Energy Bytes

EP 83: Paul Brown from BDE Data

Paul Brown, Founder and Principal Engineer at BDE Data, joins John and Bobby all the way from Scotland for a conversation that covers a lot of ground. From his days as an international drilling engineer dodging pirates off the coast of West Africa to building WellSchematic.com and tackling the nightmare of digitizing 50-year-old multilingual well files, Paul is the rare person who speaks both languages fluently. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/5kp8Rdh] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/a22b5e4e/transcript] 00:00 - Oil prices, energy costs, and life in Scotland vs Texas 01:50 - Paul's background and path from drilling to data 08:19 - WellSchematic.com and legacy well data as a service 10:52 - Drilling war stories: West Africa and the Falklands 15:00 - UK oil industry and energy policy 34:41 - Legacy well file digitization 38:06 - The PDF table extraction problem 42:22 - Open source models vs foundational models 44:31 - AI stack, data privacy, and cloud infrastructure 51:54 - AI's role in the upstream industry 56:04 - Getting tech adopted in the drilling world 59:06 - Coding journey: from PHP and Laravel to Python 1:02:22 - Advice for engineers getting into coding 1:09:38 - Programming languages and AI-assisted development 1:11:56 - Cursor and Claude Code 1:13:55 - Speed round: Scotland, whiskey, and cloud platforms https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

EP 82: John Ely, The Godfather of Frac

When you have 80 patents and a lifetime achievement award in hydraulic fracturing, you have seen some things. John William Ely, Founder of Ely and Associates Corp, and Jon Harper, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, talk frac history, pre-job diagnostics, the slick water revolution, geothermal, and why the industry keeps pumping the same thing and expecting different results. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/z2HPibN] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/720ebbb2/transcript] 0:00 - Intro and guest backgrounds 3:25 - John William Ely's origin story 7:45 - Offshore blowout and well control in the Middle East 11:25 - How fracturing has evolved over 50 years 19:30 - The slick water revolution and where we went wrong 27:40 - Pre-job diagnostics and what operators overlook 36:55 - Geothermal applications and completions challenges 43:50 - Parent-child well interaction and offset communication 47:00 - Refracing and diversion 54:15 - Increasing recovery factor 1:06:35 - Longer laterals, U-turn wells, and land-driven decisions 1:12:35 - Knowledge gaps in the next generation of engineers 1:25:20 - The untapped tight conventional opportunity 1:30:02 - Advice for young engineers entering the industry https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

EP 81: Deren, Dagen and Josh from Firm App

Owner relations in oil and gas has been shoved in a corner forever, basically a "here's your check, don't call me" situation, and Deren Boyd, Dagen Boyd, and Josh Wright, co-founders of Firm App, are building the platform to fix that. These three started in oilfield safety software with iScout, got acquired by KPA, and now they're tackling the massive gap between operators and their surface and mineral owners with AI-powered multichannel communication. We're talking voice agents with adjustable accents, auto-responding emails, chat widgets that actually work, and an owner-facing app that puts payment info and well data in people's pockets. Plus the OKC crew gives their take on Devon and Expand relocating and what that means for the city. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/VfGnaPC] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/ea1ab06b/transcript] 0:00 Devon and Expand leaving OKC, what it means on the ground 4:42 What is owner relations and why has it been ignored 7:18 Timing and the generational shift driving tech adoption 10:10 How operators have been duct-taping owner relations together 12:05 The owner-facing app and multichannel approach 14:38 AI voice agents, email auto-response, and chatbot workflows 18:15 Building and rebuilding AI architecture every six months 21:29 Under the hood on voice AI, latency, and conversation nuance 26:37 School districts, 10,000 page websites, and unexpected use cases 34:58 The iScout origin story and oilfield safety software 42:17 Getting thrown in the penalty box and winning work back with data 46:13 Revenue statements, vendor portals, and what owners actually ask about 52:24 NAPE plans and the land community 54:48 Business model and implementation timeline 55:58 NIL, college athletics, and the dumpster fire 1:04:36 Dev tools, Claude Code, and the future of SaaS https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

EP 80: Kayla Ball from SensorUp

Bobby Neelon and John Kalfayan sit down with Kayla Ball to break down why the methane compliance space is stuck in the trough of disillusionment, how she ended up cleaning up Petra's flat file nightmare at IHS, and why vibe coding with Claude feels like training your own replacement. They dig into sensor data chaos across ops teams, why public data companies should be worried, the wild difference between building lovable prototypes versus commercial deployments with SOC2 governance, and how AI is forcing everyone to confront the fact that humans shouldn't be entering data into anything anymore. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/VZvLUnf] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/12fdd761/transcript] 0:00 - Devon and Chesapeake leaving Oklahoma City 4:50 - What SensorUp actually does beyond sensors 11:40 - Methane space challenges and compliance markets 18:30 - Why standardizing sensor data is so hard 26:40 - Getting into product management from geology 32:45 - AI automating regulatory workflows and field inspections 38:50 - Vibe coding prototypes versus productizing for enterprises 45:15 - Public data moat questions for IHS and Enverus 52:30 - Duck Lake and licensing components over custom dev 58:15 - Product management changing with Claude Code 1:04:40 - Data problems holding back AI adoption 1:11:20 - Speed round on youth sports complexes and baseball 1:22:40 - Hot takes and wrapping up https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

EP 79: Hussein Shel from AWS

Hussein Shel, CTO and head of business development for energy and utilities at Amazon Web Services, joins Bobby and John to talk about his journey from Chevron engineer to cloud technology leader. They explore how AI coding tools are changing the game for energy companies, why the barrier to entry for building apps has never been lower, and what it means when your reservoir engineer can now spin up their own solutions in minutes instead of months. Hussein shares why he thinks we're only scratching the surface of what's possible when you combine domain expertise with modern AI tools, discusses the cultural shifts needed for energy companies to move fast, and explains why he's both excited about AI's potential and concerned about its massive energy demands. If you’re into energy tech, you’re in the right place. John and Bobby have built a deep catalog of conversations with the minds modernizing energy inside companies like AWS, Snowflake, Devon Energy, and more. Listen to the full library on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch at https://collide.io/community. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/9eb47c72/transcript] 00:00 - Welcome and introductions 03:14 - Early AI experiments and low-code tools 08:11 - Core principles that haven't changed 12:04 - Managing costs and governance 15:15 - Data access and shadow IT 17:16 - Building apps in weeks vs months 19:25 - Domain-specific foundation models 21:10 - AWS infrastructure and energy footprint 26:21 - Custom silicon and partnerships 29:11 - Current AI model landscape 33:36 - Enterprise adoption challenges 38:58 - Cultural change from the top 42:06 - Scoping problems and quick wins 46:16 - Legacy systems and technical debt 52:18 - Building AI-first energy companies 56:57 - Tech debt acceleration 1:00:04 - Speed round and favorite spots https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters