Ben Shepperd,
PBPA President
We are so thankful for all of you that joined us in Midland last month to participate in our 60th Annual Meeting. We are so proud that for so many years, our humble Association has worked diligently to support the safe and responsible development of our region’s natural resources and all of your work and engagement make it possible.
I’d also like to thank all of those that chose to sponsor our meeting this year. As all of you know, we are a member driven organization and one that relies on your generous membership and sponsorship of our events. With these funds we are able to put on a world class event that is truly fitting for the most prolific oilfield in the world.
We’d also like to thank all of our panelists and speakers who took time out of their busy schedules to share their important industry, regulatory, and legislative perspectives that are so important for our members to hear.
Between the welcome reception and the all-day panel discussions, we firmly believe we are able to annually deliver the best conference with the widest range of discussions and are proud to be able to do that with your support.
Will all of that said, it’s also clear that with vibrant discussion about the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico that our region’s future remains very bright.
Are there challenges and issues that we need to address? Absolutely, but our industry continues to innovate and respond to challenges like it has for nearly a century and we are prepared to continue these efforts.
Moving forward there are regulatory challenges we will continue to fight. These include the abuse of federal laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act, regulatory changes in New Mexico at NMED and OCD, as well as new weatherization changes in Texas at the RRC, and much more.
At the same time, our industry has taken aggressive steps to limit and reduce the frequency of seismic activity as well as continuing to explore produced water solutions; reduced flaring intensity all across the Permian Basin; and now working to build out new carbon sequestration policies in the state.
And now more than ever, we understand just how important this commodity is for the fundamentals of our society. We can see, just across the Atlantic, what a poor energy policy can mean and we should not expect our children or their children to endure hardship when we can produce the abundant domestic resources we are blessed with here in the Permian Basin.
There is no way to detail all of the incredible work each and every one of you are doing to ensure that our Permian Basin industry continues to be a resource that benefits our communities, our states, our nation, and our allies abroad. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do in making PBPA such a success in 2022 and beyond.