Excerpt from The Permian Basin Petroleum Association Magazine:
The oil business has always been about turning black gold into green—but the shade of green has begun to change in the last few years. While still representing money, “green” is a term that now denotes a mindfulness of the environment. It’s a direction some in the industry are embracing, while others seem to be getting dragged along, leaving heel prints in the sand.
“Green” thinking takes many forms, including reduction of the volumes of fresh water used in fracturing and other procedures, as well as the practice of recapturing vented hydrocarbons, capture of waste heat, and use of compressed natural gas in fleets.
Jared Blong, president and CEO of Octane Energy, a drilling startup, is among those who are enthusiastic about greening up the oilfield. Blong, who is the son-in-law of recently deceased PBPA Chairman Mark Merritt, is a 33-year-old entrepreneur who sees himself as new enough to the industry to think outside the box yet savvy enough to know which green initiatives are as yet impractical. The common fallback statement, “We’ve always done it this way,” is Blong’s least favorite expression. “I live to make that statement sound foolish,” he declared. “We’ve got to start behaving differently if we want the public to continue to allow us to do what we do—instead of just feeling entitled as oilmen, which is our general propensity,” he added, with a chuckle.
