Happy Thursday!
We went to the “Leaders in
Industry” Speakers’ Series Luncheon on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, which is a
joint gathering of the Houston Producers
Forum (HPF), Independent Petroleum Association of America
(IPAA), and Texas
Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO) which is held at The Petroleum Club of
Houston. The speaker was Mike Howard,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Howard Energy Partners (HEP). Mr.
Howard gave an interesting talk on how on HEP and the future of energy. He
spoke on how HEP is diversified with several energy products including but not
limited to hydrogen, natural gas, and etc.
HEP is a private company which allows
them more freedom then a publicly held company.
HEP ownership is management companies and private investors, for example
Aimco. There are no proxies to answer,
they don’t have to follow trends which allows them to be diversified, and capital
drives their business. They have learned
to be where their customers need them to be which has made them grow and be
more diversified. Mr. Howard considers HEP
a builder of infrastructure. His company
fills the gap between someone with a resource and someone who needs the
resource this is where midstream comes in and where his company strive to fill
that gap. An example of this is how HEP
brings energy from the Eagle Ford Shale to Monterrey, Mexico. They bring energy from the Permian Basin to
where their clients need it. They had
even applied for the Texas Energy Fund for financing for a LNG power plant but
in the end decided to go another avenue.
HEP is trying to move energy.
The country needs to be
pro-energy. In embracing this concept,
it means being pro-climate and anti-poverty.
An energy rich country is never a poor country nor is there such a thing
as a high-income country with low energy.
Energy helps fuel an economy by bringing in investment and good paying
jobs.
In a previous encounter with Secretary
of Energy, Chris Wright, Mr. Howard learned a company needs a purpose. After some thought, he believed more energy
to more people should be the direction of HEP. This is why HEP is in the midstream business to
connect the dots.
Energy needs to be abundant, reliable,
and affordable. The current administration
is trying to help with these goals by streamlining permitting and removing redundancy
between agencies which will reduce costs and time. There was a time permitting took days or couple
months, now it takes years or decades and this is where the current
administration is trying to help and this will reduce cost. Mr. Howard spoke of pipeline project to
Monterrey which cost $1 billion nonetheless a project in the states for a
shorter pipeline could cost upward of $9 billion this is what needs to change. Mr. Howard infrastructure takes long-term thinking
and there is no energy transition. We need
to embrace all energy sources including renewables and LNG. China has realized
this and builds all energy sources and we need to do that, too. China has added
more energy to their grid then we have.
Between 1950 and 2000 it was the largest buildout, nonetheless we have
slowed and this is why they are ahead of us. We need to add more transmission
lines and pipelines to get energy out to the country and the world. We need to do these things, if we are going
to have energy dominance.
Thank you, Mike Howard! You are an interesting and informative
speaker, and we wish you and HEP continued success keeping energy flowing.
It was a very nice talk, and we hope to see
you next time! If you would like to learn
something, check out the next luncheon for HPF which will be in January,
please click the link: Oil
& Gas Luncheons & Events | Houston Producers Forum.
If you need help with planning
your next hydrocarbon project and getting your product to your customers or
storing it, contact us via the email in the blog and check out our ESC website!
Have a good evening!