Offshore Control Systems and Platform Safety with Joey Johnston

Peter Brecht00:00

Today we're talking with my friend, Joey Johnston at Industrial Design Solutions. He manages the distributed control systems or DCS on offshore platforms. We talk about his time working as a safety instrument and systems engineer, DCS and how he makes sure that all the intricate machinery on these offshore platforms remains safe and efficient. This is one you don't want to miss. So enjoy the show.

Peter Brecht00:23

To Local Energy. My name is Peter Brecht. I'm here with my co-host Wade our guest today is Joey Johnson. I am so excited to get into it. Actually, Joey and I met on Collide. We've got kind of a backstory. So this is one of those podcasts I didn't have to prep for, too much. I didn't have to do too much research, which always makes it fun and maybe a little more relaxed for you guys to listen in. So.

But anyways, first things first, gotta catch up with Wade. Today, I think we had a Claud update, like Opus 4.7 or something. Yeah, have you got it yet?

Wade00:51

Four seven. Well, I just heard.

I just heard like 10 minutes ago. So no, I've been using Cloud all morning, but no, I don't know. I will be switching immediately once we get off this call.

Peter Brecht01:05

I actually

Have it, okay, so I haven't even checked it out, but I have access to it, which is cool. Because I've been checking out too, they had that METHOS preview that they've been, had released out and stuff like that too. So a lot of cool stuff happened on the AI side that we play with and we like to talk about. Joey, do you play with AI at all? And we'll actually get into the interview, but you gotta like come into this part too.

Wade01:11

Alright.

Bread.

Joey Johnston01:26

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, I've actually used it in the past. I have a friend who's really into it, and he's kind of ratched me in a little bit on some side projects. And we'll get to it later, but I just started a project this week related to my wine collection using AI. So yeah, been using it a little bit more. Yeah.

Peter Brecht01:41

Weets, okay, all right.

Wade01:42

All right. What a use case.

Peter Brecht01:44

Rad. All right, awesome. Well, hey, I'll kick things off here. So Joey, he's a control systems engineer, currently working offshore for a company called Industrial Design Solutions. Before that, he spent three years at Emerson as a safety instrumented systems engineer. That's a mouthful of a title. He went to Missouri University of Science and Technology, and he, as mentioned, he collects wine, so.

Joey thanks. Thanks for being here before we get in all the heavy stuff. The most important question of the day is Did we land on the moon?

Wade02:04

Okay.

Joey Johnston02:11

Man, I think we did at one point.

Peter Brecht02:14

Okay, good answer, I like it. Yeah, yeah. I am very much a believer that we have not landed on the moon, but anyways, I like to...

Wade02:15

I'm with Joey on this.

I'll tell you what,

I think my wife was watching our podcast recently because like whenever Artemis was taking off and stuff, was, she was going down a pretty deep rabbit hole. She was like, she had a lot of questions and I was like, oh my gosh, this is just like talking to Peter.

Peter Brecht02:39

Yeah, I still do. And it's like my biggest conspiracy theory. Might be my only one, honestly, but I like to ask and find out where people stand on that subject. So anyway, so. You got to go go bigger, go home, right? Yeah, so, Joey, one of my favorite stories on you. So you started our Academy program last year. We got introduced on collide. We run this program with professional rugby athletes. But you're like, hey, look, I heard about this. I would like to learn about.

Wade02:46

That's a bold one to have as your only one. I like it.

All right, I like it.

Peter Brecht03:04

Insurance. I was like, you know what, maybe you could help us round out the oil and gas conversation because that's a big part of it is teaching, everyone that comes through about oil and gas and how that industry works. And you got a phone call. So you're like, we're like six weeks into the 12 week program. You get a phone call and you're like, dude, I just got a I got a thing I got to go do. It's an offshore gig. Moving from doing this job to like, and I'm like, you got to go save the world. And so here you are, you're going offshore.

You know and I'm getting pictures from you like rarely of every every couple months You'll send me a picture of like a beautiful sunrise like looking off the deck which is super cool like to kind of be in your world and Experience that just ever so slightly, right? But you're a Younger and you know younger person in the industry, right? I kind of look around at the people we've talked to you're one of the younger guys you've been on a school for a few years and really

Like how drinks did you have to consume before like, yeah, going offshore sounds like a good idea.

Joey Johnston04:02

Man, beforehand, I didn't really need any. As soon as I got the offer to switch jobs and go offshore, it was not even a thought. I maybe spent an hour thinking about it and was like, absolutely, I have to do this. This is amazing. Now, since being offshore, my energy drink consumption has gone up quite exponentially, but it's the common fuel out there.

Wade04:21

Are white monsters still the drink of choice on offshore like it is on US land?

Joey Johnston04:26

Man, not as much. A lot of Ghost. Yeah, Ghost and Red Bull. Yeah, get, everybody's getting cases of those weekly. Yeah.

Wade04:28

Really? Okay, alright.

Okay, interesting. All right, gonna have to look into that one.

Peter Brecht04:36

Okay,

So question on that then. Yeah, I definitely have it. It looks scary to me. But like, right. Well, it's like, what are those alcoholic, the four locos? Don't know if you guys have, that was like a phase in college. Ugh.

Wade04:37

Don't think I've ever had a ghost.

Unregulated.

Okay. I mean, there was one that said that I had like a sour patch on it and I was like, man,

That does sound pretty good though. Like I think the ghost had like a sour patch kid flavor.

Peter Brecht04:59

Yeah, I like to get my calories in different ways. Energy drinks, maybe not one of them. So like, are you this is actually a question never thought about. If you're offshore, right? There's either get there by land or by you fly in on a helicopter or you go on a boat. How are you guys putting together like a shopping list? Or is it just like, hey, like to go get these? Because that's a special request. I would have to imagine it's not just part of like their normal inventory.

Joey Johnston05:20

Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, it's something we all buy ourselves and you have the option of either bringing it out with you whenever you're doing crew change or, we regularly get shipments from a warehouse that brings out, normal things for like the galley, all the food, and you can send personal items there and have them like, they'll go through it make sure you're not ordering anything or trying to sneak anything on that's prohibited, but you can have everything go through there and they'll put it on a weekly supply boat and then.

Peter Brecht05:45

Yeah.

Joey Johnston05:49

It'll just come out. So it's pretty convenient. And like same boat that we use to order any equipment or tools or recurring items that we're always going through. So yeah, you can throw some personal items on there. Makes it really convenient.

Peter Brecht05:50

Sweet. OK.

Okay, awesome. So to put offshore in context, what were you doing before that made it to where you only had to think about this for a brief moment before saying yes?

Joey Johnston06:11

Yeah. So before when I was working at Emerson, it was mainly an office job, unless I was going to site, typically refineries and chemical plants. And while I was there, I did a project offshore at the same, client that I'm working at now. And that was when I, and it was kind of funny because there, there was an original group of people that was supposed to, that did the project, did all the work for it, was going to go and start it up and commission. And there was a big change last minute and they said, these people can't go.

Peter Brecht06:23

Yeah.

Wade06:30

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston06:38

We need someone to go. And so they sent this email out and said, is there any volunteers? And I was like, dude, I can't say no to an opportunity. I'm going to put my, my cards in the mix. So, yeah, luckily I was one of a few people that got selected, went out there. We did about three or four different trips, with Emerson. And I just, I fell in love with the lifestyle out there, the environment, like just, I don't know when you're first, the first time on the platform, just thinking about like, you were literally in the ocean, in the water.

Like your bed is upstairs, and the process is right below it. Like you were quite, it's like you're literally just sleeping inside of a plant and just the routine of it, everything about it, I just fell in love with instantly. And so, yeah, I kept in touch with the people I met out there. And then once I got this call to come back, I was like, absolutely without a doubt.

Wade07:11

Run.

Peter Brecht07:29

So you were with Emerson and then, so did you have to switch or change companies that you work for? Tell us about that transition and who you work for now to kind of bring us up to speed there.

Joey Johnston07:35

Yeah,

Yeah. After Emerson, currently work for a company called Industrial Design Solutions, which they basically do a lot of the same things that Emerson would do. So Emerson is a control system provider and vendor. They have their own software and hardware line of transmitters, control cabinets, cards, Delta V software. It's all Emerson. The company I work for now, Industrial Design Solutions, they typically do Honeywell.

Which is a competitor Emerson DCS services, but they'll, if there's a job that needs DCS support, doesn't matter what brand or vendor we're working on. Like we're going to get someone to support it. So basically doing the same kind of work that I was doing with Emerson, just doing it offshore under a different company. Now, IDS abbreviation for our company, they're based out of Phoenix, Arizona. And it was really just, this client was looking for someone that I had been at before and they

Peter Brecht08:03

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston08:27

Gave IDS my name. I had a few calls with IDS and fortunately everything aligned and I've been working with them since September and it's been awesome. Absolutely love it. Love the guys there that I'm working with. Super great management team, very laid back, but also very knowledgeable as well.

Peter Brecht08:45

Interesting. What's cool is I'm thinking about Emerson. You mentioned Honeywell. Honeywell is like the great company. I don't know if you've ever looked in the background of them, but David Cote was the CEO for a long time. Fascinating story of how that company grew. He's now a chairperson on Emerson. Wade, anything you come across from any of those companies and what you're doing on the drilling side? Okay. Yeah.

Wade09:05

No, not necessarily. I there may be some systems control things, but I think those would be

Mainly in the back end, not stuff that I work with on a daily basis. So a lot of that stuff's new to me.

Peter Brecht09:14

Okay, fair enough, all right, awesome.

So you mentioned falling in love with the offshore culture, and I've heard it referenced before by some friends of mine who also work offshore, and all over the world. It's like, you're part of this machine, this living and breathing machine that's extracting energy, and it's just kind of a, I don't know, it's a unique experience that you can't really replicate anywhere else in the world.

But there's obviously a culture there. I don't know, like how do you integrate yourself into that culture? It all, cause I'm imagining some of the people you're working with have been on the crew for a while. And then there's going to be some new people that show up and like, how are you guys, I guess, how do you get along with each other? And as the control guy, can you just shut off the wifi if people are upsetting you or like, what does that look like for you?

Joey Johnston09:53

Mm-hm.

Yeah. I mean, getting involved there, it's really just like falling into the routine. Like everything out there is super structured. Everybody wakes up at the same time. You start your day at the same time. Your break is at the same time. Lunch, dinner, go to bed. It's all just a routine. And so the easiest thing to do is just, okay, fall in line. And there's kind of like a unspoken social hierarchy out there as well on different platforms.

Peter Brecht10:13

Okay.

Hmm.

Joey Johnston10:33

And, at least from the platforms that I've been on and you just have to pick up on those cues and pick up with people. And a lot of those people out there, it's a pretty blue collar industry. A lot of people kind of test you in a way and might dig into you a little bit or tease you. And basically just, if you let it get to you, then they realize that and they're just going to keep rolling. But if you kind of, push back or not in a confrontational way, but if you give what you're getting.

Wade10:54

And

Peter Brecht10:58

Sure.

Joey Johnston11:00

People are like, alright, this guy's cool. He fits in with us.

Peter Brecht11:02

Yeah. You got to

Be structured to in your responses, right. And think through and which, you've, you've got a good head on your shoulders and you're thinking through problems all day long. Right. And it's like, okay, look, that professional understanding of this is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it and explaining that back to them in a sense. Right. Okay.

Joey Johnston11:07

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But also to

Like showing your purpose of why you're there and not just sitting around doing nothing and sucking up resources. Cause that gets old pretty quick and that gets noticed. And I've seen it happen where some people think, well we can just kind of cruise by and not really do a lot. And they're very quickly out the door. So also just like showing your value, showing that you're there to work, you're willing to work with anyone. And it's kind of an interesting environment out there too, where

Wade11:43

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston11:48

Because you're, you're isolated, on a platform, the resources and people you have are who's on the platform at the time. So your specific trade that you're working on may not be the only thing you're doing. And it's kind of just a, in all hands gets thrown at it. If there's an electrical issue, yeah, we're going to call an electrician or instrumentation guy first. But if they need extra hands, we'll get an operator up there. We'll get a mechanic like, Hey, let's help each other. We're a team.

Peter Brecht11:56

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston12:17

So if you adopt that mentality and show like we're a group and that's not my job. If you put that away and say, well, that's not in my forte, so I'm not going to help you at all. Like that is going to get you nowhere. So just always being willing to work and learn and just assist everyone. That's another way to really get, get involved and get accepted by the group.

Peter Brecht12:39

In your position, are you going from, are they flying you from one rig to another and like all over the place? Or is it like, Hey, look, I'm on this one for this set of days. And then I might go to a different, how does that work? Cause I'd imagine that you're, you're probably, your knowledge is needed across more than one or are they hiring, multiple, they're trying to find more, more than one, Joey.

Joey Johnston13:01

Yeah, so right now I do service all platforms that this company owns and it's just yeah, I'll have a home-based platform and then if I need a day trip or go over to another platform for a couple days or a week even then I'll do that. Yeah, and ideally it kind of gets weird in the DCS side because you know in a normal running state the DCS doesn't really have problems until it does. So you kind of could lump it into like your instrumentation.

Peter Brecht13:12

Okay. Yeah.

Joey Johnston13:27

Technicians as well would handle some of the DCS issues. Typically, like at least with this client that I'm working at, they would have DCS resources onshore that are available to come offshore as needed if there's any problems or concerns. But right now, the current phase we're in where we've been commissioning, starting up, retesting, doing upgrades, lot of new equipment, they've had to have a need for someone on site pretty much at all times. So

They've been looking and that's what brought me in as a contractor to this client is being that that person that can stay out there and be the person that's right there easy to slide right in when there's an issue and help facilitate anything on the DCS side. So kind of a long winded answer, but yes, they have a need to get out there, get people out there for DCS. But, when everything's running and normal, the need isn't as crucial, but when something is wrong, then it's kind of like.

Peter Brecht14:06

Yeah, that's right.

Joey Johnston14:18

Right, we need to call the right person who knows how to fix this.

Peter Brecht14:23

Does the size of the platform, I think that's if I ever have a chance to go offshore, and that's like a dream of mine would be like, okay, go kind of be on one for like a day or even two, but if that ever happened, if someone's listening and can make that happen, let's talk. But the size of the machinery, that had to kind of blow your mind a little bit, maybe you kind of expected, don't like, where do you fall on that?

Joey Johnston14:38

Thank

So

It's not the size, because I've been at refineries before and that's when I really like saw heavy duty equipment. But the thing about offshore, which is insane compared to a refinery is how everything is smashed together because you are literally limited on space and you can only go up, or down. So everything, the orientation of vessels and piping and equipment, is, like everything is just shoved together into this basic like a cube.

Wade15:02

Right.

Joey Johnston15:14

And it makes tracing pipe and wiring a little bit more difficult, but it's also just like the engineering and design behind just the layout alone is phenomenal. Cause you go to refineries and everything's spread out, very easy to kind of access everything. Have space and here it's just like, no, you got to smash everything together. That was the biggest thing for me was just how compact everything was and the orientation.

Peter Brecht15:38

Okay, so it's like working on an old Ford Bronco that you can get your hand in there and turn a wrench versus a Lamborghini where you gotta drop the motor out to just change the oil, right? Okay, all right. Yeah.

Joey Johnston15:44

Mm-hmm Yep, yeah. Yeah, and man there's times

Where you know Like working on equipment is not super easy even with wrenches or stuff because you're hitting a support beam or a rail Like you just you got to find ways to work around it. So

Peter Brecht16:01

That's a good thing to think about. And we had one of our guests a couple of weeks ago, Michael Fry. He does safety consulting, offshore stuff, doing it for a long time in the Gulf of America, as we say now, right? Instead of the Gulf of Mexico. So he had a really great comment. And I've thought about this many, many times, is he always wanted people...

Joey Johnston16:13

You

Wade16:14

Hands.

Peter Brecht16:21

That he worked with to be able to draw every system by hand, right? And he's like, it sounds kind of crazy, but if you think about it, the ability to understand something in that level where you can draw all these pieces kind of work together is a huge benefit for not only the safety side, but also we got to keep this thing running. When it comes to that kind of thing, like this is, you do systems. So do you have to be able to draw these out or is this more like a technical thing where you're looking at code and then seeing how that

Because there is, at some point, the computer system has to still relate to the mechanics of the machinery too, right? So how does that work?

Joey Johnston16:55

Yeah, so this kind of plays into Emerson as well when I first got hired on with them. You my background is chemical engineering and there's a reason to bring this up. So for control systems, that's typically been electrical. And when you get into coding and doing all the software behind it, hiring a chemical engineer doesn't really make sense at first. You're like, why are you hiring a chemical engineer to do code all day? Why don't you hire a computer science major? And, but when you think about what you're doing, you're automating and controlling

Peter Brecht17:18

Sure.

Wade17:18

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston17:22

Systems, actual manufacturing equipment. So in order to do that, you have to understand how that equipment works, what it's supposed to do, what the process flow is, and the impact of what exactly you're looking at. When I'm looking at a permissive or something for another, for a pump to start, okay, I have to look at specific signals and data from transmitters or other equipment. And I have to understand what it is and why I'm doing it and the timing behind it too, right? If I'm waiting for a valve to open,

Okay, I can send an open command to a valve, but I gotta wait for that feedback to come in. So I gotta wait for the feedback before I get the permissive. If the valve is stuck, then that's gonna change everything. But you have to understand timing and interaction, especially when equipment is running. And then, okay, if I wanna shut something down, let's say I have a condition that comes up where, all right, this would cause a shutdown, but maybe it's just a little blip, right? And so...

Wade17:55

Mm.

Joey Johnston18:15

I don't want it to shut down right away or else I'm to be shutting down all the time. So it'd be like a nuisance trip. So you have to like take into account noise in the process as well and fluctuations in pressure and temperature, which you're going to have. When you're coding and automating how these interlocks, how this automation works, you have to understand that and understand how the equipment actually works and what you're doing and what the process is doing. It's not just, do I know how to write in the specific software logic?

Encode everything, it's what is the process doing? What is like the specific goal? How does the process work? How does the equipment work? How is it designed? And working offshore, you see a lot of different things than you would on shores. And even just in modern days as well, like there's a lot of older styles where there's a lot of pneumatically controlled items out there. So I might just drive a pump through a DCS signal.

Peter Brecht18:50

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston19:06

And that will pneumatically control a valve, a suction valve to the pump. So I have to understand, okay, I can't really control this piece of equipment directly, but how can I talk to it in a certain way? And how can I ensure that that piece of equipment is working? And maybe it's not tied in the DCS, but you have to know what's going on there as well. So again, you can put everything in your software set up the right way. It's a, yeah.

Peter Brecht19:30

This sounds very, very stressful.

Like the, output, like if something, cause if something doesn't work, you, some I'd imagine you have to, you have to sometimes solve the problems very quickly in order for things to continue moving. Right. It's not just a, or, maybe, and hopefully there's no issues that come up. I'm assuming it's more of a, we're going to set this up and we're going to keep moving. And maybe it's more of a set it and forget it kind of thing. And then just maintain it. But I can't imagine.

Joey Johnston19:32

The

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht19:57

Having to figure all that out on the fly. I'm sure it's a very, I don't know, it seems like a very mentally exhaustive job, which is pretty cool. I mean, I love that stuff, but Wade, are you, I know you, we get into software a little bit too, and I think more on the analytics. I don't know what you're building these days. We haven't caught up on that in a while, but how would that relate to stuff that you're looking at?

Joey Johnston20:09

Mm-hmm.

Wade20:17

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, well, it's funny. I'm like, I'm a Kimmy background as well. And so a lot of stuff you're talking about, I can definitely relate to. Well, and so yeah, yeah, it's so it's kind of funny because I think it does give a bit of a unique perspective on a lot of these control systems and things that's really the only control system that I would probably use on a daily basis is like our auto driller. I mean, it's watching multiple inputs and it's watching

Joey Johnston20:29

We're mole chasers. That's what we call ourselves.

Wade20:49

First and second degree controls and some of those things to try and keep stuff at set points and all that. Beyond that, more I'm kind of building and using what I'd say is very basic control systems. I think, man, I Joey's light years ahead of me on a lot of that stuff. So a lot of respect for dealing with that. And especially on that scale too. Man, offshore rigs, just insane amount of money going out every single day. And

And the number of systems I think that you probably use on offshore versus land rigs is probably exponentially higher. So, hearing the details on that stuff is a little bit mind blowing to an extent.

Peter Brecht21:26

That's cool. I'm just thinking through this too. Feel like you haven't been doing this for 30 years. So when you kind of think through how much you've learned in the last, let's call it five, 10 years to what you could see ahead for the next 20, it's got to be a pretty cool kind of way to, I don't know, just kind of insert yourself into a pretty cool industry.

You guys had mentioned, so you're both chemical engineers, like you have both very smart people. And I'm like, I just, I still can't believe I'm a year into this and I'm talking to people that are doing this stuff for a living. And it's awesome. But what do you guys call yourself? You mentioned a term there and I want to pick up on that.

Wade21:54

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston22:09

Yeah, it's a guy off short. No, he told me this recently. It's a mole chaser. So that's what we call ourselves. Yeah, it's a nickname for Kimmy's. Because it has to do with moles, is anyway, we're looking into it. Yeah, it's a play on words for the mole, which, yeah.

Wade22:10

Kim Ease? Sorry, no go.

Peter Brecht22:15

Okay, all right.

Wade22:15

Okay.

Peter Brecht22:19

Interesting. I wonder where that came from. Okay.

Wade22:24

Was gonna say to play on words, yeah. Right,

Peter Brecht22:27

Yeah, all right, fair enough. Well,

We may not name the...

Wade22:31

You take enough chemistry

Classes.

Peter Brecht22:33

Yeah, understood, understood. Think I took,

Joey Johnston22:34

Yeah.

Peter Brecht22:36

It was like 10th grade in high school, I took chemistry and then I was done. But it was actually pretty fascinating, because I took that, was like fun to take chemistry and then you actually bring it into like organics and like how to like grow trees and that was the coolest thing ever. My dad's grass was never greener. Like dad, we need more nitrogen and we need to do this and he was like, okay, like go for it. That was my summer experiment, was how green can you make the grass? All right, very small use case there for what I was doing, so.

Wade22:38

I got some.

Okay.

That's awesome.

Joey Johnston22:57

You

Peter Brecht23:02

Cool. Let's actually talk about that next 20 years, right? So we've got all this AI that's coming in. I can't wait to talk about what you're doing with your wine collection. But where do you see this going? I mean, you've already seen the evolution of, personally, right? You've kind of gone from working on projects with Emerson and now you're offshore. So, what do you think that looks like? Give us kind of your opinion on where we're headed.

Joey Johnston23:27

Yeah, and there's, I've seen a lot more talk about AI, especially in the control system, industry a lot more recently in the past few years. And where I think it's going to come into play is for the most part is like a background analytics, like just monitoring for you. Your board operator can only watch so much at a time and they rely a lot on like their alarms and their alerts to tell them when something is wrong.

And an AI can probably come in and say, Hey, I'm noticing some issues on this system. Let's take a look at it before it would even get to a point that an operator might notice when something's going to happen. But I also think it'll play into analytics as well, because I did an internship at ExxonMobil when I was in college. And there was a group of people who they were basically optimization engineers and they would just take all the data from the process, look at different variables and come up with ideas of.

How they can run things a certain way to improve how they're running, or if they're changing certain cuts or materials that they're running through their process, how can we make this more efficient or smoother, blah, blah, blah. So I think AI is going to get into that as well and just be a background consultant. But also, even in terms of building something, if

Which is kind of, scary to think about for my job where I'm doing a lot of coding where it's like, all right, if I could just feed an AI and say, here's my design documents, go write all the code and build all the HMIs for it. Then it's like, all right, well then I'm not going to be needed as much, but you also need someone to validate it as well. Right. Like AI is going to make mistakes and you can't completely trust it. And, another aspect that's going to get interesting to see is cybersecurity. So with control systems, like cybersecurity is a huge, huge concern.

Peter Brecht25:00

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah

Joey Johnston25:12

And whether or not we have AI embedded in that system, can we trust it and how is that going to affect the security of our system? I haven't seen any cases where I've been on a system where it's had had an AI agent developed into it, but I've been reading a lot about it and seeing on LinkedIn of like, this is going to become kind of the norm. So it's going to be super interesting to see how that plays out. But that's where I would assume it's going is analytics and just.

Peter Brecht25:26

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston25:38

Basically doing all the grunt work for someone.

Peter Brecht25:40

Yeah, I heard this story. Was listening to, was another oil and gas podcast and, Exxon Mobil, they'd actually hired an intern and said, Hey, look, you can, you can work with us for 90 days at the end of your 90 days. You kind of validate what you're doing. And so they, she came in and they gave her all the access to all this data for a drilling operation they're running. So

She goes through all this stuff and 90 days later, she goes in front and she says, Hey, look, if you guys just, instead of, instead of backing your trucks, and if you figure out a way to like drive your trucks through, the, well site and without having to back up, you guys are going to save, it was, was some, like hundreds of thousands of that, like just insane. And, so they actually looked at it thought she was crazy, but one guy was like, okay, we'll go with it. And so they actually ended up doing it and she validated everything, all the stuff that AI told her.

And it ended up working. And so she got a job, which is pretty cool. So yeah, the analytics side is pretty cool. And I think, I don't know how true that anecdote is, but I could definitely imagine that being the case. Then on the cybersecurity side, was last week, looking at Anthropic, they have something called Project Glasswing, which is effectively, how can we embed cybersecurity into what we're doing? Because their newest model is capable of just basically,

Wade26:51

Mm.

Peter Brecht26:58

Being a good agent or a bad agent doesn't really matter, right? So trying to get ahead of that so cybersecurity is actually prepared for it. So both great comments there. And yeah, I agree with you on everything you're saying there. So it's gonna be a good time. And you guys aren't running Windows 95 out there. I mean, you're doing like more technology than that,

Wade27:04

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston27:15

Yeah, just yeah, whatever is after 95 we're on that one Yeah XP yeah NT yeah, so

Peter Brecht27:19

Yeah, I think it was XP or is it, yeah, right. That's

Wade27:20

Windows NT.

Peter Brecht27:25

Funny. It's fun. I don't understand. Don't like, so in my, my industry, so on the insurance side, like all of our technology, like is like our core systems are so legacy. Hurts. I'm, don't understand why we can't play nice with others. Like why can't we make the API available so that we could, but it doesn't work that way. So.

Wade27:44

Are you guys still running like dot matrix printers and fax machines and all that stuff?

Peter Brecht27:46

Gosh, no. Thankfully, don't, yeah.

No, we finally, we don't have fax anymore, but I will tell you, my dream is to someday buy another insurance brokerage. And on day one, I want to walk in with a big fax machine and just put it in the middle, just to scare everybody. So they're like, what the heck? And I'm be like, yep, all communication goes to the fax machine. That's a, you can, you can steal that one if you guys ever buy a company. So.

Wade27:58

You

All right.

Peter Brecht28:11

It's a fun one, especially if it's in like 10 years. It'll be even more obsolete. Now I remember fixing like those dot matrix printers, those were, oh my gosh, expensive too, because you couldn't get replacement parts for them really easy too. So Joey, we're gonna get into the wine here soon, but one thing I wanna ask you is what's a misconception about offshore or process control that you would like to be?

Wade28:13

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah.

BAM.

Peter Brecht28:40

Just dismissed entirely? Is there something that people don't understand that you would like to just remove from the record?

Joey Johnston28:46

As far as process control, I'm not sure about misconceptions, but offshore, think the, think there's probably this idea that it's extremely unsafe and that it's extremely dirty and it's just terrible for the environment. And first of all, on the safety side, like there, that is first and foremost, like our safety systems are top tier. They're, tested weekly.

Monthly, quarterly, like everything is tested and has to be proven. It's extremely, extremely like monitored. It's a very regulated system as well. So safety is just, it's the absolute most priority. And the second most thing I think people misconceive is, the environmental impact. Like thinking, we can just spill oil or flare off whatever we want. And it's no big deal. But no, it is, even the amount of

Of gas that you're flaring, like that is recorded and has to be documented. And if there's anything, even a minor spill, like even at least the platforms I'm on, if anything gets in the water, like a hard hat, you have to report it to Bessie, which is an offshore, kind of regulatory group. So something as small as that, like our environmental impact and even our trash, like we have segregated trash for rags or recyclables or like material with oil on it.

Peter Brecht30:04

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston30:04

Or any kind of like chemical waste, that is also scrutinized heavily and it's monitored heavily as well. So cleanliness and safety are just the absolute top priority. I think, and I say this because there's people I've talked to who aren't in the industry or don't know anything about it. And maybe they watch Deepwater Horizon once and think they know everything about, offshore industry. And it's like, all right, well, there are risks to working offshore. I mean, you're on a

Facility in the ocean and you live with it. So there are risks to it, but I never feel unsafe while I'm out there. And just the amount, the knowledge it takes to operate and maintain and like what we have to monitor and control in terms of our environmental impact as well. That's, it's such a high priority and it's on everyone's mind that like to think that it's, that we're causing damage.

Is it's just a backwards thought to me.

Peter Brecht30:59

Yep. Yeah. It's, I've told this story before, but I mean, you just go to Huntington beach or you go to any, like there's tar on shore, and now you go to Santa Barbara, it's naturally occurring a lot of the stuff and, right. Exactly. Exactly. And so there's so much of that. And like, I live, I'm probably 15 minutes from the Pacific ocean and I go through all these towns and there's one like,

Joey Johnston31:07

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you have natural seepage anyway.

Peter Brecht31:23

Especially hippie town, right? And I love where my big oil sweatshirt over there and my wife always thinks I'm gonna get killed. But the long story short is like, I have a lot of conversations with people and there's always a group of protesters on this one corner, right there in Cardiff. They're right in front of the Cardiff kook statue, right? If you've ever seen it. They're either, they're usually protesting one of five things depending on the day of the week. And one thing is the oil and gas thing, right?

There was a little Sprinter convention. So I got all these surfer Sprinter vans that were parked there and people kind of doing a walkthrough of like, Hey, we can customize your Sprinter, which doesn't matter. Couldn't fit it in my small parking space but the whole thing there was as I'm walking by people, it's like, Hey, like real quick, what are you guys protesting? Well, we're just upset that they're going to be drilling or, doing this stuff. And it's like,

Wade31:55

Thank you.

Peter Brecht32:08

Okay, but like tell me more, like what details do you know? It's like, no, we just read the sign. And I'm like, dude, I'm not gonna, like I read your sign. That's why I'm asking you questions, right? But they don't really have any substance. So it's kind of fun. I love educating people on this. And there's a lot of great voices, all over the place right now. I think energy is coming into focus, especially with all the global events going on. So this is a good time to be doing it. And I'm very thankful that you raised your hand and had the opportunity to do what you're doing. It's really cool.

Wade32:31

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht32:36

But anyways, moving into the wine collection. First of all, tell us how you got into this. And you said it's grown. Know from like when we talked, I think six months ago about it and how is AI working in this. Like there's a lot going on here. So let's unpack this and then yeah, we're gonna change subjects here though. We're moving right into wine.

Joey Johnston32:50

Yeah.

Yeah, so a couple years ago, just, got this thing in the mail and it was like a, could buy like 12 bottles of wine online and get a discount if you go through this specific vendor. And I was like, all right, screw it. I'll do it and try some wine and try to few. And the whole purpose of this site was like to get you wines from all over the world to try new things. And there were a few that I had and I was like, man, these are actually like really good. And

Peter Brecht33:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Did this happen during

COVID? Because during COVID, I got like five of these a day. Was like people, everyone just became alcoholics. Like during COVID, it seemed like, I don't know.

Joey Johnston33:23

Yeah, no, think it, yeah,

Actually it would have been, 2021. So basically right after COVID. Kind of in the middle of it. So yeah. And then, yeah, yeah. And so at first I was like, all right, I tried some good wines and then, didn't really think much of it at first. Didn't get too much into it. And then I just started drinking a little bit more wine in the past couple of years.

Peter Brecht33:30

Okay, all right. Sure. Okay. So this has going on for about five years.

Joey Johnston33:51

I was like, man, like there's so much to this and like the, like the grape, where the region it's from, the age of it. I'm like, man, this is like a multi-variable problem and you got to figure it out. Basically not problem, but yeah, it's like, how can I just, it's so complex and there's so much to it. Was like, I want to learn more about it. And so just started doing a ton of research and, met a guy who I worked with at Emerson who was.

Peter Brecht34:00

Yeah. I mean, Somalias, they train for years, you know? Yeah.

Joey Johnston34:17

Been in wine his whole life basically and he's a plethora of knowledge and went to his house to do a wine tasting because I told him, yeah, I love wine. I'm into it. I know a decent amount. He, had, it was a group of us, we had probably eight or nine bottles of wine and every single one I was just like, my gosh, I thought I knew what wine was. I did not know what wine was. I was drinking and thinking I was drinking high end wine. He showed me like a whole nother world.

Peter Brecht34:34

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Joey Johnston34:46

Of wine and after that I was like, all right, I need to learn everything I can from this guy. And so, and he grows his own grapes and makes his own wine as well. This dude, he's incredible. He's my wine mentor. So after that, got involved with some wine clubs in California, signed up, some that he introduced me to. And so just gotten some regular club shipments, but then also as well, like I'm going to the store, I'm going online, like trying to order.

Peter Brecht34:56

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Joey Johnston35:15

Really nice wines and something new and different. And like I said, I'm looking at like, all right, I want to try like a Sauvignon Blanc from California and I want to try one from New Zealand and I want to try one from France. And the interesting thing about it is, you you think, well, if a wine is the same grape, it's going to taste the same, which is completely wrong. It depends on the region it's from and the soil at the time and the year it is, how old it's been in the bottle. So all that, was like, man, it's,

Peter Brecht35:24

Mm-hmm.

Joey Johnston35:42

It's elegant to see like how complex and how much variety there is for a wine simply just by year or just by grape or just by region. And I just became obsessed with that and was like, like really just impressed with and like obsessed with how the characteristics of a wine can change over time. And I was like, man, I.

I get in all these clubs and just trying to get different varieties and it's just a hobby now. And it's also like a social thing, right? Where, I, my, my sister and her fiance, I've gotten into it as well. And we've done these wine tastings and I've made new groups of friends just from getting together, drinking wine and talking about wine. So it's been like a social uplift in my life as well, where I've met people and I see them regularly now and we're texting and sending pictures of wines that we got.

It's kind like we're competing in a way, but no, it's great.

Peter Brecht36:32

Cool. Right, right, right. That's cool. So

How does the AI play into that though? Because I mean, AI can't taste or smell. I don't know. Is it helping you source things or are you what?

Joey Johnston36:38

Yeah.

Wade36:42

Looking into making things.

Joey Johnston36:42

Yeah.

So here's how that came about. When I'm working offshore, I get all my wine sent to my parents' house so they can sign for it. And then when I come home, I get the wine and bring it to my place. Well, I have like just boxes and boxes of wine now. And I recently moved as well. So I had like moved some of my wine that was at my apartment and I was like, I had everything labeled and I'm like going over my parents and I'm like, man, I don't even remember that I...

Peter Brecht36:59

You

Joey Johnston37:09

Bought some of these like, or what they were. It was like, was I knew I had the wine, but I opened the box up. Like, I like, this is great. I have some of these and I'm just. Yeah. And so I was going through it I'm like, I can't even keep track of what I have. And I'm like, I thought like, all right, I can make an Excel sheet and just write it down, but that that's going to take a while. And then I was thinking too, while I'm home, I'm trying to think of like, all right, if I want to get out of wine, what should I get out? Well, one, I don't even know what I have. So.

Peter Brecht37:17

Right, you have an inventory problem is what's happening. Yeah.

Sure.

Joey Johnston37:38

That's the first problem is inventory. And second of all, once I have the inventory, then I want to be able to say like, all right. I know who I'm getting together with, what it's for, what we're eating, how many people, how can I determine what wines I pick out? If that makes sense. And so I thought, all right, what if I used AI to help me build a tool to help keep track of this? Where on the inventory side, I can just take a picture of a bottle of a label, and then it's going to pull the information like.

Peter Brecht37:40

Yeah.

Wade37:47

Community.

Peter Brecht37:53

Hmm sure sure

Sure.

Joey Johnston38:06

Where it's from, the grape, the year, or I can manually enter that into a database. And so now I have a database of wine. But then I thought too, what if I asked like Claude and said, hey, I'm getting together with four people tonight and this is what we're eating. What wines in my cellar, do I have that could meet this criteria? And then it could act as like a professional sommelier and say, all right, this is what you have. This is what I recommend. And this is what

Wade38:08

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht38:28

Yeah, that's cool.

Joey Johnston38:34

And you like considering you have like five people or whatever, you need to bring two or three bottles, maybe four. And this is what I would bring. But then another thing too is a lot of wine, it gets better as it ages. And so there's optimal drinking windows for each wine.

Peter Brecht38:38

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

That was going to be my question. Can you keep this stuff forever? Because not all wine ages well either, right?

Joey Johnston38:53

Yeah, it, no, no, it depends on the grape and where it's from

And if it's blended. So that was another thing too, is I have like a notepad where I wrote, all right, these wines, I can't open it until this year. And I lost that sheet. So I'm like, crap, I gotta do this all again. So I thought too, what if I could have AI, like look at the database and say, all right, this is the optimal drinking window for every single wine. And either I can put that in or it can research like, all right, this grape from this region in this year.

Wade39:22

Hehe

Joey Johnston39:23

You should hold it for five years or three years or 10. And then I can easily say like, all right, I'm going to get notified when, I have something that's in an optimal drinking period, but that also plays into like, all right, Hey, I want to dig into my cellar. And then the AI or Somalia could say, all right, here's what's best to drink right now. Here's what you have. Here's what's going to best suit your meal or the number of people.

Peter Brecht39:35

Okay.

Joey Johnston39:49

And so I started working on that this week of like trying to build this tool of like a database just for wine inventory, but also like a sommelier recommendation and just keep track of everything.

Peter Brecht40:01

So can you get a good bottle of wine for 30 bucks? Is it like, that possible? Okay, all right, all right, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Joey Johnston40:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a misconception about wine is that you have to

Spend more money on wine in order for it to taste better, which there is a little bit of truth to that, but not entirely. Some of the best wines I have and that I do drink regularly, I can go to the store right now and pay 17 bucks for it. Yeah.

Peter Brecht40:11

Hmm.

Sure.

Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Interesting. What gets me with wine is, actually this is just, think anything cause I can look at like my, coffee problem. And that's sort of, I would relate me with coffee to how you are in the wine is it's kind of the same thing. And my we love going to like all the coffee events. We're going to drive up to orange County this weekend for an opening for a new one and like all this stuff. And then there's like, there's a prologue and Luna and untitled and like, all these companies that are just doing cool stuff with coffee, but the branding always gets me. Right. So

Because you'll be in a coffee shop and it's like, this is, I just love the branding and the marketing of it. And like, I'm sure you've seen like the orange Swift, he's got the machete label and they've got all like just such cool things that they do with that. So if you had to, guess, pick up a like a $17, like what's a good, what's a good brand that you would recommend? Like just curious.

Joey Johnston40:56

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I know I can get it here locally in Missouri, but it's something called Jupiter. Yeah. So can get it at Total Wine. I don't know if they have Total Wines out in California where you are, but, yeah, Jupiter, and they have a ton of different grapes and it's probably my favorite wine from Total Wine. And there's, ranges from 17 to 30 bucks, but that is like, if I tell everyone, if you like, you're, you get invited to a dinner at someone's house, you bring wine, you want to impress them, but you don't want to spend.

Peter Brecht41:16

Okay, yeah, I've heard of that one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yep.

Dang.

Joey Johnston41:39

All your money and take the confusion out of it and just hope you buy something good. That's easy fallback every single time.

Peter Brecht41:45

I just typed in real quick. I just typed Jupiter in and was going to save it my bookmarks. But it also pulled up one hundred and seventy five thousand dollar bottle of wine from 2015. I'm floored by just how that's insane. That is crazy. All right. Good stuff, man. Well, well, I don't know. We might have to like make the we might make the wine part a whole different part of the episode. I don't know. It could stand on its own. You should start a wine podcast. But anyways.

Joey Johnston41:55

You

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Peter Brecht42:13

Thank you for coming on today and talking with us. This has just been, it's been fun to catch up with you for a longer period of time than our normal, three, five minute phone calls. I hope you enjoy your time off, time home and time, off the rigs and all that. And I don't know in the show notes, I'll probably put a, I'll put your LinkedIn there and we'll make it kind of fun for people to reach out. Cause I'm sure someone will listen to this and be like, well, Hey,

I do the same thing and I'm curious how I could go offshore or maybe just, it's a good place to network and be part of a community.

Joey Johnston42:42

Yeah, no, I really appreciate you having me on here. Glad we finally got to make it work.

Peter Brecht42:47

Totally. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for listening to Local Energy. If you haven't subscribed or you haven't listened to us on Spotify or Apple Podcast, go check us out there. If you're on Spotify or Apple right now, we're on YouTube. The more subscribers, the better helps us grow the channel and get more people educated about the energy industry. So until next time, have a great weekend. Thanks. All right.