We have had a really interesting two days in our nation's capital. With the help of Anne Bradbury (CEO) and Liz Bowman (Vice President, Communications) of the  American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), we spent time in Washington DC on Monday and Tuesday talking to think tanks, energy specialists, Congressional and Senate staff, and other energy players here, trying to get a feel for the current sentiment and future direction around energy. We capped off the experience with a sit-down with Anne at AXPC's headquarters and as you will hear, we touched on many aspects of where things may be headed in the discussion.  

Our key observations are that first and foremost, the election is hanging over the city, along with the backdrop of war and energy scarcity in Europe, the potential for recession, the ongoing climate debates, the aftermath of the IRA legislation, and in particular the retail price of gasoline. Anne is a longtime Washington veteran and expert and assumed the reigns at AXPC a little over two and a half years ago. Since then, she has seen COVID, the big climate push, and now the results from various policies (the good, the bad and ugly) and of course an unexpected and dangerous war. Through it all, Anne has continued to grow the membership and reputation of AXPC and has also been a strong voice for increasing energy education. Anne's perspective and overall "Washington-wisdom" was wonderful to get and we hope you enjoy the discussion as much as we did. 

Just an hour or so after we finished the discussion, the White House put out an energy press release.  

The home team kicked us off today:  Mike Bradley hit on bond, commodity and equity performance from the past week, flagging recent decreases in oil and natural gas prices, and highlighted key events including oil service earnings kicking off this week.  Colin Fenton added his global market perspective and shared an important operational update from Rio Tinto. He also helped frame our discussion by sharing data on the number of crude oil barrels in-transit on the water (more than 1.1 billion barrels).

We want to thank Anne and the AXPC team for a fantastic visit. For you COBT history buffs, Anne was one of our first guests over two years ago.  

We are leaving Washington heading back to Houston with optimism for better policy-making days ahead. There are many smart people on both sides of the aisle increasingly determined to find better answers to the challenges of energy cost, reliability, innovation, climate, and security. 

Thanks, as always, for all you do!