This week we released the 100th episode of our Drilldown podcast. This represents almost two-years of continual weekly content, recorded in our offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma, digitally edited and mastered, and then sent out to you. 

Well at first, there were none of you. We had the equipment, and could free up an hour or so each week, so we started producing the podcast without really thinking too much about the purpose it might serve. We just knew that we had valuable information, and felt almost a responsibility to communicate it better.

Now 100 episodes in, we’re thinking back on why we starting doing this in the first place, and here’s the thing: 

The oilfield is moving in two directions: the old guys (like us) are departing, and their replacements are just getting started. This creates a challenging knowledge gap. Our more seasoned contemporaries are retiring, or beginning to fantasize about more days on the golf course than not, and along with them disappears a huge amount of institutional knowledge — all the stuff that they (you) learned throughout a long career in the oil industry. 

Most oilfield jobs or energy investing jobs don’t often start anymore with the hands-on, in-the-field experience that they typically did for us older guys. And although that’s great for the entry-level employee, there is a certain amount of first-hand information that gets missed because of that change. New guys might not know what a frac job site actually looks like, or who is doing what, or how often a pump truck breaks down. 

Guys like us have to hand-off what we know. Or, at least, we want to. Sure, Spears and Associates had been doing that for years with our market segment reports, but we felt that we needed to break it down even more, give some more fundamental background behind our forecasts. And, we like humor. 

We think of the podcast as an extension of the conversations that we have at our office on a day-to-day basis, conversations that would be organic for someone, new or old to the industry, asking us questions face-to-face about why things are the way they are (and how things might change). 

Through our Insider series, we attempt to pass along market and technical insights in a brief, digestible, casual — heck, maybe even enjoyable! — way. We’re trying to sustain and build up the institutional knowledge within the oilfield. Then it’s up to you to use it to your advantage in planning operations, analyzing investment opportunities, or understanding your day-to-day job. 

So, this is an earnest thank you for following along, to those of you who have been with us for all 100 weeks, or even just one week. 

We invite you to forward this message to your friends and colleagues, maybe especially the newer ones. We’d like to welcome them as Insiders (and it’s free!). 

No joke, we’ll tell you everything we know.