Episode 2: Doug Lawler – The Private Company Advantage

[Music] The following is a conversation with Doug Lawler, President and CEO of Continental Resources. This is the second episode of Barrows to Bites, a podcast where we explore the physical and economic realities of all things energy. When the molecules pulled from the earth to the digital infrastructure, they power. We are trying to understand the complex systems, the drive energy markets and the capital systems that fund them. I'm joined again by my co-host and long-standing friends, Lloyd Bern from Jeffries, representing the Southside, John Ordway, formerly from Alliance Bernstein, bringing a Byside perspective, and I'm Ben Del from Kimridge, covering the private investment landscape. Together, we span the entire spectrum of energy investing and have sadly, I have to say, nearly 70 years of sector knowledge throughout multiple commodity cycles. Doug is someone whose career attracts almost exactly with the modern Shell era. Two decades of senior operating roles at Anadaco, eight years of CEO Chesapeake, inheriting a balance sheet most of us would have walked away from. Taking the company into restructuring and emerging, taking it out on the other side, and now four years at Continental, also being involved in the company going private. He is one of the very few people in the industry who's run public companies at scale, restructured them, run private companies, and has been invested in both domestic and international markets. That's an unusual lens, and it's one we want to bring to today's conversation. Mike Wistrich sat in this chair for our first episode recorded before the Iran conflict. He closed by telling us land is going international. The DOG, Devon, and Continental were already moving, and that we should be paying attention. Six months on with WTI having spent most of the last quarter between $920 and $120, with the stress or humurs still closed, it's been the most consequential period in the energy system. Continental has signed additional deals internationally and has publicly raised its 26th capics. DOG has very briefly been proving Mike's point in real time. So let's get into it. Our goal with this podcast is the expense of across the sector. We want to be thoughtful. We want to be provocative. We want to ask the hard questions about upstream operations, capital allocation, asset integration, and the people involved. Along the way, we're absolutely going to get some things wrong, and we're just trying to figure this out. Please note, the opinions expressed here are entirely our own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of our respective firms. We look forward to your support on this journey if you have suggestions. So with that, Doug, let me ask just by starting, maybe you can walk through your history in the industry, how you got where you are today. As I mentioned, you have one of the most interesting career arcs in the sector. Maybe you could just give us a little bit of background on how you got to where you are today. Sure. Happy to do it, Ben. Thank you for having me. Lloyd John. Good to see you guys and happy to be on the podcast. So as you've mentioned, Ben, I've been in the industry for, I guess, about 38 years now, started with Kermigee Corporation after I got my trolling engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines. In 1988, worked principally offshore properties, Gulf of Mexico, drilling completion, reservoir engineering roles, production roles, really learning the business from the ground up. And it was just a phenomenal period for growth and learning in the late 80s, early 90s. It was a time when technology really started playing a very significant role in the Gulf of Mexico with 3D seismic and then the push into the deep water environment. It had the opportunity to drill wells, complete wells and learn the value of the complete operational spectrum during that time. I had the opportunity to move to Houston with Kermigee where we did a merger with Oric Energy in the latter part of the 90s and then ultimately Anna Darko purchased Kermigee in 2007. And then that's from that point is when we started looking at the shale a little bit more intently, kind of an interesting story along that time frame. I worked for Jim Hackett during that period and in a role of vice president of corporate planning was responsible for evaluating the health, financial quality, future inventory of our assets. And one of those assets that I looked at very closely and ultimately recommended to the Anna Darko senior leadership to sell was the US Enshore region. And what they did then shortly thereafter has moved me out of corporate planning and put me over that region. And so it kind of a move there that was a difficult one to accept for the time, but with the task of learning the shale, learning how can those shales from an exploration of development standpoint contribute more meaningfully to the company and ultimately to the entire industry. So a great experience there and worked in the Enshore area for the shales for several years, went back into the Gulf of Mexico for a short period of time and then expanded into international. It's been a couple years looking after and leading all the international efforts that Anna Darko had on the development side as well as the major project developments that were taken place specifically one in Algeria and then the emerging areas like the Mozambique LNG. In 2013, I was approached about from a couple of different companies about opportunities to move into a CEO role. I was essentially number two at Anna Darko at that time and just had a great team, great leadership, a great board and many people were really shocked at why I left Anna Darko when the opportunity was strong and it quite simply was because I was very comfortable at that time. And the Chesapeake opportunity developed and it was I looked at that company and the challenges that they had had the severely broken company. I thought if there was anything that would motivate me to leave Anna Darko, it would be for the biggest challenge in the entire industry and that's what Chesapeake was. When I entered that company in 2013, I quickly put together some efficiency, financial and operating metrics looking at 16 different measures on a one three and five year basis of how the company was performing versus 16 peers. And in every category, the company was a bottom-courtile performer, not just in one year, but three year and five year. And so we set out on a transformation during that time to change the company and that involved selling of assets, involved operational efficiencies and importantly involved in major cultural overhaul. Around Thanksgiving, as you recall, the Saudi Russian price war started in 2014 and we saw prices take a dive and basically had a period of about six years where we saw gas and oil prices declined significantly. So further exacerbating and creating more of a difficulty and challenge and trying to turn around that company. It was with significantly reduced cash flows. Unfortunately, when we got to 2020 and with the COVID outbreak took place and we saw a lot of the issues with oil prices going negative at that time, the only thing that we had not done, we had taken a company of $22 billion of GAB debt and reduced it to $8 billion and we had taken off balance sheet obligations and commitments from around $16 billion to less than five then. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough and the prices dictated that the company had to entertain and ultimately enter into chapter 11. Very, very difficult process but was new that that was the final piece. Unfortunately, entering bankruptcy at that time resulted in a very difficult period of going through restructuring and fortunately then on the other side of it, as you've seen and heard from Mike Wissridge, the company came out of bankruptcy, a superior operating company, super efficient assets, extremely competitive cash cost margins and basically in a position to just launch and that's why then you saw prices recover and substantially and the company had equity that it could do something with and create a substantial opportunity, significant number of really good people there. I left the company shortly after emerging and then not too long after that, I had what I called a little bit of decompression time from that experience at Chesapeake which was very hard. It was very hard on everyone because it was a major fight and when you're in an organization that was at Valley broken that had utilized and exceeded the limit on every dead inch from it known to man, it definitely affects you in a certain way. So, took a few months off and my friend Harold Ham called me and he heard I was gonna go back to work and said, "What do you think about coming to Continental?" And I was at that time, I was wanting to stay in Oklahoma City, love the state, love the people, love the work ethic. And so that's how I got to Continental. And since being here, it's just been a fantastic experience going private, it has been a very, very important pivotal time for the company, resulting in some really good things. And so today, Continental produces almost 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, about 55% oil. We are a three billion barrel plus resource company and happy to be private and not having to deal with all those public challenges that we did at Jessupique. So, tremendous opportunities, tremendous number of leaders that I've had the opportunity to work for and learn from across the 38 year career and super happy to be here at Continental today. - Maybe I can kick off with a question then Lloyd and John, I'm sure we'll chip in and follow on. I mean, the Carman Market environment clearly unique, right? What we're seeing right now in Iran and the big discussion amongst capital providers and investors has been, does the industry react, right? For years, the industry would have reacted quickly. Capital discipline would have been thrown out the window, everyone would have put rigs to work immediately. There was all of our growth at any cost. That dynamics obviously changed. As you sit there with private money, how do you think about what would cause you to change plans? - What would cause you to ramp up significantly? What's the internal economics that are being discussed in the internal capital planning at Continental? - Yeah, it's a great question. And one that because of being a private company, we have so much more flexibility and don't have that public facing three, six, 12 month reporting structure that were being measured by that yardstick that the public companies have to deal with. So often, it gives us that flexibility to say, hey, if we can generate and increase the value of the company and further grow the value, that's exactly what we're going to do. When we entered the year, we had reduced our budget from prior levels in 2025, just because of anticipation of prices being lower. We got into the March period and when all the conflict broke out, the war saw an opportunity to say, okay, well, we can actually mobilize some more capital. Mobilizing that capital could significantly create some additional value in the near term. We increased our budget by about 15% at that time and picked up a few extra rigs. And then in addition to that here, just recently, have made the decision to generate or to increase that capital a little bit further, generating really strong returns. And part of the rationale that we're looking at today, Ben, is that when you think of the company's inventory, the resources available to us, the 10-year trajectory of how we intend to develop those resources, we have a plan that goes out five years with certain different pricing sensitivities. And basically, when you look at those pricing sensitivities, you say, well, if we can mobilize some of those resources today and generate more value, the company will be stronger for that. And so as such, have increased our capital budget yet again. So we're responding to it. It being private gives us a considerable amount of flexibility and really just optionality to create value and focus on the right things. And so when you're not taking on debt, you're not taking on any decreasing or depleting your inventory that's going to affect the long-term value of the enterprise, it says mobilize that capital and capture the value. Hey, Doug, what do you think the cost curve looks like going forward, maybe not for continental as much as the industry? And we saw this industry grow, shale by a million or a million and a half barrels a day during that 2010 to 2019 period. Is that possible going forward? And how much higher does that price need to be in the back end of the curve to actually grow the US shell? Is a great question, Lloyd. We look at it in many different ways. It's not just the cost curve that we look at. It's really the quality of the rock, the quality of the inventory remaining. What is technology doing for us today to provide for additional opportunities where can capital efficiencies, innovation, AI, all those different things help us make better decisions today to expand, increase, and perpetuate that inventory. Combine that with the cost curve and the capital and current pricing to come up with the best recipe for our portfolio. With specific comments on the cost curve, in our mind, you see many companies with cost of supply figures in that $40 range, some less, some a little bit more. At continental, we have an extremely strong inventory of some $50 cost of supply opportunities. But we also know that just with the volatility deploying capital when oil is less than $60, we're not under that pressure to demonstrate growth or to answer any of the pressures that may exist from the investment community today. So or at any time really now. So it gives us a lot of flexibility to say we're going to ramp up, ramp down. To just straight out add your question, when we get below $60, we're looking at potentially reducing our CAPEX program. I think if you want to see more growth, it's going to have to be $70 plus $75 for a predictable long period of time. We can tell you, sir, Anakin, else in your portfolio, we think about the potential for higher prices in the back end of the curve. From a reserve perspective, does that life extend? Are there new technologies or opportunities out there that may have been overlooked due to concerns around sustainability of price that you all are looking at today, whether it be in the core part of the portfolio, as you guys just look across the spectrum of U of S, all short, you've got an interesting perspective having seen a lot of it over the years. Yeah, a couple of great examples there, John. When prices started pulling back the latter part of last year, and we started looking at adjusting our CAPEX program for 2026, we reacted accordingly and actually pulled CAPEX from a very mature and established and very profitable basin in the Willathon. And we actually dropped all the rigs running up there. We had four running it last year and then went down to zero. And in the meantime, we've been evaluating the remaining core opportunities, the opportunities for expanding the play, looking at some different technologies and longer laterals and things the way we design our completions. And it actually, what we saw in the latter part of the year prior to dropping the rigs, we saw a number of efficiency improvements with longer laterals, sand concentrations in some tier two, tier three type areas, they were just phenomenal and combined that with some continued progress on the drilling and completion cost side. And we just been super excited about that. And we're actually mobilizing a few more rigs to go back up to work. And the Willathon here before too long, deploying those learnings and super excited about it. So when you think about being in a basin for 15 plus years, and we're drilling some of the fastest wells we've ever drilled were seeing some IPs that are equivalent or better than anything that we've ever done while we're this far into the inventory is really exciting. And so I think that as we look out forward, I'm not concerned about US inventory in the Shales, because I think technology and innovation are going to continue to provide opportunities. I think that you've got still a number of sandy shales and shaley sands that are going to provide opportunities for continuous investment and development. I do think the growth is going to be challenged in that with many of forecasted, many CEOs and analysts have talked about P-COO. And I don't really see it as a peak. I just see it more as a soft plateau that we're going to probably be on for a while. Can I ask one question before I let Diane drop in again? Deeper. I know you're looking in the Barnette, and it looks like you're doing some wood fird in the Delaware. And is that an exciting area for prospectivity? And then is that wetly or more gassy? Or give me a little background on what's happening in the deeper sounds? It's really exciting. We've been very encouraged by the results we've seen. Our explorations have been mapping the wood for the Barnette for some time. And the results we're seeing today or just simply outstand. We're very encouraged by the rates. You actually have a pretty well defined, although we might not know the exact point in the phase window of where you transition for your more primordial oil to the less oil or more gas. But we're delineating that, learning about that with our program and just seeing some phenomenal gas wells and seeing some phenomenal oil wells also. So it's an exciting time there, principally, Barnett opportunities on the middle of the side, Woodford is more focused on the Delaware side. And we're very encouraged by it. It's seen some extremely prolific wells and also learning a great deal as there's not been many of those wells drilled. And the Premier Basin was a little late for the to the Shale game, as you all know. And then the amount of capital is mobilized and activity there and what it's become is so significant. But the Permian has been what I like to call a relatively easy base of it's the Wolf Camp, the Bone Spring. Some of the different intervals there have been, they're well known, their number of wells drilled through it, the surface risks or minimal, the geologic risks or minimal. And the industry didn't really look past those intervals and look deeper. And we've come in there and started looking deeper and just seen some really good encouraging results. - Can I just follow up on that, Dalgamin? It's one of the arguments we've been making here at Kimmeray to the next generation of places deeper than the economics. Yeah, the incremental economics continue to get better by going after these deeper targets. When you think 10 years from now, how many new plays do you think will open up in the unconventional oil side? I feel like the industry sort of gets complacent. Oh, well, we've had back and we've had Eaglefoot, we've had Permian, there are no more. And then we keep on finding new ones. Where do you think, directly, those new ones come from? What do they look like? And I guess the simple question is, do you think there's more of them out there? - I do think there's more out there. I think the US has opportunities in and around the existing developments, extensional plays around those developments. The depositional environment suggests that we're not gonna find a major share play in Georgia, I don't believe. You'll have no friends left in Georgia off to this. But yeah, no doubt. But I do think that there's more opportunity, there's exploration potential. We've been asked a number of questions like, why are we going international? Why are we looking at it? Is it because of the degradation and the quality of opportunities in the US or because we're running out? And I just don't think that that's true. I think there's the deeper targets, the way the technologies are improving. We're seeing some really great results and encouraging results here in Antarctica, based on Oklahoma. So we're gonna continue to explore in the US. We're gonna continue to look for how technology can be deployed to open up new areas. So I do think there will be more. - Maybe I can just use that pivot international. It's interesting. I think going into Argentina, Turkey, these sort of places would be very difficult for a public company to explain or justify. I mean, I know EOG have gone international too, but there's always it to your point, a different level of scrutiny. Maybe you give us some color on how you think, is being private, one of the advantages that allows you to do these things because your timeline of investment is different, your political risk tolerance is different than what you would have as a public company, see ya? - Yes, it definitely is. If you think about the shale and how the independence in the smaller companies led the shale revolution in the United States, no question about it. The technology was driven by the independence, the spirit of exploration, the risk was taken by the independence, some public, some private, but they, those independent companies are the ones that drove the shale revolution. And what happened? Well, once it's proven up, here come the majors. And the majors come in and buy up large areas and now you know for the Permian and most prolific areas, it was largely dominated by the major oil companies, which is great and is all fine, but they weren't discovered, they weren't developed and they weren't pioneered by the majors. Well, when you think about international and you see some of these areas that were potentially interested in, the public companies, the large public companies, they've got to show the investment thesis and how that benefits taken that risk from the existing assets that they have. You see down in Argentina, many companies have left, many majors have left, it's sold out, they've had a decade or more of experience operating in the country where they had difficulties getting their money out or difficulties operated because of government rules or taxation or whatever it may be. And you know, where the way we look at it is, starts with the rock, it starts with the opportunity of the resource that's available. And then how, where do we go to work from there? We don't have an expectation of a timeline in which we have to generate and show that the capital being deployed there in a three month timeframe or a six month timeframe is delivering a certain result. We have the flexibility and the time to develop the assets, evaluate the assets, work with the governments, work with the local contractors and companies to find a way to unlock it. And I think like in Argentina, particularly in the Vaca Morte, that resource opportunity is just unbelievable. I think everyone recognizes that. It's long been understood of the quality of the Vaca Morte. And the really the challenges have been at the surface. And the majors have had been very frustrated and rightfully so. But with the new administration that's in place, some of the reforms that are taking place, starting with the quality of the rock and looking for how we can improve the investment thesis there, that's why we're there. And we're excited about what's taking place. And I think what you'll see is in five or 10 years, when we start proving it up, again, the majors are going to come back. And that's it, it just happens in all the plays very similar to the US show plays where they largely abandon the US and then have come back in a big way and own large positions now. So maybe talk a little bit about how Argentina and Turkey look relative to the US, whether from a geologic perspective or size of the prize. And what does it look like subsurface wise? Is it a multi-stack pay? Is it, what does that look like? And what challenges and opportunities does it create that people may not be aware of? - Well, the Vaca Morta is a stratigraphic column that is varies from 200, 300, 350 meters. It's a very, very prolific shell, principally being developed on it, two to four different benches within that thousand or so feet. It's an area that's equivalent to approximate the bockin, but has that stratigraphic column that is quite significant. And so we see significant opportunity in those existing benches, but we also see opportunity across the entire column. And so that's going to create additional development opportunities in the future as we test and attempt to prove that up with some of the other companies down there. You know, I think it's a basin that is going to be just as prolific as the Permian. A lot of the discussions that I have with the government officials, whether it be the president in Argentina or whether it be the provincial governors, is they are very, very focused and motivated about mobilizing the resource there. Their focus is on this is going to be really, really good for Argentina. And I think that that's a very good approach. However, I think from a global energy supply situation, what they're forecasting for production, ultimately out of the Vocomorta is very low compared to what it potentially can be. The technologies, the efficiencies that that we're going to be working on there with the local companies, with partners down there, we think we're going to be able to significantly blow through all those estimates. And I think it's not unrealistic. When you look at South America and Western hemisphere and what South America means to the global energy equation, they produce a total of nine million barrels a day, something like that. I think you very easily can see South America get to 15 million barrels a day. All the things going on in Guiana, which take place in Venezuela and Argentina and I think unconventional opportunities are going to play a significant role in that. But with what's taking place in Venezuela, the discovery is an old offshore work. Guyana, Sura, Namb, those are, and Brazil, I mean, there's just, there is a huge, huge opportunity down there. And Doug's quickly following up. How about Turkey as well? What does that look like? So Turkey is a little, the area in which we have a joint venture there, John's a little bit less defined. It's a little bit more exploration focused. Then investment pace there for us is going to be very different. We're working with Turkish petroleum, TPAO and with our partner transatlantic out of the Dallas-Fourth area. And it really more is there's a couple of unconventional targets that we're looking at, a couple of tight sand targets that we're evaluating there. The question that the variances are different and what we're looking at is the known high quality resource that exists in the Vaca Morta has been proven over time. It just, it just needs the full scale larger investment approach from what's taking place here in the US. In Turkey, the subsurface is less defined. And so it's more of an exploration play. It's more of an evaluation play. Testing to see how some of the techniques here in the US can potentially unlock a few of the areas. And we're principally located in the south eastern part of the country in an area that is a AMI area that's a pretty sizable area that we're hopeful that we can unlock some things there with the technologies that we have from the US. I have all sorts of questions we can go. I'd love to go back to the US and talk about the gas market a little bit, especially getting your perspective at having come from Chesapeake. And I know you're more focused on oil today, but just talk me through that market and the cost of supply going forward. And the productivity of the reservoir is just proven phenomenal, I think. And we're still in the learning stages, I think, in the gas market. Yeah, the gas market is certainly super interesting. The volatility, I think, is going to continue, Lloyd, for quite some time. The issue to me around gas is just the ability to mobilize the resource. It's just incredible. Within existing fields, the technologies are resulting in better wealth than ever drove before. The opportunity to go into other areas to mobilize gas, there's significant opportunities in the US for gas. And just to give you an idea, we are an oil company. We're an oil-focused company. And we still do produce a lot of gas. If we said that we wanted to direct and mobilize gas, we could direct some rigs towards gas opportunities here in Oklahoma and mobilize a half a BCF a day at six to eight months. And the reason why I make that comment to you is that if you're not tied to an LNG terminal, if you're not tied to a data center or a power plant, if you don't have direct connect and you're just producing into the hub, I just have a hard time seeing the investment thesis in gas personally. It's just because the resource can be mobilized so easily. You see the cost curve creep up because of the complexity of the completions, because of the depth. I think there's a lot of opportunity in gas, but from an investor standpoint, if an organization is not tied to a global market, you're just playing the gas curve. And from an investor, it's like, well, why not just play the commodity? Why do I have to deal with the risk of investing in a company is producing into the hub? So that's just kind of my view. It's not that I'm negative on gas because I think there's a significant potential. I think I agree with all of the thesis out there with respect to gas and what it means to the globe and what it'll be. You just have to be tied to a market. You have to be able to get it on the water or you have to get it where you have a long-term contract associated with the power plant or a data set or something like that that will give you access to market because it can just be mobilized. I can tell you, if we saw gas go up five bucks, I'd shift the rigs and we'd capture that near-term value and flood the market up and then just drive it and drive it right back down. So Doug, I got to ask, do you and your brother, do you spend Thanksgiving together? We spend a lot of holidays together. Okay. So you're around the Thanksgiving table, right? You've got majority oil. Dave's got majority gas. Do you tell him that if gas goes to five, you're going to flood his market and destroy his business? Is that how it goes down at the Thanksgiving table? Actually, it's actually a conflementary. I think the stuff that Cambridge is doing with the opportunity with the LNG, I think it's something that has long been needed in the United States. When you think about equity ownership in the upstream, tied to an LNG facility or tied through the shipping all the way to a foreign market or an end user of the gas, the United States is a little bit unique when you look at Mozambique and that development opportunity that was discovered back in 2010 or 11, 200 TCF, a gas field that has the capability of changing the GDP per capita by a factor of 12. And yet it's still today, almost 20 years later, still not been developed due to government and regulation, corruption and all those kind of things. So it's not that I'm negative on gas in any way. So there wouldn't be any Thanksgiving discussion about that. And there might be a wrestling match or something like that. But it actually, I think that what Cambridge is doing and others that are tied to getting the gas on the water or getting the gas tied to some sort of stability and price with power generation, that that's where I'm talking about as the key. And I think that those that are not tied to that are where I think you have a more challenging time. Yeah. You're giving me a lot of ideas through the next podcast, The Little Lebrothers Wrestling Match. The sounds like it's something we could do a pay per view for, but we'll have to come back to that one. I guess one more question on that. Who's got the better well results? Is that a discussion over Thanksgiving, you know, productivity, bilateral foot? Does that come up at all? You know, not specifically. We generally, we don't talk much detail around work. Surprisingly, people ask us that a lot. We have so many things in common in our friendship and relationship through the years has been so fantastic. It's really, it's more discussion around what's coming up next. What are we going to do next? And whether it's racing trucks or taking a trip or whatever it may be? Doug, I was going to ask you having sat on the public side and on the private side and you look across the landscape today. We were talking before we jumped on here about valuations for publicly traded EMPs. And they're still relatively low, relative to where they were in the 2010s, for example. What would you be doing? Do you think there were more take privates akin to what continental is done? What do you think publicly traded companies should be doing that can't do because they're public? And what advice would you be giving or how would you think about that opportunity said to create value and let it what we discussed, respect it? Think about a resource technology unlocking new opportunities. Yeah, you know, it's a really good question and a difficult question. I don't see a lot of opportunities for other companies of size and scale to go private, just principally just due to the the financing required to do so. Capital was a little bit unique in the structure in which Harold has run and led the company for so many years. And having that large ownership position served, served him very well to be able to take the company private in 22. For you know, continental today is a 30 plus billion dollar enterprise. It's just the amount of capital required to do that for other companies to go private and things extremely difficult. You know, with respect to how public companies are managed and led today, you know, it's just the size, the scale of companies that are our size are bigger. It's just a, I hate to describe as a ball and chain, but it's just a state of the union that I don't think you'll ever really be able to get away from. I think it's just the nature of what they have to deal with from reporting and from shareholders, shareholders, expectations, board expectations. It's just a, it's a challenge and I will tell you, I could write a number of books and one of them that I thought about is it would be a tale of two cities. And that tale of two cities essentially would be the contrast between Chesapeake and continental, one with extreme financial discipline, one with no financial discipline, one gas, one oil. You know, there's the one's private one's public. There's so many different chapters in that book. And in addition to that, there's a, I could write one on Chesapeake, they would be a kid into the aferno. the nine rings of hell. And maybe on another barcash, I'll go through that with you. I mean, on a serious note, Doug, when you look at your experience back there, and, you know, I was on the cell side when Audrey, yeah, started that, that, that company and was lorded for the growth, the Great Land grabbed. I mean, the, the, the statements that came out during that period were a lot of different comments were made. Where did it, in your mind, where did it start going wrong? Right? What, was it, at the board, was it leadership, was it, you know, a framework of investing that was just wrong from the beginning? How do you think about that? There's a number of things that I could share and, and, uh, go into, I think that the, the first and foremost, Aubrey was a, a visionary, a very extreme visionary. He, he, uh, saw the opportunity, he aggressively attacked it, uh, and, and really helped, uh, drive the, the shell revolution because of his, his drive and his vision. And, uh, I, I give him a lot of credit for that, uh, and, and, and building the company. The, the key along the way is that, uh, the access to capital was, uh, was unbelievable, uh, during those periods. Uh, the need as companies grew for financial discipline, for, uh, capital discipline for operational efficiencies. Uh, what we saw is during that time, the only gas business has been highly technical forever. And what we saw is petrotectical leadership started getting displaced by financial leadership or leadership that did not have, uh, understand where the value came from or understand how to drive the specific value from the rock, from the operations. And when you lose people and leadership roles or senior leadership roles that know exactly how to drill well, know exactly how to complete a well. You start to erode, uh, the, some of the incremental advantages of, of, of what technical good, strong petrotectical skills can deliver in terms of value. Uh, and during that period, because of the access to capital, there were two major, major, uh, impacts, uh, that took place, uh, and Chesapeake had a major role, and, and, and, and that affected affected a profitability from a very, very long period of time and actually affects the profitability today. Uh, and when I describe him, you, you will know them well. But the first was in the land grab, the process of taking conventional one eighth royalties and increasing it to 25%. So the amount of money that all in gas companies can generate for the risk that they take was, was it's increased 12.5% as you saw, royalties in order to secure land and acreage increase from 12.5% to 25% which is the, the standard today. And that 12.5% is, was, uh, you know, opportunities for reinvestment opportunities for shareholder returns, all the different corporate purposes that that potentially could be applied to, but is essentially transferred in the land grab process. The second thing was to respect the midstream and what took place there with the, the commitments to build pipes to get product to market and the exorbitant rage, the guarantee of return on capital for infrastructure that took place and companies willingness to sign up for that for a long period of time. I could tell you, when I came into Chesapeake and when, when I did my best due diligence, I had no idea how bad it was. And when I got in there, it was like holy cow, really 25 year commitment for 25 rigs, every single day operating in the hands of regardless of price, regardless of efficiencies, regardless of productivity, 25 rigs, 25 years to deliver a curve that was underpinned by the company, with this idea called a minimum volume commitment. Because pipeline companies refuse to put that capital to work, the industry said, we will underpin that investment with commitments like that and been that that in itself, whether you think of the cash that the bleed that transfer really relatively risk free to the midstream companies. And it's not that I'm begrudge on the midstream companies from making a profit and an opportunity, but in order to build those pipes, that was the, that was the price it had to be paid. Those two things were significant impact to the financial strength and viability of oil and gas companies. And as you progress through time, a company like Chesapeake and that didn't have the financial discipline, the growth and the debt and the inefficiency and the operations just really choked the company down. Yeah, and I'm highly sympathetic to that doubt because I remember getting involved in extraction and for all the diligence, we had down we found, you know, one and a half billion dollars of MVCs, crazy differentials and transportation fees. And I couldn't believe that a board had ever allowed these things to be committed to. So I've experienced that on a smaller scale firsthand. I mean, I'm conscious of time. I think John Lloyd, I'll throw it to you for a couple of remaining questions before we wrap. I'll jump in first and then John can do it. If you had one thing, Doug, that you think investors still misunderstand about the oil market going forward, what do you think that is? I think the idea of understanding exploration replenishment, Lloyd, it is just not well understood. And the capital intensity of our business, the risk that have to be taking, that we have to take, that replenishment cycle is vicious and the growing, the growing need for energy across the globe as we see it and we know it's coming. I just think that there's a lack of recognition of how important that replenishment is, you know, demanding all these shareholder returns versus reinvesting in the business and what's going to be needed in the future. I think we've got a lot of issues coming down the road. Doug, I'm curious your perspective. We sit down in 10 years from now. How many similar unconventional or onshore plays, akin to like the evolution that we've seen on US onshore? What's the biggest impediment or the opportunity to do? Whether we, we talked about Argentina, we talked about Turkey. Where else can that be done? And why has it been done more? Well, I think the biggest risk, really globally, is government risk. I think that exists in the United States. I mean, we've seen leases revoked and regulations imposed that restrict activity or limit activity. I think you go across the globe. You've got many countries that have had all kinds of issues. I was a part of an independent delegation recently in Venezuela. And you look at Venezuela and the opportunities there, it's quite significant. And the quality of the rock and the resources there are unbelievable and very, very vast expansive. And you know, you have a government that has not been supportive and not a regime that has looked to profit from it on an individual barrel basis instead of how to the prominence of the nation and contribution to the global energy equation. How do you scale up to meet that, raising the prosperity and the livelihood of all the citizens of Venezuela, but also of the globe? And I'm very encouraged by the things that are taking place there now and excited to see what comes from Venezuela with the reforms that are taking place and support that is there from the Trump administration. So Doug, we finished our last podcast with one question. We're going to keep it consistent for you. You can have dinner with an industry titan, a politician and a sports person, a leader alive, full spectrum here, anyone you want to pick. Who's at your dinner table and why? So all three you're saying? All three. That's a good question. I guess I have the opportunity of working with Harold him on a daily basis and that I would include him at the dinner for sure. Industry titan, I've worked with a lot of great leaders that have impacted my career and had a significant influence on me. Jim Hackett, Chuck Mouloy, you guys know those guys that just outstanding leaders, but But I'd include Harold, his excuse. experiences and his approach and his gut instincts are so outstanding. I'd probably include the president in it as well. Just to go, I think the Trump and the interaction with Harold is a great dynamic there. A friendship is very strong and and then on the sports side, I don't know. I probably get John L. Wei in there. This sounds like a pretty good dinner. I don't know about the other guy. Brother. But, uh, I don't know if my brother, if you ever get there, you went there too. If you get that one lined up, please let me know. I'll be available. Well, look on behalf of myself, Lloyd John has been a real pleasure. I haven't knew you here today. It's been hugely informative. Appreciate all your insights and your thoughts and best of luck with Continental and the future. Thanks so much, Ben. Good luck with all the adventures with camera and great stuff you guys are doing. And Lloyd John, look forward to seeing you again for too long. Great to see you, Dyke. Thanks for the top. Thank you. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you.