Inside the Cushing Hub Moving 100 Million Barrels with Corey Brown

Peter Brecht00:00

Hello everyone. On today's episode, we're joined by Corey Brown, an electrician working at the Cushing Tank Farms in Oklahoma. I had the chance to visit the tank farms a couple months ago and standing there surrounded by hundreds of massive oil tanks, you can feel the sheer scale and dominance of American energy firsthand. Corey does the hands-on electrical work tied to the pipelines and infrastructure. And in this episode, we cover what the work looks like day to day, how commodity traders use Cushing as a benchmark for WTI pricing, tank cleaning operations, safety culture, and building a career in oil and gas.

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Peter Brecht00:33

All right. Welcome to the Local Energy Podcast. My name is Peter Brecht. I am joined today by Corey Brown, who works out at the Cushing Oil I just remember going out there a couple of months ago and meeting Corey and

His wife Carly

Went to dinner at was it Godofredo's is that where it was? I then you're like, Hey, do you want to go see the tank farms? And I'm like, of course, like I got to go do that. So anyways, we started driving following you down like dirt roads and man these tanks go for miles. It's insane. If you pull up Cushing on a map.

corey00:49

Yeah.

Peter Brecht01:04

You'll just see, think it's highway 33 goes through there and then you've got just this smattering of like white tanks on the top. So Corey, thank you for being here. Before we get into the details of oil and gas, the most important question is, do you believe that we landed on the moon? Yes or no.

corey01:10

You

Thanks for having me.

Not in 1969.

Peter Brecht01:24

All

Right, I love it. Love it. So you play drums in a band and I think you play other instruments. But just to confirm, when you told your parents that you wanted to be a drummer, did they start pushing you towards oil and gas pretty quickly or did that happen later?

corey01:38

My dad's actually a musician, so they didn't really have much to say about that. But yeah, I think my dad said it best was you could either be an electrician or a musician and one of them is going to pay your bills. One of them isn't.

Peter Brecht01:50

Yeah, what's your dad play? I'm curious.

corey01:52

He plays guitar and drums and bass.

Peter Brecht01:54

Okay, gotcha. Right, and you as well as kind of the same instruments or more than that? Okay. Are you singing all that? No?

corey01:59

Yeah, yeah, same thing.

I yell a lot, that's about it.

Peter Brecht02:05

All right, that's OK. There's a place for everyone's voice. I think that matters. I used to play. So I played piano for way too long, like 15 years or whatever. I was going to go to college for music and then I decided to just completely drop it. I haven't touched a piano in like in about 15 years now. It's terrible. But I've missed the music part of it and had a lot of fun. Actually, in one of our last episodes, I took an old recording that I had. We used to put these.

Floppy disks into the, and do all these MIDI recordings. And I learned how to use like, all this fun stuff when I was like 15 years old, put it into an AI tool and it wrote, it rewrote the song and like put instrumentals. It was so cool. So anyways, I'm kind of a music head. Yeah, it's good stuff, but excited to talk. So you are out there on the Cushing Tank farms and I'm really curious, like living in Cushing, there's

corey02:34

Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

You're nice.

Peter Brecht03:00

I, you we've had this conversation before you and I, but there's really not a ton to do out there besides like oil and gas. Like that is what the town is all about. But was there something that got you into oil and gas? Tell us a little bit what you do out there every day.

corey03:08

Yep.

I'm an electrician. Started, I went to college to become an electrician. My dad actually worked for what was the Amaco pipelines here in the tank farms, which sold to BP, which sold to Magellan, which sold to One Oak. These companies changed names quite frequently. And so these careers in these tank farms were kind of the, I guess you would call it the major leagues.

Peter Brecht03:15

Okay.

Okay.

corey03:37

Of the oil and gas jobs around here. And so all growing up, it's just all I knew was my dad worked in these tank farms and everybody I knew worked in these tank farms and all his friends worked in these tank farms. So it just kind of became one of those things where that's what I wanted to do. Since I didn't make it being a rock star, I figured I better do something else.

Peter Brecht03:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're around it so much,

Right?

Yeah, totally. And just to give people.

corey04:04

You would

Be hard pressed to find someone in Cushing whose family member doesn't work out here.

Peter Brecht04:13

Yeah, I believe it. Just to give people a sense of the size, I like how long end to end if you had to drive it. It's I want to say it's like a 10 minute. It's like a 10 minute drive almost to go all the way from one end to the other.

corey04:26

Yeah, it would be about six square miles of tanks. And some of these tanks like you witnessed are about 70 feet tall and about 100 yards in diameter. And they can hold up to about 750,000 barrels of oil.

Peter Brecht04:29

Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

Right.

Yep. Yep. So, we, one of my favorite stories, to tell people is we, get out there and you, you tell me something that I didn't know. And I feel, I was like, it blew my mind, but, it's that the WTI is actually calculated based on what goes through cushing. So I mean, I, that to me, that is, that's a number that we look at in the industry every day, almost. Companies,

corey04:59

That's correct.

Peter Brecht05:08

I don't want say they live and die by it, but they do because the reality is that the price of oil makes a huge difference on the economics of what's going on. And whether it increases activity in the long run or the short run, that doesn't really matter. It's just a metric that we're kind of checking out on a regular basis. How are they doing that? I'm not saying how do they do the calculation, but do you have any sense of like, is it the amount of throughput? Are you guys constantly getting,

corey05:11

Okay.

Peter Brecht05:35

More oil, less oil, are you guys seeing that fluctuation in supply?

corey05:39

We do see a fluctuation in supply at the terminal here. We know mostly what everybody else knows due to the stock traders have drones that fly.

Peter Brecht05:41

Okay. Okay.

corey05:51

And they look at all the tanks and in the early mornings or late evenings, they can tell by the temperature differential and the sun, the way the sun shines on these big tanks, how much oil is in each tank. They can, they use FLIR cameras on their drones and helicopters to see which pumps are running due to the heat signatures. They measure the power lines. They've developed some kind of proprietary machine that they can hold up to the power lines and see who's drawn what power

And they report all that back to the stock exchange and the day traders. And it's information that anybody could probably look up, but 20 miles south of here, the Bakken oil fields from North Dakota, that's where the oil comes into Cushing. And it's unloaded on rail cars and they have cameras set up on people's private property and they count the number of rail cars that come in every day. And they know how much each rail car has in it.

Peter Brecht06:20

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

corey06:45

And so they can say there's X amount of Bakken barrels now heading for the Cushing Terminal storage facilities. And they report all that up to the traders.

Peter Brecht06:54

Yeah, that's amazing. They're in these guys, I'm guessing. I mean, they're probably sitting all over the country. Maybe it's, maybe they're New York, Wall Street kind of thing. But they're taking that physical. Still taking physical data. Basically, there's not like it's not like, OK, we're going to measure to this one point. They're trying to get as far ahead of it as they can, even just counting the real cars as it comes in. OK. And then from there, so it goes from real car. They they're putting into the tanks and effectively at that point. I mean,

corey07:00

Okay.

Peter Brecht07:19

What is an electrician do? It sounds like everything is obviously electric these days, but what's the things that you're looking at in your role?

corey07:24

Okay.

We have countless, pressure transmitters, temperature transmitters, metering devices. We have all the valves are all electrically actuated. So if you want to take oil from tank A into this pump, there's valves that open and close. It's all driven via satellite communications. And so we're out here to make sure that when something needs to function, it does.

Peter Brecht07:41

Okay.

Okay. Are there moments in your job where you kind of get that that red alert? Hey, this is not working. We need you guys out here immediately. Or is this a nine to five kind of job?

corey08:06

Now I'm on call 24 seven. And when the phone rings, you've got to go. You don't have much of a response window.

Peter Brecht08:08

Okay, I figured as much,

Yeah. Yeah. I gotcha. It's,

It's good to be close by, I guess. And, driving through, it was fun because, we were, this was a couple, couple months ago. I think it was back in February, March, but it was right after NAEP and we stayed in Oklahoma city and then we went out to Tulsa and we came down to you guys in Cushing and you kind of, we just drove for like, it felt like a very long time. And then you get to Cushing and it's just this huge pipeline. Says, well, welcome to Cushing on it.

And then you start driving through the town and sees massive pump jacks. The middle. It's cool. And then you get you get to kind of your downtown area. But again, it is all oil and gas. Then, you know, you got the tank farms and then you try to figure, OK, get out of here. We're going to get back on the freeway and kind of head back up. And I wish I could spend I could probably spend like a whole day out there just like to take it all in. And you feel the scale of the American energy industry when you're standing there. It's pretty cool. So

corey08:50

Okay. Okay.

Peter Brecht09:08

So one thing, it kind of going back to the real cars. And I don't know how much of this, again, I'm kind of doing some research on my side and I don't know where it syncs

Up with what you do, but we hear about custody transfer. So basically, you you got oil coming in, it changes ownership, and then, you might have you might have, sweet crude come in from one, and then, that's going to change to something else. And there might be some, how do you avoid the mixing? And how does that kind of this, how does that side work? I'm not entirely clear on.

What I was trying to learn there.

corey09:36

Well, it goes to the least custody transfer systems whenever the oil comes in and it generates a ticket

It measures each barrel of oil that comes through and it'll generate a ticket that we call it. And then we enter that into the accounting system. And then when it gets shipped to somewhere else, somebody say buys a hundred thousand barrels of oil from planes to ship to a refinery. It goes through output meters at the plane's facility to the incoming meters of whichever facility is going to pump it to the refinery. And then we count that many barrels.

And then we ship it to that and we count that many barrels. So each barrel of oil is accounted for from the time it leaves the gathering facility until it actually reaches the ultimate refinery or offshore loading rack somewhere. So each barrel of oil is accounted for every time it changes hands.

Peter Brecht10:11

Okay.

Which makes sense, there's that I mean, it's a commodity that needs to be measured and controlled. Right. But are there so you're but you're getting like you mentioned, you're getting stuff in from the Balkan, you're getting stuff in from East Texas, for example. Our refinery is saying, hey, we are they picking and choosing where they get the oil from then, too? And I mean, is that part of this?

corey10:34

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Different grades of crude are better for different blends of gasoline. Say for summer blend, might want the blend from West Texas Basin. They may want a blend from North Dakota or say they're going to do a run of some diesel or whatever. Then they'll buy a different grade of crude depending on what the refinery needs to make whatever product that they're looking to make for that.

Particular time.

Peter Brecht11:16

Gotcha. And then we get into all the jet fuel and stuff like that. You know, comparing, we had a conversation, I think one of the episodes that came out just before yours with Mike Umbro, and we're talking about, the California refineries, right? Taking that and one of our refineries now produces 60 % of the jet fuel for our state. And they're converting into, I think they're converting into a green energy sort of hybrid, which is an interesting thing to kind of think through. So all those

Different refineries could be set up differently and you guys are helping move that product through. So let's see, another thing, so safety, right? You're out there, you've got all this oil. How long are your safety meetings? I have to, and are they every day?

corey11:47

Okay.

Hehe.

Great.

It just about they can go on for quite for an hour at least. And I mean, safety is our number one job. There's nothing we don't do that's not documented that we don't do paperwork before we even walk outside. We have just a litany of things that we have to do and permits. And of course, all our protective equipment and our fireproof clothes and all that good stuff.

Peter Brecht12:01

Yeah.

corey12:24

But yeah, safety is paramount. I mean, you're talking a lot of high pressure around all these pumping facilities that is moving this oil. You've got extreme amounts of pressure and leaks can happen. Anything could happen. I mean, like I said, we work around electricity. We have high voltage, medium voltage, low voltage. We have H2S, which is always a hazard, you know. So we've got our air monitors and everything else that you've probably seen firemen and stuff wear.

We have the same thing that we have to wear when we're outside. But yeah, safety is our fundamental number one goal.

Peter Brecht12:59

Yeah. Every day. Yeah. And I imagine it gets a little bit hot. Not a little bit hot. It gets hot out there in the summertime and you're wearing the PPE and everything. And, it's gotta be pretty taxing, in terms of staying hydrated and all the other fun stuff that comes along with that too, that most of us don't think about. Don't, and I was telling Carly, so, you I work with Carly and I think I've joked with her, I don't drink water unless it has coffee in it. And I I'm imagining you probably, walk a little bit of a different line.

corey13:05

Very.

Exactly.

No, it's mostly coffee for me too. We just get acclimated to it here.

Peter Brecht13:28

Okay, all right.

Yeah, I understand that. So, let's see, one one term that I came across, this was when I started learning about oil and gas. It's probably like four or five years ago. But someone told me that use the term picking. And I was like, what the heck is that? Had like, it's the funniest. It's, if you think about it, it's a really weird term to use for what it but then when you see it in action, it kind of makes sense, right? All right. Corey (13:47)

Hahaha!

Peter Brecht13:57

Are you guys doing that out? Because it's all pipelines, right? So are you involved in that at all where you got to maybe shut something off? Okay. Can you maybe walk us through that? I'm curious to hear the more like hands-on details of what that entails.

corey13:58

Yes.

I am.

We have what we call a scraper trap, because the true term for the pig is a scraper. And we have a trap that we line up and we drain it out and we open it and we insert the tool. And then we close the trap and fill it back full of oil and then it gets sent on its way. There's not a whole lot to it other than there's different types of pigs. There's brush pigs, scraper pigs, batching pigs.

Peter Brecht14:16

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

corey14:36

But the

Essential, the reason for it is to clean the interior.

Peter Brecht14:40

Okay, and how often does that need to happen?

corey14:41

Because it, it sounds,

It varies depending on the amount of stuff that comes out of the receiving end, the BS and W, which is the bottom sediment and water. It, DOT mandates certain regulations depending on your pipeline, the age, all that stuff. I don't get into too many details about our local operations, but we do it quite, quite frequently. Do what?

Peter Brecht15:01

Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, the DOT governs that though?

Okay, and the DOT governs that? That's the Department of Transportation? Okay.

corey15:09

DOT

Governs everything that we do in these tank farms. Because we're transporting oil. Yep, we're transporting oil across state lines. And so I'm essentially a DOT employee, really.

Peter Brecht15:15

Okay, and is that because there's interstate transit and things like that? Okay, okay.

Gotcha. All right.

Really? Okay. That's an interesting way to think about it. Cause do you, I usually think trucking, right? And that's sort of but, okay. That would make sense now that I'm kind of zooming out a little bit. There's a lot of government involvement then, and I'm sure you guys have OSHA as well and all the other, entities out there too. Yeah. Gotcha.

corey15:41

Absolutely. Pretty much any any

Government agency with an abbreviation has faced over us.

Peter Brecht15:48

Fair enough. Yeah, most of the stuff we do has been like oilfield services upstream related. And I think you might be well, we haven't talked to anyone about pipelines specifically. So this is pretty cool. A couple of producers, but very cool. Let's talk about these tanks because that's what you see. That's the thing that my son was most interested in me showing him photos of. I had I was under the impression that these tanks, the walls of them were like at least a foot thick of steel.

corey16:13

Hahaha

Peter Brecht16:13

I think you shared that there are nowhere near that, but how do those tanks work? And they have the floating roofs and all this other stuff, because you can't smell the oil when you're out there. There's all kinds of cool things with those things. So maybe walk us through that a little bit.

corey16:24

Yeah, the majority of all modern tanks are what we call an external floating roof tank, which means it's just a cylinder of steel and the roof is basically like a pontoon boat and it actually rests on pontoons and it floats up and down with the oil of the level. As you pump oil in, the roof floats on top of the surface of the oil and it creates a vapor barrier. That way there's no oxygen can get in for fires and

Peter Brecht16:35

Okay.

Hmm.

corey16:49

It's sealed around the outside edge with a big teflon seal. And that's why all the vapors, you don't smell anything out here even when the wind is blowing. And if you do smell something, that means somebody around here probably had a leak of some kind.

Peter Brecht16:57

Yeah.

Right, right, right. It needs to get fixed. Okay. And again, they're not, it's like maybe four inches of steel and they kind of taper up, right? As far as thickness or are they steel? I don't know.

corey17:11

I say

It's probably three quarters of an inch thick at the bottom and a quarter of an inch on the very top ring. It doesn't have to be very thick because oil weighs less than water to begin with. It only weighs six pounds a gallon versus eight pounds for water. And then that it is a cylinder and it's welded steel, cylinder's very strong. So it doesn't really have to be that thick of steel, honestly. And the pullers are made of fiberglass.

Peter Brecht17:17

Okay.

Okay, right.

Right.

Yeah, I remember.

Okay, yeah, and that's I remember weighing. My dad, we used to race cars back in the day and we would calculate, depending on how fast he was going to be going and then how long the track was and how much time he was going to be before he could pit. You would, calculate how much gas you should put in. You never have a full tank because it's just too, too heavy. But learning about how all that stuff weighed was fun, but cleaning these tanks out. So.

At some point, do they have to clean the tanks too? And I mean, is it just a giant pressure washer? How does that like, what's that process look like? It's got to be insane.

corey18:04

Yes.

There's a DOT regulation that every seven years, if I'm not mistaken, I can't remember, you have to go in and clean the tanks and inspect them internally for corrosion, damage, and all that stuff. And basically they bring in a hot oiling machine. It's just a giant, like a giant water heater, basically, that's powered by propane. And they circulate the oil in the tank and they get it all good and hot. So any, the...

Peter Brecht18:21

Okay.

corey18:34

Paraffins and all the sediment at the bottom, all of it gets all stirred up good. And these tanks also have mixers on them, which work like the inside of a blender. And it keeps that oil turned up to try to keep the sediment at minimum. But they circulate all that oil and they drain the tank and the roof lands, it's got legs on the bottom of it. And they land the roof and then they open the door on the side of it. There's a big sheet of steel that's bolted on, that's the door. And they go in with big ass squeegees.

Peter Brecht18:39

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

corey19:03

And start dragging all that junk and nasty stuff out of there. It's pretty well manual labor. Yeah, until they get it safe enough you can bring a machine in. Once all the vapors are out and all the flammable stuff's pretty well gone, then they can bring machinery in. But for the most part, it's pretty well hand done. And the guys that do that are a special breed.

Peter Brecht19:08

That's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Man.

corey19:27

Because they're in full SCBAs like firemen are wearing, supplied air systems. They're in the full Tyvek gear with heavy tools, sludging around in nasty stuff. And inside of those tanks can probably get 140 degrees in the summertime. The guys that clean those tanks are, they're some phenomenal humans.

Peter Brecht19:32

Mm-hmm.

No kidding. That is unbelievable. Would not. I know, it's dangerous because of what they're doing, but you wouldn't have thought about it from that, that level of dedication. Right. I mean, that's crazy. And the number of tanks at the farm, I'm sure it's an even at seven years, it's not like you're doing them all every seven years. Like it's probably on a pretty good rotation. So they're out there. I'd imagine relatively consistently getting it done.

corey20:11

Yeah.

Yeah, there's always at least you can drive around here and see two or three of them being cleaned at any given time.

Peter Brecht20:19

That's amazing. That's that is that I would love to see that in real life. Like all this stuff. I was texting a friend of mine and he's like, you should do like the dirty jobs of oil and gas and nobody would ensure us to do that. But like go out and like learn how to do it because you got to know what you're doing. You can't just go out and be like, yeah, I'm to go and turn this knob and see what happens. Like it doesn't work that way. But I'm just continually. Yeah, I'm just so amazed by the things that happen out there.

corey20:21

Yeah.

Yes.

Hahaha!

No.

Peter Brecht20:46

So let's see here. Every, seems like the safety culture is predominant, out there in Cushing and, the tank farms aren't the only oil and gas thing going on out there. I know there's other, there's people that have, there's oil fields, like there's oil all around in, Oklahoma. But besides the safety culture side, what would you, how would you like describe, cause it's not just one company, it's many companies. How does that kind of.

corey20:49

Okay.

You

Peter Brecht21:10

How does that work with everyone working out there? What's the culture like? I'm curious.

corey21:15

We all pretty much have the same regulations that we follow as far as safety goes. Those are standards and those are minimums that we all have to follow. And then each company, of course, has their own on top of that. And so, everyone around here, if you have to go into another person's facility, generally there's you have an orientation where they will tell you their specific safety stuff that they're

Really into and you have to usually watch a little video, maybe take a little test and before they'll let you even pass their office. And my company is the same way. I mean, you can't just because you work across the street, you can't just come in my gate and go look at something. But we all get along. We all get along. Everybody at every company, everyone gets along well. I mean, we all, we,

Peter Brecht21:59

Yeah. Are there people that are? Yeah. Yeah.

corey22:07

A lot of us know a lot of each other just because it is a small community. And so everyone gets along well and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to need a part and be like, I wonder if they have one over at such and such company and to go over there and just knock on the door and be like, Hey, I need a part. And they'll be like, sure. So I mean, there's no, there's no rivalry of anything like that.

Peter Brecht22:26

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And that's sort of what I was, I think, getting around to. And you answered it there was, yes, it's, these are all competitors in the market, so to speak. But at end of the day, it's guys, gals, same, same goal, trying to get the same thing done and just want to do a good job doing it. That's awesome. Are there people that are turned off by the safety culture? I don't know. Are there people that have started, gotten 30 days and do it and they're like, man,

corey22:46

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Peter Brecht22:58

I'm not a screw this. I'm not wearing, all that gear. Like I'm, can't do this anymore. Or is it, okay. This is how that happens. I would have, I would imagine there's a little bit of that, revolt that might occur, after you get into it.

corey23:09

Especially if you come from a lax safety culture, like a lot of the local oil producers, they don't know what safety is. Frankly, they scare me. And if, one of those people wanted to come in here and say, go to work here. And all of sudden they were like, what do mean? I have to wear a hard hat. I have to have this. I have to have that. And I have to fill out four pieces of paper just to walk outside the door. Yeah, it's not for everybody.

Peter Brecht23:20

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, I gotcha. I, I'm not saying I would fall into that, but like I worked for, went from working for a family company to them. I became a corporate company and they had all these new rules and none of them were far fetched, but you could just feel that there was a shift, right? And it was like, you either get on board and you follow the shift or you go do something else, you know? So in terms of education, you went to, went to school to become an electrician. Like what kind of, is this require, if you want to work out there,

corey23:49

Yes.

Right.

Peter Brecht24:01

Are there jobs where you just have a high school degree or do you need to go go to college and figure that out?

corey24:03

Yes.

No, there's lots of these jobs that are just need a high school diploma. The more skilled it is, most of these companies, if you started as an entry level position, they train you. I mean, they have their own little miniature colleges that they send their employees to. You you start as an entry level, I'll just call you a hand, excuse me, and say you want it to be a technician like I am.

Peter Brecht24:10

Okay. Okay.

corey24:33

They will train you to become a technician and they train you on all the equipment that you would be working with. I mean, they've got their own special schools. My company has one in Chicago land area and all the new hires. Everybody goes to this training center. And so, I mean, you could literally start out with a high school diploma right out of high school. If you can get hired and work your way up, there's no limitations.

Peter Brecht24:37

Okay.

corey25:01

And that's one of the great things about these jobs around here like this. It's still blue collar.

Peter Brecht25:06

Yeah.

Yeah, I could see where I mean, there's opportunity in the whole oil field. It's just it's its own economy, but you can get into it at any level. And that's I think always been really cool to see. And just the ability to build a life around that is amazing. So last couple of questions and I'm going let you go. I know it's Friday as we record this and we got other things to jump to. But

On April 20th, 2020, WTI went negative. Can you share a little bit about what it was like out there in Cushing? I don't want to make you relive the trauma of that day, but I mean, it's like everyone's like, oh my gosh, Cushing's full. I mean, what are you going to do, right? What was that like?

corey25:35

That was chaos.

You couldn't,

In the tri-state area, the day that happened, every frac tank or tanker truck that was not being currently used was hauled in here to Cushing. They were hauling frac tanks in 24 hours a day. It was just a stream of frac tanks coming in here. And they were trying to store as much oil as they possibly could while it was, what, $40, negative a barrel, whatever it was. It didn't affect me any at all. I just thought it was...

Peter Brecht26:06

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

corey26:17

The amount of storage that was trying to be, every tank here was full about to run over. And Cushing can hold roughly, our latest estimates are about a hundred million barrels in the Cushing terminal area that we call all the tank farms together, the terminal. It's about a hundred million barrels. And plus all the tank is they were hauling in here. And I mean, there were tanker trucks just lined up down the county roads because there wasn't anywhere else to park them.

Peter Brecht26:27

Okay.

corey26:42

And it was pretty wild for a couple of weeks.

Peter Brecht26:43

That's amazing.

My gosh. I so the rest of the world is like, like wondering what the heck's going on, taking pictures of their TV screen. You're out there in Cushing. You're like, man, I got to go to work. Got to make sure all this fits. And that's incredible. I wouldn't have thought that. Are there other tank farms in the country? I'm assumed there has to be. But any any that come nearly as size wise to Cushing or no?

corey27:04

Yeah.

Kissing is the largest.

Peter Brecht27:08

Okay, all right. Gotcha. Well, let's keep it that way. I like it. It's fun to yeah, heck yeah, absolutely. All right. So if you could, un-invent something or take something away from these tank farms or make it simpler, is there anything you would change? Hey, Cory's in charge today. We're going to change one thing. Is there anything you would do different?

corey27:12

I so.

No, I think over the last hundred and twenty five hundred and thirty years that they've been getting oil out of the ground here. They've got a it's a well oiled It really honestly is the way it functions. I don't think it could get much simpler as far as getting a commodity from point A to point B. I don't know that there'd be a simpler way because you would be saving money if you could simplify. And so all these companies over the years, have found

Peter Brecht27:38

Yeah, it sounds like it. Yeah.

Right.

corey27:55

The simplest, most safest, utmost quickest way to get oil out of the ground to a port or a refinery. I wish there was something I could change to make my job easier, but there's not.

Peter Brecht28:05

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, that's all right. No, that's a great thing though. I think a lot of people look around at their job and they're like, man, I would change everything, from top to bottom. And it's like, well, some things just work well and they should. Last, are there any, fun or wild stories you can share without getting in trouble? Probably not, but I have to ask.

corey28:27

No,

Due to our safety culture and stuff like that, we don't really have any wild stories or crazy mishaps other than just several guys working together, cutting up with each other. But as far as anything absolute crazy, we've had a leak here or there, which is not uncommon. But as far as anything crazy, no, honestly, in my 20 some years of being here,

Peter Brecht28:39

Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.

Yeah, that's normal. Yeah, yeah.

corey28:53

I can honestly say there has not been anything crazy. And that's just do like you said a while ago to our safety culture and the way that these companies have been built over the years to reliably feed energy that there's not a lot of crazy stuff happens.

Peter Brecht29:08

Yeah, I love it. Well, I'm excited. I will be coming out to Cushing again here in the next couple of months. I love Oklahoma. I've told everyone, they're like, what's your favorite place to go visit? And I'm like, for work and it's Oklahoma. I love it out there. And anyways, thank you for coming on and just for kind of giving us some insight into Cushing. I think there's probably more like the amount of research that you could do on this topic to like ask and get into more detail.

corey29:26

Thanks for having me.

Peter Brecht29:36

Incredible. I think we've only scratched the surface So anyways, thank you guys for listening Cory. Thank you for coming on say hello to your lovely wife Carly and thank her for coordinating this with us And for everyone else, we'll see you again. Yeah, we'll see you next week

corey29:42

I will.