The 2023 Permian Basin International Oil Show as seen from an aerial view Wednesday at the Ector County Coliseum. (Courtesy photo by The Oilfield Photographer)
The exhibits have been broken down and trucked away—over a month ago, in fact—and the thousands of attendees have moved on to daily routines, but memories linger. This prodigious biennial event known as the Permian Basin International Oil Show makes an impact on all who experience it.
On Day One of the three day (Oct. 17-19) event I encountered Larry S. Richards, president of the 2023 Permian Basin International Oil Show, between officiating duties that filled his day, and I asked him what were his thoughts on the 2023 iteration.
“It is fantastic,” said Richards, former head of Hy-Bon Engineering and later of VanZandt Controls LLC. (Richards is recently retired from his oilfield career.) “I’m absolutely thrilled with the attendance so far. Always, two days before the show, [I find myself] nervous. Is it all going to come together? It’s always a sigh of relief when those first attendees walk through the door and everything’s set.”
Richards said many visitors to the show were from outside the United States.
(Courtesy photo by The Oilfield Photographer)
“We’re seeing some of those groups come through and they just are so shocked at the diversity of products and technologies we’ve gotten in the show,” he added. “It’s not what they expected in terms of what they’ve seen at other, different shows they’ve attended. There was nothing there that had this breadth of equipment and so many different aspects of the industry all in one place. It’s great to hear that and it’s great for our exhibitors. I mean, if they’re able to find customers in addition to the ones they already have in the Permian, whether it’s in other basins in the United States or outside the United States, it diversifies their revenue stream so much to where, when we have [down] cycles, they just keep right on trucking. And I think that one of the great things this show’s brought to all of the exhibitors here is that so many of them now have clients all over the world that they met here at the Oil Show. And I think this year we’re just putting that on steroids.”
At the Gravity outdoor exhibit, I spoke with Heather Heacock, Gravity’s marketing manager. Heacock said that, from the standpoint of traffic at their exhibit space, the show had started out strong.
(Courtesy photo by The Oilfield Photographer)
“We’ve had a good stream of traffic,” she said. “We’ve had made a lot of connections. The weather’s cooperated, so that’s been nice. We’ve had a lot of good contacts from oil and gas operators, so it’s been, actually, a really good show for us so far.”
Explaining the scope of her company’s specialties, Heacock said Gravity offers natural gas and diesel generators, light towers, pumps, and other equipment. “We also have a water midstream division,” she said. “We’re based in the Permian Basin, but we’re in all the shale basins throughout the United States.”
In one of the indoor exhibit areas, Distribution Plus had a booth, and one of its representatives, Ross Schumann, described what his company gets out of the Permian Basin International Oil Show.
(Courtesy photo by The Oilfield Photographer)
“The great thing about this show is we’ve seen people from all over the world so far today,” Schumann said. “We’ve seen people from India, from Peru, from Colombia, from Brazil. We’ve seen people from Mexico, from Canada, from Europe. It’s a great time to make those connections, to make those introductions where you’re able to see what new things are coming out, what opportunities there are, what ways we can improve our industry—the way we do things, the way we handle ourselves, the way we conduct our business. It’s not only to produce more gas, not only to produce more oil, but to also do so in a safer manner, in a more efficient manner, in a more productive manner. And if we can do that, we can continue to drive cost savings per energy production level.”
Schumann said Distribution Plus is a supply chain logistics management company specializing in artificial lift accessories and supplies. “We deal in ESP, cable, capillary tubing, tech line, down hole sensors, permanent down hole gauges—anything that you could use on artificial lift, anything that you could use outside of the actual pumps, the actual motors, the things that the service companies provide,” he said. “We also are a logistics management company, so we specialize in hotshot of artificial lift supplies. So we hot shot your ESP motors, hot shot your rods, your downhole pumps, etc., to the location and [see to it that] your techs get [the installations] done properly and correctly and safely.”
So it went elsewhere through the show, which exhibitors and attendees alike seemed to feel benefited from a stronger response than was felt at the previous Permian Basin International Oil Shows. Maybe a sign of high $80s oil, which was what the market was then seeing.
We at PB Oil and Gas Magazine are grateful for the opportunities we had to visit with so many of you at the event. When we weren’t busy manning our booth in Building G—our customary abode there—we were out and about, seeing the exhibits and chatting with as many of you as we could.
By Jesse Mullins