(0:00) And joining me live over the phone this morning is Pete Obermueller. (0:03) Pete is the president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. (0:07) I’d like to have Pete on a couple times a year to give us an update on what’s (0:10) happening in Wyoming’s oil and gas industry.

Pete, good morning. How are you today? (0:15) Hey, Duke. I’m doing great.

Hey, happy Independence Day. (0:17) Yeah, you as well. Appreciate your time as always.

And we had you on earlier in the year, (0:22) I believe. It was shortly after President Trump had gone into a second term. It was shortly after (0:27) a number of executive orders have been signed, some of those in regards to natural gas and oil (0:33) production.

And at that time, if I remember correctly, you mentioned, well, things are (0:37) looking in the right direction, but time will tell. So maybe give us an update now that we’re (0:41) into July and how are things been going so far this year? (0:47) Yeah, all things considered, it’s been going pretty well. Oil and gas, I think we talk about (0:52) this probably every time I’m on, Duke, because it’s kind of hard to wrap your brain around.

I (0:58) mean, we’re part of this whole global commodity of oil and the price just isn’t great, at least on (1:06) the oil side. On the gas side, it’s better. So there’s at least one, there might be even two (1:13) new rigs up over in Sublette County, more in your neck of the woods, drilling for gas, (1:19) because the gas prices are doing well.

Oil just kind of hovering around like mid 60s, 70s, (1:26) and that’s fine. People can make it work at that price, but it’s not where I’d like it, (1:32) that’s for sure. (1:33) So just to differentiate real quick for our listeners, when you say oil and gas, I mean, (1:37) you’re talking natural gas on the gas side, right? That’s not what we get from the gas pumps for our (1:44) cars.

Am I understanding that correctly? (1:46) Yeah, yeah, thanks, Duke. I should be more careful with my language. You’re right.

It’s (1:49) the natural gas that can be produced from oil wells. In fact, it often is. But over in Sublette (1:59) County, what they drill for over there is just straight natural gas that then they can liquefy (2:06) and put in pipelines and move out to the West Coast, where most of their market is out there (2:13) to help basically heat homes and gas stoves, those sorts of things.

That’s a lot of their (2:21) customers, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, that sort of thing. It’s not the gas that you pump into your (2:26) car. That’s a refined product that comes from oil production.

So yeah, thanks for backing me up on (2:33) that one. (2:34) So when you say oil and talking about the price of oil, of course, when we go fill up, (2:39) we’re looking for the lowest price possible. And it kind of is that balancing game.

We hear (2:43) from the current administration, we want to do more energy production inside the states. (2:50) But it sounds like that’s still not quite catching on. Am I understanding that correctly? (2:56) Yeah, I mean, total production-wise, we’re doing fine.

Especially in Wyoming, (3:02) at least as it relates to Wyoming, we’re doing okay. We’re kind of holding steady. (3:07) The national rig count, the oil rigs that are drilling for oil in the entire country, (3:13) that’s been sort of dipping and dipping and dipping because the price of oil has not been (3:17) super strong.

But in Wyoming, we’ve kind of been holding steady at about 13 or 14 rigs. (3:24) And I think we should, in fact, see some of that tick up a little bit, even with this price, (3:29) because we’re kind of right now entering into the construction season in Wyoming for oil (3:34) production. We get past the season where we have to not do a lot of activity just for wildlife (3:42) considerations and other environmental considerations.

And we get into this (3:45) construction season here in July, August, September, into October. And I’m hopeful (3:51) we’ll see more rigs in Wyoming. Take us back to, I think last we talked, (3:57) we kind of talked about what were the glory days, if you will, pre-COVID days.

(4:01) How are things comparable right now to what they were maybe six or seven years ago? (4:09) Yeah, we’re not quite back there yet, at least by rig count. I think (4:14) if my memory serves, in 2019, prior to the pandemic, we were in the upper 20s or low 30s (4:23) on rig count. And now, like I said, we have around 13 or 14.

The interesting thing about that, (4:30) you know, the oil and gas industry is really dependent on and really at the kind of the tip (4:38) of the spear on developing new technologies. So there was a time in Wyoming where we would have, (4:43) you know, at any given time, we’d have something like, oh heck, like 500 rigs running. But they (4:50) were all just a vertical, they just go straight down.

And as we develop this technology to turn (4:54) and go horizontally, we can produce the same amount of oil and or gas with so many fewer rigs. (5:04) So our production levels are a little bit down from 2019. I’d love to see a few more rigs back up, (5:11) but our production levels haven’t dropped off, you know, precipitously since 2019, (5:16) even with fewer rigs.

We just get better and better at doing it all the time. (5:21) Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, (5:24) joining us live this morning on the Weekday Wakeup. Will Pete, anything else you’d like (5:28) to share about the current market and industry in Wyoming? Yeah, you know, I’m pretty, I’m pretty (5:35) pleased with where we are, all things considered.

Like I said, I mean, I’d like to see more rigs. (5:39) I’d like to see a little bit of better price of oil. But, you know, you think about everything (5:44) that’s going on in the world right now, the situation in the Middle East, the ongoing (5:49) war in Ukraine and all of that.

It’s a little surprising, given all of that, (5:57) that there’s not more volatility, that Wyoming’s been able to hold steady. And so I’m, you know, (6:03) I’m excited about that because, you know, holding steady in Wyoming means, you know, in general, (6:09) you know, the rigs are operating and that the crews are on those rigs. And that’s about, (6:13) you know, as rigs go, 100, 150 people directly tied to those rigs.

And so we end up having, (6:20) you know, we kind of hold steady at around, you know, 18,000, 19,000 people in Wyoming who are (6:26) directly employed by the oil and gas industry. And that part’s really important to me. I want (6:32) to try to keep that as steady as possible.

Excellent. Again, that’s Pete Obermueller (6:37) this morning, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. Pete, as always, (6:41) again, thank you so much for your time and we’ll hopefully be able to touch base again soon.