THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep. 36 Kindra Snow-McGregor of PetroSkills

Oil and Gas is the original Bio Fuel! On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH we talk with #colorado native Kindra Snow-McGregor and we tackle the hard #naturalgas question, will prices go back up? We also analyze the EIA Short term Energy outlook to see if that will tell us where natural gas is headed. Also, Kindra tells us about a new refinery being built that will actually be CO2 Neutral. . . This is another great episode you don’t want to miss.

Please reach out to Kindra Snow-McGregor on his Linkedin HERE

Check out StatusJet HERE

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro
05:07 – Kindra Snow-McGregor of PetroSkills Introduction
06:25 – Can you give me just a couple quick examples of what an Operator may call you up and say, Hey, Kindra, here’s what I need done this is a new asset that I have. What could they expect from?
10:21 – Talks about the Freeport Incident
13:03 – How are our how are the prices looking for this summer? I think that’s what everybody wants to know
15:35 – Do you think that we should build out our liquid natural gas capacity?
21:45 – Total in construction is going to increase our LNG export capacity by 65%
24:58 – So basically, right now, with everything that’s under construction and our current export capacity, we’re sitting at roughly 22% of our gas production as it stands today
26:58 – Do you think we can actually then get all these up and running and then be able to possibly drill some more wells?
28:33 – How important is this simplicity and really how important is natural gas to the energy and how important is natural gas to the energy transition that they’re trying to do here in the world?
31:37 – it sounds like the true carbon footprint for natural gas is so small compared to electric vehicles or even oil that, you know, the process is a lot simpler it’s really a lot cleaner energy to burn up in the atmosphere.
37:41 – Some of these plants are really fascinating and I just want to talk about one, because I think this shows what our industry can do ( Rio Grande LNG )
40:30 – How can people find you or Petro’s skills? And if people, other individuals want to just ask you some tough questions like me, how can they get a hold?
42:10 – Outro

THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep. 36 Kindra Snow-McGregor of PetroSkills

Rey Trevino [00:00:00] Summer is here, Natural gas prices what are they going to do? Are they going to go up or are they going to go down? Are they going to stay at barely $2 all the way across them? I brought in an expert to talk about that and much more on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:00:59] Well, Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening. Thank you, as always, for watching. Listening to another Episode of The Crude Truth. Please be sure to Like and Subscribe and as always, leave only five-star reviews. What a great day it is today.

Rey Trevino [00:01:16] My guest today is somebody that behind the scenes has actually been on the show before. But unfortunately, due to my recording expertise, I did not record any of the sound. So you got me in this person for 35 minutes just staring at a screen. My guest today is a Kindra Snow McGregor. Kindra how are you?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:01:38] I’m doing great, thank you, Rey. How are you doing?

Rey Trevino [00:01:41] Doing excellent, cannot complain at all, especially now that I’ve got the expert team here today. You know, I had the opportunity to meet you in Colorado when I was up there just about two months ago. And it was me, myself and I, and a box of equipment. So there was no Sandstone group there was no Real News Communications it was Rey Trevino in a box of equipment.

Rey Trevino [00:02:04] And you remember I’m sitting there trying to make sure it’s all working correctly and I was a little nervous, but I did well anyway we did not get any of the sounds. So when Eric started going through it and Eric’s our producer, everybody out there he goes, RT, you got no sound on this. He goes, I look great. Looks like you’re having a great conversation. Well, How is Colorado right now?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:02:34] Oh, Colorado is going to be beautiful today, so we should be up in the seventies and finally, little, very little wind. So it should be a great day to be in the state, that’s for sure.

Rey Trevino [00:02:45] Good are the snow-capped finally starting to melt over there? Are they still pretty covered?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:02:50] No, they’re still pretty covered. And we just went through some pretty extreme weather. We had a three-inch hail storm at our location here at the house. Lost half a window fortunately, the interior pane held quite a bit of damage. So I’m hoping that that’s the last of that type of weather for many years to come. It was pretty scary.

Rey Trevino [00:03:16] Yeah. Was it all pea-sized hail or was it?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:03:18] No. Three inches a three.

Rey Trevino [00:03:21] Oh, my gosh I think it got like three inches high and.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:03:27] Down a little.

Rey Trevino [00:03:28] Nose either way.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:03:29] But softball sized.

Rey Trevino [00:03:31] Wow. Holy cow. Katie, thank goodness you’re safe and sound enough that you guys got out of that. Okay? Yeah, that’s no joke right there. I didn’t know. Does that happen? No.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:03:45] It happens every, you know, maybe once every five years will get a big hailstorm like that. And it’s not always in the same location. So unfortunately, this time it just happened to be right, right over where we’re living. So what do you do? That’s what insurance is for.

Rey Trevino [00:04:00] Yeah, that’s all we paid for it. I know. I was talking to some people about that this morning it’s like, man, be sure to use that stuff because we pay for it every month, right? Oh, my gosh. Well, again, I want to just one more time thank you again for your time to be on the show The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:04:20] You have been really bringing what they call thought leadership and I think you’ve been doing that for years before the Internet and social media more importantly. You’ve been bringing all of this insight to the natural gas world right now and to a lot of individuals like myself that don’t necessarily focus on Natural Gas.

Rey Trevino [00:04:44] And, you know, you’ve been you know, you were from the Colorado School of Mines, which who are we kidding? That is one of the best colleges out there for anything in the Oil and Gas Industry. But also you work for a company called Petro Skills that also does a lot of teaching. So not only are you moving and doing, but you also teach, is that correct? A little bit.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:05:06] Yeah, that’s correct. So as far as my role within Pedro Skills, I’m the discipline manager for oil and gas processing. And so any surface facility from a process perspective, all those courses are under my responsibility for maintaining accuracy course quality instructor support and LNG is also within my discipline.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:05:35] So outside of being an instructor, I deliver engineering so facility engineer training for gas, conditioning, and processing. I also do a lot of operator training and so we’ll do a lot of customized in-house operator training for our clients where we focus on their specific asset, talk about their specific operating issues and ways that they can optimize and and troubleshoot their plant performance. So that’s primarily my role I’m in the classroom a fair amount, but I also have a lot of other responsibilities, including content development outside of actually delivering training.

Rey Trevino [00:06:17] Well, I mean, you talk about your content development and how you also have to implement for operators of specific programs, so to speak. Can you give me just a couple quick examples of what an operator may call you up and say, Hey, Kindra, here’s what I need to do this is a new asset that I have. What could they expect?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:06:36] Well, it really just depends. So, for example, we can do a three-day program focused on, you know, a specific gas plant or it doesn’t have to be a gas plant, could be an oil production and processing facility. And we can go all the way up to ten days.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:06:55] And so really what the client is looking for is it really depends on who are they’re going to be putting in the classroom. Are they board operators? Are they doing, you know, Operations, onboarding where say, you know, maybe this person came from downstream refining or maybe, you know, they’re in Colorado, There’s a lot of veterans running our plants. So maybe they have no experience in the industry or with this type of operation.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:07:26] So depending on, you know, who’s in the classroom, then we can structure the content to be whatever the client wants and we can go into as much detail. The program that we recently does for a large liquefaction facility and we spent a week talking about the front-end treating in the plant then we spent a week talking about the cold end part of the plant.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:07:53] And so that program, because it was very advanced and detailed, it was really designed for experienced operations staff to raise their game up, to become much more proficient and reactive or not sorry, become more proactive rather than being reactive when things happen to, you know, go pear-shaped a little bit, if you will not like things go pear-shaped. But just if you start seeing, you know, operating problems, what’s the easiest way to think about it? And how do I know if I’m making the right move? I’m on the board if you will.

Rey Trevino [00:08:32] Right. And that’s the important part right there knowing and then knowing how to be proactive and how to make the right moves. And I think that’s something sometimes that we in the industry, we get a bad rap on, that people don’t think that we go through classes that may be ten days long too, to learn about new things, to stay safe or, you know, technology-wise that they just don’t understand.

Rey Trevino [00:08:55] It’s like, no, no, we care about what we’re doing, we put as much into this training wise as the I.T people, because God knows you remember in the late in the eighties and nineties, I mean you all the range was gone IT trading for me and it’s like, you know, only gas has been doing that for 100 years.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:09:14] Well and you know, to your point I didn’t mention this, but we always have a strong emphasis on safety. And so any time that we’re delivering content, I want to make sure that everyone understands, hey, where are the high-risk areas?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:09:28] If I lose containment for whatever reason, where are my high-risk areas and what do I need to be watching for? And just so that people are more aware and more sensitive to the things that can go wrong?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:09:43] Because, I mean, the reality is 98% of everything that we touch in our world in a facility is flammable. And so the loss of containment is, you know, if we can keep it in the pipe, we can keep the plant safe. So essentially.

Rey Trevino [00:10:00] You know, you talk about if we can keep it in the pipe, in the loss of pipe, that that reminds me of a conversation you and I had about when the prices went up real high was that January last November when the prices go higher 6 months ago, 8 months ago now?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:10:19] No so that would have been it was when Freeport had their incident.

Rey Trevino [00:10:24] Yes, that Freeport incident and, you know, not a lot of people know about that Freeport incident. And I’d like to kind of have you talk about that for a minute. That’s all right.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:10:33] Yeah, that’s. Unfortunately, it was. It was a valve misalignment if you will, that resulted in thermal expansion of an LNG run-down line, which then the pipe ruptured as a result of the relieving device not being available and it was. You know, a really unfortunate situation.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:11:03] And so they’re doing a lot of work and they have done a lot of work to really improve their operations and safety and, you know, FERC has been working with them and now they’re up and running. They’re fully operational again. But at the time when that incident occurred, natural gas prices in the U.S. spiked up 40%.

Rey Trevino [00:11:25] Yeah.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:11:26] Simply because Freeport LNG takes so much gas demand off of our natural gas market in the lower 48. And so we saw the gas prices go up here by 40%. But we also saw gas prices over in Europe because at the time, you know, there they were, they’re still going through their energy crisis, if you will,.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:11:53] Because of the whole issue with Nord Stream one and, you know, Russia and Ukraine, they lost their major supply of Natural gas. And so we also saw prices spike in the European continent as well. As a result of that one incident.

Rey Trevino [00:12:12] Well, exactly because of that incident, and of course, it was right at the time when everybody thought that the weather was going to be horrific for the wintertime as well. So then the market played into it as well. Is that correct? That also helped those prices go up as much because, I mean, we went from basically, what, $2 to $8 in a very short amount of time an FCF, correct?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:12:35] Yeah. I think before we hit eight, we were probably sitting closer to four or five.

Rey Trevino [00:12:39] Right.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:12:41] So it wasn’t like the gas prices that we’re seeing now. Last summer we had much higher natural gas pricing than we do currently.

Rey Trevino [00:12:50] Now, because we’re currently should still be around that $2, if I’m correct here today.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:12:55] This morning, I think we were sitting at $2.52 on the Henry Hub.

Rey Trevino [00:13:00] Oh, wow. Well, what do you think about that? How are our how are the prices looking for this summer? I think that’s what everybody wants to know. You know, like juice, commodities, and trading places what’s it going to be?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:13:14] Well, you know, interestingly enough, so, you know, when you sent me the list of questions earlier this week that you want to talk about, I did some research and funny enough, the EIA came out today with their short term forecast literally this morning, I kid you not. And so.

Rey Trevino [00:13:33] Some people.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:13:34] Listen.

Rey Trevino [00:13:35] I know some people will make sure you know.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:13:37] Yeah. You tell them hey get on that short-term energy outlook for me, would you?

Rey Trevino [00:13:41] Yes.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:13:42] So basically what they’re seeing is they’re thinking that our gas prices are going to go up. I don’t know. We should probably be sitting somewhere $4 Million by the end of 2024. So they’re anticipating natural gas pricing to increase. Now. As you know, that’s a forecast. There’s a lot of things that can happen in between, you know, here and done. Um, so yeah.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:14:15] And, you know, the other thing that you need to take into consideration I was looking at because I, you know, for a long time I would scratch my head, Why are gas prices so low? Like, seriously, why? Why are we sitting at $2 Million BTU? What’s going on there? Basically, we had a warmer winter, so we didn’t have as much natural gas withdrawn from our gas storage. And right now our natural gas storage in the US is 36% higher than we were last year.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:14:48] And so on average were 23% higher over the five-year average this time of year. The winter withdrawals were lower. And currently, in terms of gas production, we have 25 rigs that are operating above the rates that we had at the same time last year. And so with anything, I mean, it’s supply and demand. And so if there is too much supply, then, you know, your prices naturally go down.

Rey Trevino [00:15:20] Right. You know, when you talk about the supply and how right now we do have too much of it. And of course, you know, we have been called the Saudi Arabia of natural gas here in the United States. And of course, the shell revolution has been a big part of that. Do you think that we should build out a liquid natural gas, should we build out our liquid natural gas capacity? Kendra.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:15:46] That’s a tough question because it’s not as. It’s not a very easy prospect to go build one of these facilities because they are multibillion-dollar investments that require 20 years. Long-term contracts for LNG sales before they can even make up it. And in addition, they also have to be able to source the feed gas for those plants. And when you look at, well, how much feed gas are we talking about? I don’t know.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:16:25] I mean, basically what I did, there’s a number of different sources that you can look at. But essentially right now, currently, we’re exporting roughly 12.7 billion standard cubic feet a day, 12.7. And that’s just with our current liquefaction trains that are built and running. And that’s assuming everybody is running at plant capacity.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:16:52] And so, for example, right now we have some facilities that are down for maintenance and turnaround. And so those plants are running out of their nameplate if you will. Right?. And so that is likely part of what’s going into those lower gas pricing is that we have LNG plants that are, you know, doing maintenance or operating at reduced rates either because, one, the market isn’t such where all of their long term contracts are taking their cargoes they’re supposed to take, or if they need some kind of maintenance, then you’re not going to have that demand placed on to our system essentially.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:17:37] But I think the other limiting constraint is not just getting the buyers lined up for the project you know, you want to go build because that’s got to be done before we decide to spend that amount of money. But you also have to have the natural gas supply secured.

Rey Trevino [00:17:56] Yea

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:17:56] In the U.S. because, I mean, we’re like, what’s different about the United States liquefaction is that these plants are taking natural transmission, natural gas from the transmission line. All right. So somebody else already processed it. We’re buying gas from a supplier when you look at facilities at, let’s say, Australia or, you know, we go over to Qatar, those are integrated facilities where you build the plant, but you own the reservoir molecules.

Rey Trevino [00:18:30] Oh, wow that’s a big difference.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:18:32] So it’s a huge difference. Yeah. Different investment. Yeah. And so for us, all we have to do is secure the gas. But in order to secure the gas, in many instances, if you look at our been has done a number of interesting blogs on pipeline capacity going to South Texas and Louisiana, because that’s where many of these proposed plants are going to be built we need new pipelines.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:18:59] And so then the question becomes, can we get the pipeline capacity built and approved by the time the plants come online and need it? And so there are a lot more moving pieces to getting one of these facilities built.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:19:18] The other thing that we’re seeing now today is. Is that the rising cost to build one of these facilities or gone through the roof? And so, for example, if you looked at Corpus Christi train three that cost them and this is in dollars per ton LNG roughly, I don’t know, $590 per ton. All right. And if you look at Port Arthur, that’s like 900.

Rey Trevino [00:19:51] Oh, wow. That’s a big difference as huge.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:19:54] So it’s almost doubling. And so now that makes getting to the final investment decision even more difficult because now you have a much higher capital cost that you have to pay to get the plant built.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:20:08]. And so your long-term contractual agreements may not have reflected that capital investment. And so in many instances, some of these. Projects are having to go back and renegotiate their take-off contracts as a result.

Rey Trevino [00:20:26] Yeah.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:20:28] That’s another compounding factor if you will.

Rey Trevino [00:20:32] Yeah, there you go you like named off three different compounds students you name off like three different compounding factors, all on whether or not we could actually build out our, you know, liquid natural gas capacity.

Rey Trevino [00:20:46] I mean, there are so many factors that go into that and I think sometimes people just say, oh, we just need we just didn’t expand our capacity. And it’s like you just basically said, yes, but do you know what all that’s truly going to entail? And we didn’t bring up regulations and tie oil people on. We just brought up The Crude Truth on how to build one out and look at it the right way and build it smart in America.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:21:13] So the other thing. Well, that’s so here’s the deal. Right now we have a number of plants that are under construction. And so they’ve already made up ID they’ve already made the financial commitment.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:21:28] And so likely those project costs, depending on when they bought the equipment, they’re probably not going to get hit by the increasing costs that we’re looking at, other than, you know, maybe for construction. But right now, the total in construction is going to increase our LNG export capacity by 65%.

Rey Trevino [00:21:51] So we’re at six so that so what you’re saying is when we build out these other locations, we’ll be exporting or be able to have 65% more natural gas when these are done being built Kindra?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:22:07] Yeah, exactly. So basically what we’re looking at right now, I said we’re roughly 12.7 billion standard cubic feet a day of export capacity. Once these plants are built, we’re going to be sitting right close to 21 billion standard cubic feet per day.

Rey Trevino [00:22:24] So it will double that burden here.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:22:27] Right.

Rey Trevino [00:22:28] Yeah.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:22:29] Almost nearly. I mean, but then the other thing is, if you look at all the facilities, here’s the part that has me scratching my head. If you look at all the facilities that may go RFID in 2023. All right.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:22:46] So basically they’re spending money on engineering they’re, you know, trying to work contract deals. So there, you know, securing the land, getting FERC permits, and so on. We’re going to. More than double. So we’ll be up to 38 billion standard cubic feet a day, which here’s the scary part.

Rey Trevino [00:23:10] Okay.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:23:11] Let’s just say all that for you know, just for talking purposes, if all those plants really were to get built. Because this was one thing that was really eating into my mind. If you look at the EIA forecast or you know what our natural gas production was last year, So I think this is a production by region May of 2023, we’re sitting at 97 billion standard cubic feet a day production.

Rey Trevino [00:23:39] Here in America?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:23:41] Here in America, and so if we were to put on all of our proposed LNG capacity of 38 billion standard cubic feet per day, that’s 39% of our production.

Rey Trevino [00:23:57] Okay, So if it’s 39% of our production and we’re at 90 billion cubic feet a day. So as the price goes down, its price goes up.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:24:10] Price can go through the roof.

Rey Trevino [00:24:12] Because we don’t have the capacity still.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:24:14] Yeah. No, we will. We will. Yeah. We won’t have, we won’t have enough gas for our own internal consumption, essentially.

Rey Trevino [00:24:23] Whoa. Holy cow. And that’s if we didn’t drill like we just stayed Pat’s Day every.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:24:28] If we stay flat. Yeah, we stay flat today. I mean, again, that’s the implicit assumption. But how easy is it for people right now under this administration to continue increasing their production? Do you know what I’m saying?

Rey Trevino [00:24:45] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he’s trying to get out there to drill like, you know, nobody’s like, just putting down, you know, billions of dollars to go drill a hundred wells because we don’t know what this administration’s going to do.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:24:57] Right. So basically, right now, with everything that’s under construction and our current export capacity, we’re sitting at roughly 22% of our gas production as it stands today.

Rey Trevino [00:25:12] Wow.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:25:13] And so when you look at that and I don’t know if you know, the EIA analysis on their short-term energy outlook probably didn’t include those facilities because if you run down the list, one, two, three, there’s only three of those plants that are now these are in the works, I don’t think all these have made.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:25:36] So if we look at the ones that are under construction, yeah, there are only three plants that are under construction that’ll hopefully come online in 2024. Got stage three Corpus Christi, Cheniere, they’re projecting 2025 and Plaquemines LNG phase two is scheduled for 2026 and then Port Arthur LNG. And these are big plans lasting 2027.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:26:04] And so, again, I mean, when we’re building these facilities, it is such a massive I mean, these plants are huge. It’s a long project time and it takes them time to get started and put on the system. So I would imagine that you know, the EIA forecasts may or may not have included the additional production capacity that will be added by the three that I mentioned that will start up in 2024.

Rey Trevino [00:26:35] So with all of these coming online in the next four years, where would you see? Well, one, I don’t think I don’t want to draw politics into this. I’m trying to keep that out of this the best way I can and trying to think of the best way to ask that.

Rey Trevino [00:26:55] Basically. Do you? Well, Do you think we can actually then get all these up and running and then be able to possibly drill some more wells? Because that’s obviously what we’ll have to do, Correct to continue to feed these new locations, is that correct?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:27:12] Right. And it’s looking at just the lower 48. So this doesn’t include anything in Alaska or B.C. or in the Gulf of Mexico, but the thing about it is when you look at where these projects are being proposed or built, they’re all in hydrocarbon-friendly states.

Rey Trevino [00:27:33] Right?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:27:35] And so I would say that the odds are good that, you know, they’ll be able to get those pipelines in and you wouldn’t be making that kind of investment decision. You know, go spend billions of dollars if you weren’t absolutely certain that your fee gas was secure to the plan.

Rey Trevino [00:27:54] Right. Because that is all I mean, that’s the most important part is to make sure that you have gas coming to the plant to get refined, basically. And it turned into one form or the other, correct?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:28:05] Yeah. What we do is clean it up and make it cold. Yeah. I mean, that’s it. I know that might sound simple, but you just take the contaminants out. We refrigerate until it’s -260 Fahrenheit at atmospheric pressure, and you put it in a boat, and off it goes.

Rey Trevino [00:28:22] Boom. Well, you know, let me ask you this because you make it like you like you’re saying it’s just so simple. Okay. Once you’ve got it there, you call it down, right? But how important is this simplicity and really how important is natural gas to the energy and how important is natural gas to the energy transition that they’re trying to do here in the world?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:28:48] Well. That’s the thing, is that you know, for many years back in 2019, there was a thought that all natural gas is going to be the bridge fuel, you know, to get us from where we are today to, you know, net zero type of energy system, as you have seen, that has fallen greatly out of favor with some people.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:29:16] But even if you look at the EU, the UK, etc., what what the problem is, is that natural gas is required. And the reason why is because it’s the peak shaving units that typically it’s better if you can run them on natural gas that is going to keep the grid up when you lose your wind or solar generation for, you know, weather or, you know, daytime reasons.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:29:46] And so until we have a viable substitute for natural gas it’s going to it’s got to be used. And, you know, from my perspective, the other big thing that people don’t necessarily think about or talk about, but the whole fertilizer industry, the majority of our fertilizer, it comes from processing with natural gas so natural gas is the feedstock that makes the fertilizer that essentially allows us to feed the global population.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:30:27] And so, you know, once we start looking at more, are we going to start restricting fertilizer or requiring people to go all organic? Sri Lanka has proven that that currently right now just is not feasible because their crops fail.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:30:48] And so, you know, if we want to feed the world, we need to have adequate fertilizer, but we also need to have the fuel to be able to run the agricultural equipment, the tractors, the harvesters, and everything else. So, you know, I think a lot of thought leaders, if you will, that are on the. Net zero. Bandwagon is not being honest with themselves about where all of our stuff actually comes from.

Rey Trevino [00:31:22] No, they’re not and I want to make a statement and, you know, you don’t hear about you do hear about carbon footprint, but you don’t hear about it as much anymore. And I think that has to do with electric vehicles about how bad the carbon footprint is for electric vehicles.

Rey Trevino [00:31:37] But it sounds like the true carbon footprint for natural gas is so small compared to electric vehicles or even oil that, you know, the process is a lot simpler it’s really a lot cleaner energy to burn up in the atmosphere.

Rey Trevino [00:31:57] And more importantly, we have an abundance of it right now that we could really use here in America. I know here in Fort Worth, you know, our bus system uses compressed natural gas, and I think even some police vehicles use it. So I do know it is a good alternative fuel but it also sounds like after talking with you today, the carbon footprint is a lot less also. Is that correct?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:32:22] That’s that question is a pretty difficult question to answer, because it really depends on, you know, where was that electric car made? What powers you know, I mean, it’s and I’ve seen some studies that have come out that have tried to estimate the total CO2 footprint of the electric vehicle.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:32:46] I guess from my perspective, I live in Colorado and I don’t think electric vehicles are safe for people to use in the wintertime because we can have big storms my battery power goes down or, you know, and my range really goes down in the wintertime. If you get stranded out on the road and a two-foot storm, you’re not going to have he if your battery dies, you know.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:33:14] So I don’t think they’re necessarily the technology isn’t practical enough to really for you know or go to Wyoming. Right. I mean, the distances between towns are so huge. And if I’m working at a gas plant in the middle of nowhere, that simply just isn’t it’s not practical.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:33:35] But as far as natural gas vehicles, certainly there is an organization called Natural Gas Vehicle America. I think they changed their name but we are fueling stations all over the U.S. and a lot of companies in the oilfield have natural gas trucks for, you know, their operations. You know, guys out in the field we also have natural gas-powered drill rigs.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:34:05] So certainly if I do the comparison between CO2 emissions, between a diesel and a car running, you know, natural gas is going to be significantly less. I think the bigger challenge that we’re going to face is the whole methane emissions and what the current administration is trying to do in terms of methane, be looking at methane emissions and, you know, people trying to figure out how are we going to manage that? So I don’t know what that’s going to do either.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:34:42] Because, I mean, there’s like I said, there’s a number of unknowns that, you know, it’s kind of hard to predict what’s going to happen. But we’re resilient. I mean, if you look at the operations in Colorado, despite it all, we probably have the toughest regulatory environment in the world and I kid you not.

Rey Trevino [00:35:02] I’m not you know, I think I’ll do, too. I agree.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:35:05] But we’re able to make it work and so it can be done as just it takes planning and it and it takes, you know, more investment but it can be done. So I’m not saying that it can’t be done. It’s just going to cost more.

Rey Trevino [00:35:20] Right. No. And I do want to say that again when I was there in Colorado, had an also chance to talk to Dan Haley, the Colorado Oil and gas president. Y’all do have the strictest rules and regulations to drill oil, but yet you all continue to be, I think it’s your fault with the fourth largest producer to the sixth largest producer here in America every month.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:35:47] Yeah.

Rey Trevino [00:35:48] And of course, we all know how beautiful Colorado is, so y’all definitely make it work. Kindra. I can’t thank you enough. I did not mean I feel like my questions today kind of put you on the spot and I apologize because as everybody knows, I try not to hit people with the hard hard, hard questions. But you know what? You know the answers you give them.

Rey Trevino [00:36:12] And so and you give The Crude Truth on what’s going on so that’s why I have to ask those questions so thank you so much. I mean, we need to know about, you know, hey, can we build out this or, you know, can we as Americans, be able to take liquid natural gas and transition with it?

Rey Trevino [00:36:30] And so I really just hope everybody that’s listening today really kind of can take in all that is good about natural gas and how we can grow from it. So just thank you so much for being on the show today.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:36:44] Oh, you’re very welcome. And again, you know, I, I thought your questions were great because those are questions that I was asking myself, too, because I you know, you look at all these projects that are that are being proposed might come on line. I was seriously I was wondering, well, how big are they? Like, what are we talking about doing here?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:37:04] And so, you know, when you look at those numbers and you think about it, I suspect that a number of plants that are, you know, scheduled to go off idea I don’t know if you heard about the Lake Charles project they lost their permit renewal. So there’s you know, that Driftwood is having a hard time so I was energy transfer’s Lake Charles.

Rey Trevino [00:37:28] Yeah.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:37:29] And then I think next decade the Rio Grande LNG they had some delays as well, but they just got their FERC approval. So, you know, it’ll remain to be seen some of these plants are really fascinating and I just want to talk about one, because I think this shows what our industry can do. Okay.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:37:52] So the next decade, the Rio Grande LNG project is going to cap capture all their carbon. They’re capturing all their carbon emissions, both from the inlet feed gas, but also off of their gas turbines. And they’re putting in the carbon capture and sequestration business if you will, where they can also provide a service to other people and industries to take their collected CO2 and sequester it for them.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:38:24] So, I mean, that’s a super green, super green operation and so when you look I mean, again, it can be done, but when that type of investment is made, it’s going to make that facility a lot more expensive. Right. And so then at the end of the day, I would imagine I don’t know. But I would suspect that they probably have to sell their LNG at a higher price. But they can demand a higher price.

Rey Trevino [00:38:53] Correct.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:38:54] Because it’s CO2 neutral.

Rey Trevino [00:38:56] And that’s what and that’s what the people that sell it to them say, hey, I’m doing it clean, I’m doing my part and I’ll pass it on somewhere where it’s CO2 neutral and that that sells that can sell to goes to the pesky banks that are ESG friendly.

Rey Trevino [00:39:14] It also suggests other investors that say, hey, you know, you be part of something over here that’s different, new and green, so to speak. So again, that’s just another way that natural gas truly is an eco-friendly fossil fuel, as they call it now.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:39:32] It’s not I think we need to drop that.

Rey Trevino [00:39:35] Drop what?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:39:36] Fossil fuel?

Rey Trevino [00:39:38] Yet. Yes. I agree

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:39:40] We’re the original. We’re the original biofuel that’s reality.

Rey Trevino [00:39:48] Love it. Yes. Well, I get it. Okay. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Amen to that. I did not think of that. And that is perfect and that’s true.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:40:04] Yeah. And lastly, we don’t work in the oil and gas industry we work in the reliable energy industry that’s who we are.

Rey Trevino [00:40:12] Oh, my gosh. You know, I don’t know if I for those of you who are not watching this episode, I am sitting here literally writing these last two things down as we speak. Kindra, you are great. Thank you so much. How can people find you or Petro’s skills? And if people, other individuals want to just ask you some tough questions like me, how can they get a hold?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:40:39] They can find me on LinkedIn.

Rey Trevino [00:40:41] Oh, perfect. And that’s Kendrick still McGregor, M.C.G.R.E.G.O.R, McGregor.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:40:48] Yeah, that is correct.

Rey Trevino [00:40:50] Them. Well, Kendra, I cannot thank you enough for this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can you would you like to say anything else before we go?

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:41:00] Oh, no. I would like to thank you. It was a fun conversation. I’m excited to put this whitepaper together based on all sites, all the sources, and stop. I’ll send it to you once, once it’s published, but.

Rey Trevino [00:41:15] Hasn’t researched sources anymore these days. I remember I had a whole college book handbook housing, and you had a site, all your sources on where you got your information. I don’t think kids know how to do that.

Kindra Snow-McGregor [00:41:27] Oh, I don’t know my children are all Enron grown there? I’m a grand grandmother now, so.

Rey Trevino [00:41:37] Well, Kindra, thank you again so much to all our listeners out there thank you all very much. Again, be sure to like to subscribe to The Crude Truth and we’ll see you next time on another episode of the.