Uncapped with Executive Roustaboust - David Bert on Deepwater Horizon, Haynesville, and the Future of LNG | Episode 5

[rock music] Well, welcome back everybody.

Uh, I'm your host, John Chrome, and this is Uncapped with Executive Roustabouts.

I'm very pleased today to have both a friend and former colleague with us, uh, uh, a former drilling and completions executive who has spent many years in the field in a, in a lot of different places.

So allow me to introduce David Burt.

Dave holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Woo, go Sooners.

Boomer.

And a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Go Trojans, my own alma mater.

Saw it all.

Uh, Dave, Dave and I both started at Mobil Oil in, um, in a variety of different roles, starting with an operations engineer.

He started in Oklahoma and then we met in California outside of Bakersfield.

He ended up, uh, leaving that kind of world and getting into drilling and completions for both onshore and offshore assets, uh, where he worked in the US, he worked in Canada, and he worked in Vietnam.

At some point, he left Mobil and he went to Amoco and became a drilling supervisor for high-pressure, high-temperature exploration wells in the North Sea.

And of course, BP took over Amoco, and he spent some time at Amoco, uh, in leadership roles such as drilling and completions manager, managing the well operations for the world's deepest offshore sour high-pressure, high-temperature oil field.

You like the danger, don't you?

[laughs]

You like the excitement and the risk.

Yeah, go Thunderhorse.

Um, he also spent time in the Arkoma Basin and was the well operations superintendent for Thunderhorse, and we all know about the big massive Thunderhorse.

Uh, he left BP at some point and went to Chesapeake Energy, and he rose through the ranks from a district manager in the Permian and the Rockies to vice president of drilling, where he did establish a pretty impressive track record of driving unconventional shale production growth and drilling operational excellence.

Uh, as the vice president of operations for the Haynesville business unit, he had the full P&L, technical, operational, and HSE for a multi-billion dollar asset.

Um, later then at Southwest Energy, Dave held executive roles such as area manager and head of health, safety, and environment.

Uh, he's published eight SPE papers, um, and has always been close to oil field technology, and he does hold several patents.

He's got honors and accolades such as the University of Oklahoma's College of Engineering Distinguished Graduate Society and Southwestern Energy's President's Award for Leadership.

Wow, Dave, that's a mouthful.

What are you doing for your next act?

[laughs]

Uh, it's great to see you again.

How are you?

I'm doing great, thank you.

Honored to be a guest on the podcast.

So let's, let's start with some easy stuff.