negatively impacting demand, right? We went into this pandemic, which was awful, and for a couple of years. Folks weren't flying, and they were driving a little less than working from home, so demand really started to plummet.
And then it rebounded very, very quickly. As soon as we saw the vaccine come out, and the world starting to open up again. Well, unfortunately, the way this industry works, and again, as I mentioned, it's incredibly technical. I think a lot of folks think we can just flip a switch and turn the supply and crank it up, and let's get it out the door. Well, it takes, years and months of planning to get permits in order to start drilling. You can't just flip a switch and you can't turn it back on. And so when the demand starts going up again, we will run short on supply. And that's what we're seeing, again, across the globe, because this is a global commodity, and we don't control those market prices.
Doug Draper
On a different show, we talked about the roaring 20s. Remember the 1920s how things were the flappers and everything was going crazy. We're kind of in the modern day, roaring 20s of the 2020s. Right. And people were consuming tangible items. And now you're seeing folks getting into services and travel. And all of that requires fuel, traveling for the holiday weekends during the summer and fuel prices and everything else. So totally get it and it makes sense. You just don't flip the switch to turn the machine back on. It's not it's not as simple as that.
Lynn Granger
I wish it was that simple, but it certainly isn't. That's why we are advocating every day for sound energy policy, both in the nation and here in Colorado, because unfortunately, we get into situations like this And because of some of the policies that have been put in place, both at the federal level and at the state level here, it's making it even harder for producers to ramp up production in a timely manner. And that's really putting, a crunch on prices.
Doug Draper
I'm going to shift it a little bit and let's kind of talk five years out. Maybe we'll I'll ask this question twofold.
First of all, eve years out
what does it look like in the legislative session?
What are you going to be advocating for?
what do you think are going to be priorities?
Lynn Granger
I might answer a little differently and say, What do I hope for in five years versus what do I think might happen in five years, because, quite honestly, because of the instability and uncertainty, particularly here in Colorado, it is really challenging to say this is what I think is going to happen.
Here's what I hope it's going to happen in the next five years. I hope that you're going to have that breathing room that I mentioned earlier, with all of these new regulations that we have in place in order to operate under this new normal.
I hope that there's some stability and some certainty for our industry, particularly here in Colorado, you know, I mentioned, demand has skyrocketed back and everything's bounce back very quickly. The industry has rebounded fairly, you know, quickly, other places. But unfortunately, here in Colorado, we've been a lot slower to recover in this industry, than other states and other basins across the nation. And that's because of the instability and uncertainty that we have, is makes it tricky for folks who want to invest here in Colorado. So what I hope for is to attract more of that capital investment back here to our great state, where we operate under the most stringent regulatory framework in the nation, I would argue in the world. So I hope we get that capital investment back, I hope we see sound policy discussions and reasonable discussions happening both at our regulatory agencies and, and more importantly, at the state legislature.
I hope that folks can, have reasonable discussions with us learn and understand everything that we are doing, and have done and then make sound policy decisions based on facts and information that they have. I think what we have seen, particularly this past session, is that we've got lawmakers thatare being driven largely by environmental organizations, and not really understanding the issues at hand, but just feeling like they need to do something, right. Like the climate is changing, and I need to do something, but they don't quite know, the how, or the what or the why. So that makes it really tricky, to have good sound policy discussions, and make decisions that are good for our state and good for the people of Colorado. And so that is what I would hope for in the next five years. But all good, all good points.
Doug Draper
So if you had a the ability to address and hopefully some of the members that you're representing, are listening, but if you had some advice for them, all the things that you hoped for, you're one person advocating for many, right? So if you could give some advice to the membership that say we're in a collective here working together, what type of things could the members do to help make sure your hopes turn into actual tangible things.
Lynn Granger
That's easy, it would be keep doing what you're doing, because you are making a difference, that innovation, that technology, the emission reductions, like we are coming to the table, and we are taking action, and we are doing amazing things. So just keep doing what you're doing. And I say that because it can be very challenging to work within this industry where, these men and women are working hard every day, and they live here too. They care about our air and our water and our environment and safety. So it's really hard to be continually attacked as the oil and natural gas industry here and accused of, of doing things that we're not doing or just accused of maybe some, perceptions that, you know, Lie with folks about our industry. It is it's really tough working in this industry. I would just say you're doing amazing, keep it up. And hopefully we'll have that stability and security that we need and really deserve here.
Doug Draper
Yeah, stay vigilant. I would agree, the word you just said what was attack? Right? You guys as an industry are kind of an easy target I think it's difficult because of the technology and the technical aspect of what you're talking about. It's hard to explain. We're not the bad guys look at all these amazing things in the innovation that we're bringing to the table, right? We're not sitting idle and we are part of the community so I can really appreciate that. So if I'm just a layperson, which I am, and I wanted to learn more about your organization, learn about these advancements and what he has what you're what you're doing, tell us how to reach you how to learn more about your organization and things that you're active in?
Lynn Granger
Yeah, it's super easy to just api.org. And there is a ton of information on that site, whether it be about the standards that I mentioned, that API has developed, we've got a lot of just one pagers that talk about why are gas prices so high? And how does all this work and sort of, again, are really best effort at trying to explain some of these complicated and technical things. So really encourage folks, again, it's api.org. Very easy, and there's a ton of information there. Terrific,
Doug Draper
Well, that's a perfect way to end the discussion. And I know your schedule is super busy. And I'm glad we were able to take care of this conversation after the session was over. It's good to hear your perspective on that. And, you know, I wish API the best as you move forward and really appreciate, you know, what you're dealing with the advocacy, not only within the membership, but understanding and explaining to the citizens of Colorado, what you do and the importance of it and everything else. So thank you so much for joining the show today, Lynn.
Lynn Granger
No, thank you for having me. And thank you for helping to get our message out as it is important that we really appreciate your time and your effort.
Doug Draper
Thank you very much. While Lynn and I are thanking each other, I also want to make sure that we thank our audience for joining us today on UPTIME LOGISTICS, of course, it's powered by CAP logistics, and you can find more information about the show in the description below.
Don't forget to like and subscribe to CAP channels. And please visit CAPLogistics.com for customized transportation solutions. And when you're there, click api.org and learn more about the lens organization there. So thank you all for listening. We really appreciate it and we'll see you next time.