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I sat in front of my PC for what seemed like hours at a time trying to capture the essence of 2022. My canvas kept coming up blank and I just couldn’t put any meaningful sentences together. As I do each year, I start to gather my thoughts for “Gratitude” in early summer. I “hunt and peck” a while, leave it for later, come back and add and subtract, walk away, come back, etc., etc.
Well, this year, in industry vernacular, was looking like a dry hole. Nothing...
Then…I got Covid. Boom!! Suddenly, a 65-year-old “warrior” (my description, my wife’s would be different), who prides himself in rarely being sick and even more rarely missing work because of it, was down for the count. Here I was in July 2022, two vaccines and one booster, thinking I had beat this demon.
“Not so fast!” said the virus. But I thought Dr. Fauci said I was bulletproof! Maybe not.
But time passed and fortunately, so did Covid. Then I realized something that we all know but sometimes lose sight of…your health is indeed precious. We all take it for granted now and again but it just takes one rough spell to bring what’s important back into focus.
My personal health experience related very closely to our company’s recent challenges. BEI was cruising along in 2019 just fine. I’d call it “blessed and busy”. Then the spring of 2020 and bingo…Covid hit. Boom!! (Sound familiar?)
The world started to change right before our eyes. Everything slowed to a crawl. Rigs coming down, projects shut down and being deferred, everybody going home; two weeks to stop the spread! Well, two turned into four which turned into eight and so on and so on.
Now the domestic energy industry is hitting its stride again; prices and production are up and activity is on the rise. The cause for the cure is the supply and demand balance that got out of whack from the malaise of covid compounded by the war in Ukraine. If that wasn’t enough, the wish list of widespread domestic and international green energy has done more for a fossil fuel bull market than any bitterly cold winter ever did (except possibly the winter that is coming!).
The world is finding out quickly that when you bet on technology that’s still in its infancy, much of it still on the drawing board and in the lab, reality can indeed be brutal. People have been negatively impacted all over the world because the green energy crowd got way out over their skis.
We all want to safeguard our environment; it’s the right thing to do. Certainly, a big part of accomplishing that goal is developing reliable, cost competitive green energy for the future; but we can’t rush to implement technology that’s not proven nor sustainable.
America has plenty of hydrocarbons left in its energy arsenal to take us safely and reliably well into the future. So many people often forget that we need fossil fuels for so much more than fuel and electricity. They are woven into almost everything that a consumer needs to maintain the American standard of living. They are also an integral part of a transition to green energy. Take fossil fuels away prematurely and you might find yourself living the “high” life with the Flintstones and the Rubbles.
The debate on whether human behavior (fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions) is contributing materially to global warming will rage on for years and years. But there is one thing certain; we need to be smart about our choices or the cure could indeed be much worse than the disease.
 It is a distinct privilege to serve our customers and the oil and gas industry. We are extremely thankful for the opportunity to be a small part of our customers’ success!
Thank you again for allowing us to drop into your inbox occasionally and share some insights and learnings that we have acquired along the way. We very much appreciate that privilege and don’t take it lightly.
Our best wishes for peace, prosperity, health, and happiness this holiday season and throughout the new year in 2023.
Your Friends at Brammer Engineering, Inc.
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