Western Standard - June 15, 2025


Spread the wealth!


Episode Stats

Length

11 minutes

Words per Minute

171.58185

Word Count

2,015

Sentence Count

195

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

In this episode, we sit down with Jeff Calloway, CEO of Energized Natural Resources, on the floor of the Global Energy Show in Calgary, Canada. We talk about the importance of the free market in the oil and gas industry, why Western Canada should be pro-OPEC and pro-Alberta, and why the Wild Rose Party is the best party in Alberta.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'm here with the CEO of Energized Natural Resources, Jeff Calloway, here on the floor
00:00:17.460 of the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary. Before we get started, just a disclaimer,
00:00:21.820 Jeff is also Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Western Standard.
00:00:24.920 So if you're looking for this to be entirely objective and hard-hitting and gotcha,
00:00:29.300 it's probably not it. We're not going to eat up the Chairman of our board for the work he does.
00:00:34.460 He was also President of the Wild Rose Party for years ago, for probably a majority of that party's history.
00:00:40.660 I was the majority. I literally wrote the business plan.
00:00:44.060 You did?
00:00:44.760 Yep.
00:00:45.780 It's had some ups and downs, that plan.
00:00:47.660 It had some challenges, as any business does, but it was literally like writing a business plan for a party.
00:00:53.260 There were some challenges, obstacles, but we overcame them.
00:00:57.980 And now, ultimately, the leader of the Wild Rose Party is the Premier of this province.
00:01:03.760 One in the end.
00:01:05.280 Yep.
00:01:06.580 All right. Well, we're here, I guess, not to chat politics directly, but
00:01:10.840 what your company, Energized Natural Resources, is doing with the Global Energy Show here,
00:01:18.720 this is, there's a lot of really, like, the biggest players on the planet are here.
00:01:24.540 Yep.
00:01:24.760 This morning, we had the President or Chairman of OPEC.
00:01:30.180 Yep.
00:01:32.320 Are you pro-Alberta joining OPEC?
00:01:35.620 Should we join the cartel?
00:01:38.500 Quebec gets the cheese cartel, don't we get the oil cartel?
00:01:40.920 Yeah, we, as a, you know, Western Canada, we kind of fought from getting out under one cartel,
00:01:46.120 that being the Canadian Wheat Board.
00:01:47.360 I'm not sure we actually want to join another cartel here in Alberta.
00:01:52.000 I mean, the free market is so key, and it brings in and involves so many Albertans in this province,
00:01:58.980 actually Western Canadians into the industry and involves someone, and it spreads the wealth out across, right?
00:02:04.480 So it's not like, you know, you've got a few very rich people in the elites in some countries,
00:02:10.400 like we see in the energy industry in the world.
00:02:13.060 Mostly OPEC countries, yeah.
00:02:14.360 Mostly OPEC countries, yep.
00:02:17.020 Whereas you spread that wealth out across Albertans, and Albertans really see that, you know, manifesting itself.
00:02:22.400 Billy Bob Ford can get rich here.
00:02:24.920 Yeah.
00:02:25.660 Yeah.
00:02:26.560 Yeah, actually, you know, literally, the subsidiary of my company, the operating subsidiary is called Clamp-It,
00:02:33.620 after the Beverly Hillbillies, and, I mean, I inherited that when I bought the company.
00:02:40.380 But, hey, there's a story about just some regular folks that shot a hole in the ground
00:02:46.940 and found some bubbling crude and, you know, created a great life for themselves.
00:02:50.460 So, yeah.
00:02:51.000 Well, we'll refrain from singing the whole song here.
00:02:52.960 There we go.
00:02:53.660 From bursting into a musical here.
00:02:55.120 Yeah.
00:02:55.680 All right, so there are the very biggest players in the world.
00:03:00.560 About 30 feet that way, I see the...
00:03:03.560 Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria.
00:03:06.280 You've got a big place in Nigeria here.
00:03:07.960 Norway.
00:03:08.520 Korea.
00:03:09.380 Norway's right there.
00:03:10.520 Yeah.
00:03:10.740 Yeah.
00:03:11.360 Korea, you've got a bunch of nukes.
00:03:12.820 India.
00:03:13.520 Yeah.
00:03:14.420 Yeah.
00:03:15.160 Everyone's here.
00:03:15.720 It is...
00:03:16.380 This has become a big deal.
00:03:17.380 I think there's only one bigger one in the world that might be Houston.
00:03:20.400 I think they also are the ones who beat us for biggest rodeo in the world.
00:03:23.520 Those bastards in Houston.
00:03:25.200 Well, you know, funny enough, though, in a different entity, I was actually in Kazakhstan,
00:03:32.440 in Almaty, at their oil and gas conference.
00:03:35.380 It was very nice.
00:03:35.720 I will say it was...
00:03:37.140 I will comment on that.
00:03:41.980 It was a huge show.
00:03:45.480 I give them a lot of credit for that.
00:03:47.120 But I will say...
00:03:48.480 How much?
00:03:49.140 It was probably a third Chinese and half Russian.
00:03:52.380 And this was after the invasion of Ukraine.
00:03:55.240 Yeah.
00:03:55.980 Because that was about the only place the Russians could go.
00:03:59.360 It was Kazakhstan.
00:04:00.760 So, pretty interesting.
00:04:02.820 Yeah.
00:04:03.080 I guess the Russians are really the only ones you don't see here.
00:04:05.600 Yeah.
00:04:05.800 There's no Russians here.
00:04:06.880 No Russians here.
00:04:07.720 No.
00:04:07.960 Yeah.
00:04:08.140 The Chinese are here.
00:04:09.100 Koreans.
00:04:09.820 Japanese.
00:04:10.820 Yeah.
00:04:11.000 So, if you're Russia, oil invests in you.
00:04:15.300 All right.
00:04:15.800 So, this was kind of a roundabout way of getting to...
00:04:19.140 You know, what's the value of kind of...
00:04:20.900 So, you run a junior oil and gas.
00:04:22.120 Yeah.
00:04:22.340 Junior oil and gas.
00:04:23.260 What's the value of a junior oil and gas being it here?
00:04:25.500 Because there's so many of these gargantuan international players, big national and North
00:04:30.180 American players.
00:04:30.900 What's the value of a junior being here?
00:04:33.280 Yeah.
00:04:33.640 So, you know, obviously there's vendors here that cater to very large installations, very
00:04:40.500 big plants, big midstream operations, big pipeline companies, you know, pipes, valves,
00:04:46.360 pumps, all of that kind of stuff.
00:04:48.200 But then there's a number of other players here, too, that like I just had a conversation
00:04:54.100 outside the Western Standard booth here with on some well monitoring equipment using
00:04:59.440 AI sensors.
00:05:00.900 So, you know, key for us as a smaller company is, you know, runtime, efficiency, reliability
00:05:08.240 of our wells.
00:05:09.120 And so, you know, he had some interesting ideas on how to, you know, preemptively monitor
00:05:16.240 in case your wells go down or before your wells go down, actually, sensing those things.
00:05:21.340 Because it's obviously much cheaper to preemptively fix something than to have to fix your PCP pump
00:05:29.460 down hole or whatever the issue may end up arising.
00:05:32.140 Like, that's an example.
00:05:33.320 There's even some Bitcoin mining people here, too.
00:05:36.000 Yeah, actually, I met one of the Bitcoiner guys.
00:05:38.660 I mean, that's something a lot of people don't know about.
00:05:40.560 It's the most outverting thing in the world.
00:05:42.280 You're drilling for oil.
00:05:43.760 You've got this gas.
00:05:45.360 And you, for until extremely recently, all you could do was flare it, which the environmentalists
00:05:50.780 don't like.
00:05:52.100 And businessmen don't like either because it's wasted energy.
00:05:55.180 Now it's being channeled into generators to mine Bitcoin on the site.
00:06:00.020 Like, I can't think of anything more freedom than that.
00:06:02.880 Well, it is.
00:06:04.400 And frankly, it's something that, like, myself and for our company, we're looking at.
00:06:09.980 Now, we're almost all light oil right now.
00:06:12.620 We just use a bit of our gas for fuel, like for pump jacks and drive engines and that and
00:06:17.940 flare fire tubes.
00:06:19.620 But, you know, as we do a little more drilling, we're going to end up with a little more gas.
00:06:24.780 And as we get a little more gas, okay, now what are we going to do with the gas?
00:06:27.840 And, you know, it makes a lot of sense to, you know, bring in some generators and first,
00:06:34.960 you know, try and get off the grid.
00:06:35.920 Power prices are pretty low in Alberta right now.
00:06:37.720 But they, a couple of years ago, they were very high.
00:06:40.380 So if you can insulate yourself from A, power costs, and then B, turn it into a revenue
00:06:45.060 stream, you know, and you're starting to sell Bitcoin, partner up with them.
00:06:48.420 There's all kinds of different structures that they work with.
00:06:50.840 You know, that's something that's pretty compelling.
00:06:53.180 And it's being deployed in Alberta right now for a lot of the more entrepreneurial companies.
00:06:58.180 So, yeah.
00:06:59.140 I mean, that's, that was just, to be honest, that was probably the primary thing that I
00:07:03.280 was down here to check out.
00:07:05.000 So that's kind of my question.
00:07:05.980 Is it, it's, you're primarily here for kind of the exhibitor side, like these, I think,
00:07:11.220 how is it, four to five giant exhibitor halls here?
00:07:14.680 Is that mostly what you're doing is on the exhibitor side?
00:07:16.320 Yeah, well, I'm just, I'm wanting to come and check out, you know, see new technology,
00:07:20.480 see what other people in the world are doing, seeing if there's something interesting here.
00:07:25.080 You know, I was here last year for the, for the first time, actually, and I kind of saw
00:07:29.300 a couple of exhibitors about that.
00:07:31.720 So I want to, you know, follow up with them, you know, as things evolve in our business,
00:07:35.540 that's exactly what I'm just trying to find.
00:07:38.520 So, you know, beyond that, there's, yeah, and then it's just kind of networking too,
00:07:45.900 is you, you know, you run, run into a few people you maybe haven't seen for a while.
00:07:49.640 I mean, obviously I have my political background, so, you know, we're falling over.
00:07:53.820 I don't really need to.
00:07:56.440 Is it all wild rolls are walking behind you right now as you speak?
00:07:59.060 Oh, really?
00:07:59.540 Yeah.
00:07:59.660 Okay.
00:08:01.220 Probably.
00:08:01.800 He's off camera, but.
00:08:02.860 Okay.
00:08:03.120 Yeah.
00:08:04.480 Oh, we may have actually grabbed him.
00:08:06.840 Okay.
00:08:07.240 Shot two.
00:08:07.700 We'll see.
00:08:08.280 Okay.
00:08:09.880 But, yeah, no, you run into a lot of folks, you know, you may be, you know,
00:08:13.680 you're busy with your company and so you haven't seen them for a while.
00:08:15.840 And, I mean, I've been out of politics for a number of years now.
00:08:18.100 So it's kind of interesting to run into some of these folks again.
00:08:21.600 So, but, I mean, tomorrow we've got, you know, Danielle Smith, I guess, is speaking,
00:08:26.640 is speaking here.
00:08:27.600 And, yeah, you know, it's great to have, obviously, and there's an Alberta booth here,
00:08:33.220 you know, which is great to see, you know, that emphasis, you know,
00:08:36.100 and support the energy show in the industry.
00:08:37.660 Cool.
00:08:38.820 And, obviously, the head of OPEC was here.
00:08:41.540 You know, it would be really wonderful, I think, if we had someone from the federal government here.
00:08:46.820 Yeah.
00:08:47.160 Actually, in about 10 minutes, I've got the former NDP energy minister, Mark McQuaid Boyd, here.
00:08:53.720 She's actually a very nice lady.
00:08:55.400 And she was actually way better as an NDP energy minister, and I'm meaning this lightly,
00:09:04.820 because I think she was not aware of the file before she became minister.
00:09:08.560 So she didn't come with all the...
00:09:08.940 So she's like our current attorney general.
00:09:10.820 She didn't come with all those NDP prejudices to the job.
00:09:13.700 Right, right.
00:09:14.260 So she actually came...
00:09:17.760 She worked within the NDP confines of things, but less crazy than you'd think.
00:09:21.880 So, actually, so anyway, yeah, she's here.
00:09:23.600 She's actually...
00:09:24.520 She's speaking.
00:09:26.240 I think she's worked for Council Public Affairs.
00:09:27.920 Yeah.
00:09:28.000 But, yeah, I mean, it's an eclectic mix here.
00:09:32.780 But no one from the federal government.
00:09:34.740 No.
00:09:35.840 Isn't that interesting?
00:09:36.840 Oh, in fact, the closest thing we have to the federal government...
00:09:40.260 Let's pan the camera.
00:09:41.420 Actually, we do have a representative of the Liberal cabinet here.
00:09:46.860 He's just sitting right over here.
00:09:48.040 Let's just pan the camera, John.
00:09:51.220 Oh, my God!
00:09:52.880 It's Stephen Gilboa with the chair!
00:09:56.040 Okay.
00:09:56.440 I can say, just, you know, standing here waiting to do this interview,
00:10:01.140 I probably had half a dozen people say,
00:10:05.020 where's the dartboard?
00:10:08.340 Where's the tardy kid?
00:10:09.420 How can we...
00:10:10.280 Oh!
00:10:11.160 Our next interview here, we were just talking about her,
00:10:13.960 Margaret Quaid Boyd, former Energy Minister of Alberta.
00:10:17.600 We're going to have her up next.
00:10:20.480 But, yeah, people have been asking for a dartboard over there.
00:10:23.600 I was like, we're going to get accused of being violent or something.
00:10:26.440 I was like, no, no, no, you can just sit here and hurl insults.
00:10:29.180 You're supposed to take a picture with him, but...
00:10:31.180 I think if he actually started, like, bidding for charity, or, like, a bid for charity,
00:10:36.220 high bid gets to, like, you know, do something with a statue, that's probably a good idea.
00:10:41.420 You'd probably turn it into a pretty big fundraiser.
00:10:43.560 I have no comment to what you've just said, and I think you'd realized after you said what you said
00:10:48.420 how inappropriate that was.
00:10:50.440 So I'm going to end the interview here.
00:10:51.820 It's all for charity.
00:10:53.160 It's all for charity.
00:10:54.960 There's an island where I think they said that, too.
00:10:58.680 All right.
00:10:59.400 I'm going to cut it off there before we get the cops at our door.
00:11:03.300 All right.
00:11:05.860 That's Jeff Calloway, President and CEO of Energize Natural Resources.
00:11:10.740 Thanks for joining us today.
00:11:11.940 All right.
00:11:12.420 Thanks, Derek.
00:11:13.880 That was fun.
00:11:14.860 We've got to get another ride.
00:11:25.460 Thank you.
00:11:26.660 Thank you.
00:11:33.680 Thank you.
00:11:37.960 Thank you.
00:11:39.900 Thank you.