00:00:03 Narrator
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service, and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premiere power solutions.

00:00:29 Russell Stewart
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, Russell Stewart. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening and thanks for to Caterpillar Oil and Gas for making this podcast possible. I'm excited about the two guests I have on the show today. I have Matt Niemeyer and also have Renee Labar and Renee. Did I get that right?

00:01:12 Renee Lebas
You did. You did great, Russell Lebar.

00:01:14 Russell Stewart
Okay. Is that French?

00:01:17 Renee Lebas
It is, yes.

00:01:19 Russell Stewart
Okay. Not Paris, France, though, right?

00:01:23 Renee Lebas
Well, no, unfortunately. New Orleans.

00:01:28 Russell Stewart
Okay. All right, so now. So now we're talking Cajun country. All right. Okay.

00:01:32 Renee Lebas
That's exactly right.

00:01:33 Russell Stewart
Yeah. Well, I should have. I should have looked up my Boudreaux and Thibodeau joke of the day, but I haven't. I haven't gotten there yet.

00:01:42 Renee Lebas
We could talk about the Saints if you want, instead.

00:01:45 Russell Stewart
Do you. You don't really want to, do you?

00:01:48 Renee Lebas
I mean, we did get our first win, so, you know.

00:01:53 Russell Stewart
You're on a roll. Okay. All right. We are. All right, so. But you're not in New Orleans right now. Where are you?

00:02:00 Renee Lebas
No, I'm in Houston.

00:02:01 Russell Stewart
You're in Houston. And, Matt, you're in Houston.

00:02:05 Matt Niemeyer
I'm in Houston as well. Yes, sir.

00:02:07 Russell Stewart
Okay. And are you a native Houstonian?

00:02:11 Matt Niemeyer
I am born and raised. Been here all my life, except for a small stint in West Texas.

00:02:17 Russell Stewart
Really? You don't find very many native Houstonians. I'm a native Houstonian also. Born in. Born and raised, so. And most.

00:02:24 Matt Niemeyer
I hear that all the time, but I. But I've met tons of them, so I. I think it's transplants to say that.

00:02:32 Russell Stewart
Well, we've got a lot of transplants, that's for sure. Okay, so you guys are with a company called Next Year, is that right?

00:02:40 Matt Niemeyer
Yes, sir.

00:02:41 Russell Stewart
Okay. So, Matt, tell me a little bit about yourself and what your role is at Next year.

00:02:51 Matt Niemeyer
So, I'm. My role is I'm the VP of Engineering and Sustaining for next year. So I look after all the kind of the new equipment, technologies, you know, sustaining what we have out there, kind of the portfolio of our next generation of equipment. So my background is kind of. I started at about 25 years ago in, in Schlumberger. At the time. I've kind of held various engineering, leadership and design roles through Schlumberger, ge, cnj, and then put the merger into next tier. Kind of, kind of looking at the forefront of new product development most of my career between FRAC technologies, Coil, wireline, cement, subsea, kind of all of the different product lines that you can imagine in oil and gas. So trying to take a little bit from each of those product lines and help bring some of the new, some of the new places.

00:04:01 Russell Stewart
Next year's got various different business units or whatever. Is that right?

00:04:08 Matt Niemeyer
Yeah. So next year we don't have the subsea, obviously. We're focused on completions, which is kind of the, you know, the, the. We're the leading provider of integrated completions. We, we've got digital, digital integration, automation, alternative fueling, and then the latest generation of equipment. Our product lines are really centered around frac, Wireline, pump down and cement and power solutions, which is our fueling technologies, our fueling division.

00:04:47 Russell Stewart
Okay, so you mentioned frac. That's perfect. Segue into Renee, because Renee, you're the VP of operations for frac, is that right?

00:04:56 Renee Lebas
That's correct.

00:04:57 Russell Stewart
And what's your background?

00:05:00 Renee Lebas
So I have about 25 years of experience in the industry. I started.

00:05:04 Russell Stewart
Now wait a minute, Renee. We had the cameras on while ago. 25 years. What'd you do, start when you were 15?

00:05:13 Renee Lebas
10, actually. 10.

00:05:16 Russell Stewart
Okay. All right, sorry.

00:05:21 Renee Lebas
I'll take that all day long. That's okay. So similar to Matt, I started at Halliburton in field engineering. Straight out of college I went to the University of Texas in Austin. Have a engineering degree. Oh, come on now.

00:05:41 Russell Stewart
My son graduated from Texas A and M, so you know how that goes.

00:05:45 Renee Lebas
Well, I'm sorry for you.

00:05:47 Russell Stewart
Actually, actually you're talking, you're talking about football. I'm sorry for you guys after Saturday.

00:05:52 Renee Lebas
I know it was, it was a rough day, let me tell you.

00:05:57 Russell Stewart
So you have, you have a, did you say petroleum engineering degree?

00:06:01 Renee Lebas
Yes, sir. Petroleum.

00:06:02 Russell Stewart
Okay. Okay. All right.

00:06:05 Renee Lebas
So yeah, so spent. Spent about 20 years with Halliburton working in various areas of that organization from business development, operations, couple of global roles. So kind of bounced around, got a lot of very good background across, you know, across the full company and then moved over to Universal, which is part of the Patterson. Was part of the Patterson UTI family prior to the merger with next year. So it's been couple of years with Universal and working in a support function role and then join next here as part of the merger. So in my current role as the FRAC vp, I oversee the product service line from, you know, strategy and assets in a longer term vision for the service line and where we're headed.

00:06:59 Russell Stewart
Okay, so, Matt, going back to sustainability, and we love sustainability at Oil and Gas Global Network. We're all about environmentally friendly and that sort of thing. And actually we're huge promoters of the industry and we believe that the industry is actually leading the way in sustainability. They're not the big bad oil companies that they've received the reputation of. We all want dirty air and dirty water and all that sort of thing. And, and we love to promote the fact that the oil and gas industry is really leading the way in this. But. And that's what we're gonna. That's actually what we're gonna focus on here in just a second. Renee, I want to go back to you though, for just a minute. You know, speaking of the bad reputations, FRAC kind of has a bad reputation. And let's talk about that a little bit.

00:08:04 Renee Lebas
Well, I don't think we have a bad reputation. I love brac. No, I think there's a lot of misnomers out, particularly people who don't work in the industry. We had a lot of misinformation that hits the general public. Yeah. And I think it's. It's been a challenge and it will continue to be a challenge. I think that, you know, we partner very closely with our customers to find more environmentally friendly solutions. Some of what we'll talk about, I think, as we move forward today is what we're doing to minimize our footprint from an environmental standard and how we can then help our customers achieve their environmental goals, whether it be emissions or lower footprints in the communities that we work. So I think we're all partnered to head in the right direction. FRAC is a very important part of our industry. In fact, if we didn't do it, we wouldn't be here. And so being good stewards to the communities and the people we work around is very important to all of us.

00:09:12 Russell Stewart
That's well said. Okay, so we're going to talk about GMS technologies. What is gms?

00:09:22 Matt Niemeyer
It's a gas mechanical drive system. So basically It's a. It's 100% gas reciprocating engine directly connected to a reciprocating pump that allows us to pump fluid downhole to help extract or to prop open the well to Help extract the oil out. Basically the heart of the flag.

00:09:49 Russell Stewart
So you're using 100% natural gas.

00:09:53 Matt Niemeyer
Correct.

00:09:55 Russell Stewart
So I know you guys use a lot of Caterpillar engines. I'm familiar with their dual fuel systems, which is, in fact, I just interviewed somebody from CAT talking about some of the dual fuel systems in a particular area where they are able to combine diesel and gas. And they've even got technology where it can tell you when you should use the gas and when you mix the diesel in and that sort of thing. But you've actually evolved from early dual fuel systems to 100% natural gas, is that right?

00:10:41 Renee Lebas
I would say we're evolving to 100% natural gas. You know, next, here was a leader in dual fuel pumping technology many years ago and will continue to be a leader in helping to progress the, the platform. I think that we'll continue to see dual gas blend pumps like you're referring to, particularly the tier 4 and dual gas gas blend pumps continue to be a part of our portfolio moving forward. But as we evolve to needing higher density horsepower and evolve to cleaner burning platforms that are 100% natural gas, then certainly that's where we're headed. And the GMS platform will be a part of that moving forward.

00:11:27 Russell Stewart
And so obviously that GMS platform is helping you guys meet emissions reduction goals.

00:11:36 Renee Lebas
I mean, I think for us it's really about partnering with our customers to meet their goals. They're the ones who are really focused on the emissions goals and they have plenty of, besides emission, there are plenty of environmental and efficiency goals across the board. So we partner with them to help them meet a variety of those requirements. But certainly the GMS is helping in that area.

00:12:04 Russell Stewart
So is there a way to quantify this environmental impact?

00:12:09 Matt Niemeyer
We've done some quantification efforts. We actually invested several years ago in a significant study where we brought out, we had all on the same pad, all the different technologies from tier 2 tier 4 dual fuels to these 100% gas reciprocating engines to turbine engines powering electric pumps and did a, did a pretty significant study there to quantify emissions, to quantify fuel efficiencies and those, those types of things. And we did a lot of that to be able to provide the information to our, to our partner operators to arm them with the kind of the information they needed to, to make good decisions based on what their goals were. So, so yeah, there's been a lot of work to, to do that.

00:13:09 Russell Stewart
And so Rene, you talked about partnering with, with your customers. Do you see them the do you see them prioritizing emissions reductions when they're selecting frac technologies?

00:13:26 Renee Lebas
Yes, I mean, I think that, I think we work with a lot of different customers across the US and I think there are a lot of different goals. I think it's certainly one of the many goals that they have, not the only one, but certainly an important one.

00:13:45 Russell Stewart
Okay. And so you mentioned or you said a while ago, you know, if it weren't for fracking, we wouldn't be where we are with our oil and gas. We may be running out of oil and gas, we may be running out of it all. And so, you know, it's the shale revolution which has reinvented itself. What innovations or shifts is next year most excited about in that area?

00:14:13 Matt Niemeyer
I think several that we have kind of in our toolbox today. So continuous frac with our proprietary rig up, we actually just set a record in the Marcellus with 348 hours of straight pumping. This helps drive efficiencies for our operators. These obviously these 100% gas burning technologies like this catch GMS mechanical drive systems. They have that higher horsepower density that Renee was talking about before. And then they also allow us to do frac as we kind of did in the past, without these complicated electrical power systems that you have to run out and set up with high voltage lines laid out all over location. We can still utilize a lot of the existing maintenance competencies that we have. We're not having to go out and, and bring in some very specialized electrical competencies. But I think probably our most exciting equipment technologies is probably around our automation, which is now at the forefront of everything we do. From our vertex automated frac controls which automates the frac job to maximize the efficiency. And including our integrated wireline systems, we have our power solutions auto blend technologies which allow us to burn more field gas by blending field gas and CNG on the fly to appropriate levels that the equipment can consume. This helps to basically be able to burn gas, the stranded field gas that's sitting in basin rather than having to truck it out to somewhere, go compress it, clean it, bring it back to location. It helps with a lot of the efficiencies, helps with the emissions of that particular step. And then our auto tune technologies around how we optimize our 100% natural gas engines, utilizing what's coming from our gas systems to tune the engines, if you will, to any changes that are happening in the, the gas quality that's incoming from the, from the field and the, the CNG blends that we're doing a lot of those. Are.

00:16:31 Russell Stewart
Do you have.

00:16:32 Renee Lebas
Yeah, I'll just add that I think we're also seeing, while, while Matt focused a lot on surface, we're also seeing an increased focus on the subsurface and the reservoir itself. So as we, as we go through the, you know, the evolution of, of shale fracking, at the beginning, it was very much, you know, very good acreage and kind of plug and play, if you will. I think we're seeing a shift back towards a little bit more of a, of a downhole focus as well, and how we can tie that in with the surface interaction of the equipment. And so, you know, next year has an Intellistem platform that offers our clients a variety of options, from fiber optics, where they can see sort of far field into the reservoir and offset wells during frac to well pulse, which allows them to watch surface pressure. And then our lateral science method, which takes drilling data, actually, and identifies, you know, what the rock looks like along the lateral that you're fracking in, allowing us for better placement of the perforation clusters and really just more efficiency in our fracturing operations.

00:17:51 Russell Stewart
So, Matt, no matter what you have to do, as far as the gas you're able to use from the field or the gas you have to bring in or whatever, there is significant fuel savings when you switch from diesel to natural gas with the gms, right?

00:18:09 Matt Niemeyer
Yes, sir, there is. Like you said, it depends on where you're at, on what that savings is. I mean, we've. We've seen anywhere from 20 to 50 or even more percentage of fuel savings just depending on where we're at and depending on the job type, depending on, you know, gas prices versus diesel prices at the time, those, those types of things. And then how much CNG we're having to mix with the field gas to make it acceptable for our, for our gas burning inputs. But it's pretty significant somewhere 20 to 50 or more percentages.

00:18:50 Russell Stewart
Really? Wow. Okay. Well, that's great. Okay, so, Renee, I think this would be of interest to the audience. Run us through. And, and I'm, you know, I'm on the. I was always on the drilling side and I was a dumb mud engineer, so that's all I know is about, you know, how to, how to get the td. But now we got to complete this thing and, and we're going to frack it. Take us, take us through a frac operation and then maybe, Matt, from there you can share an example of where the fuel flexibility that we've been talking about made a Significant difference.

00:19:40 Renee Lebas
Okay, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's funny you say you were a mud engineer because actually the best frac job is actually start with a good well being drilled, ends up.

00:19:51 Russell Stewart
There you go.

00:19:52 Renee Lebas
So we'll throw it back to our drilling friends. Okay, that's where it begins. But yeah, so once the, once the well is drilled and it's ready to complete, typically, you know, company comes in, wires, airline will come in and shoot perforations into, through the, through the casing into the rock that provides access to the rock itself. And then that's where the frac job kind of starts. So really, in the most simplest terms, it's about putting water into the formation at high pressures and high rates. And just to give the everyone a little bit of a baseline, you know, we're running rates anywhere from 100 barrels a minute to 200 barrels a minute and even higher in some cases, and pumping under pressures of 10, 11,000 psi. So it's a lot of equipment and it's a lot of high rate, high pressure pumping fluids into the formation, into the rock to break it open effectively. If you can picture shale in your head or granite or any type of rock like that, you don't really see holes in it. So we have to create, but there are, and that's where the oil and gas sits. And so we have to create these pathways to get the oil and gas out of the rock, out of the formation. And so that's really what frac is all about. It's about breaking open the rock. It's about creating these super highways, if you will, to allow the fluid to move out of the rock into the wellbore and be produced. And then we also pump sand in with the fluids to prop open the fractures. So you can imagine when you're pumping on something and you're breaking it open, it's creating these cracks in the rock. But when you stop pumping, it's automatically going to close back in on itself. And so that's where the sand comes in. It provides a little bit of a propping effect and allows for those superhighways, the pathways for the fluids to come out of, of the formation and be produced. And so when we talk about the intensity and all of that pressure and all of that rate that we're pumping under, we're talking about large footprints of equipment, a lot of high pressure, very large pumps pumping this fluid under pressure on site. And it's one of the reasons that higher density horsepower is so important to us as an industry moving forward. And part of where the GMS platform platform comes into play is that we can get higher rate delivery out of one unit, one pump, one big heavy duty pump on location versus more equipment. So it allows us to minimize our footprint on site and get more work done with a smaller footprint and less equipment, which is good for us from a maintenance perspective. From managing the equipment on site, it's good from an environmental perspective because we can have smaller site locations, pad locations. So having these higher density horsepower pumps and the ability to, you know, to do more with less really, and achieve the fracture that we're. Or the fracture job that we're looking for is really key.

00:23:22 Russell Stewart
Okay, so building upon that and Matt, I don't want to put you on the spot, but can you share an example maybe of a site where fuel flexibility made a significant difference and how.

00:23:34 Matt Niemeyer
Yeah, I would say, I mean, you know, fuel flexibility, you know, if we look at say for instance, the Haynesville where the gas is a lot cleaner, we can, we can do things like run directly from the field gas through just a filtering or cleanup skid and power the equipment directly so we don't have to bring in cng. We don't have to do those kind of things. So the more flexible we can make the fuel. And we're still working on this. Right. We've taken the fuel flexibility to where we can just run those filtering skids in the Haynesville, for instance. That's what we're doing today. And then as we move into somewhere where the gas is a little is needs a lot more work like in the Midland basin or the Delaware basin, the lower or the, the better we could or the more flexible we can make that fuel capability of the engines, the, the more of that kind of stuff we can do. Today we still have to truck in cng. We mix the field gas with cng. In some of the dirty fields we may never. Or some of the dirty gas fields, we may never get to a point where we're not mixing with cng. But as we can increase that flexibility, we can utilize a lot less cng. So we're utilizing a lot more of the on or the infill gas supply. So it's a lot more efficient that way.

00:25:00 Russell Stewart
Well, that is really great to hear. I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing this information with us. I'm excited about all the new sustainable technologies that the oil and gas industry has come up with. And I really appreciate Matt and Renee, you guys taking time out of your busy schedule to, to come on and talk to us about this before we sign off. Anything else you want to add? Maybe I didn't ask all the right questions.

00:25:33 Renee Lebas
No, I think we pro, I think we covered everything today. Thank you for having us, Russell.

00:25:37 Matt Niemeyer
Yeah, appreciate, appreciate your time as well.

00:25:40 Russell Stewart
Well, absolutely. And we may have to, we may have to do this again next year or something like that to see just how much you've advanced with these, these new technologies because it sounds like it's a change. It, it's, it's getting better and better day by day.

00:25:59 Matt Niemeyer
I love the opportunity.

00:26:01 Russell Stewart
Okay. All right. Well, for everybody out there, I hope you've enjoyed this conversation. I hope you've found it informative. And as always, thanks for listening to.

00:26:12 Matt Niemeyer
Oggn, the world's largest and most.

00:26:14 Russell Stewart
Thank you for listening and ask your friends to listen and we'll see you next.

00:26:25 Matt Niemeyer
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. The show has been a production of the Oil and Gas Global Network.