The oil & gas market is intrinsically volatile. The fundamental principles of supply and demand are always testing the agility and financial health of businesses operating in the sector. Two essential products, oil & gas generates over $3.3 trillion dollars* of revenue annually in the E&P space (*IBISWorld). While the Majors control the lions share of that revenue, private businesses can clip off a portion of the market to generate returns to their investors. For the most part (some exceptions aside) downturns like the one we are in highlight the most resilient and disciplined groups in the market.
In this podcast we have a chance to sit down with one of the leaders in the private non-operated Oil & Gas acquisition space, Luis Rodriguez from Raisa Energy. Luis and his team are at the forefront of utilizing advanced technologies to predict operator movements and target the best rock in the country. With such focus, Luis has successfully established 3 rounds of funding under Raisa, with a fourth in the works. His technical prowess coupled with his truly humble approach to leadership has made Luis one of the leading names in the non-operated interest space, and one that we will all come to know well in the years to come.
We are joined by Evan Anderson, guest-host of the podcast and founder of Oseberg, to help focus in on the key lessons that Luis can share with anyone looking for some extra inspiration in their lives during these turbulent times.
TRANSCRIPT BETA
Disclaimer: Our transcription software is in beta testing mode, using NLP and AI to convert our conversations from audio to text. We openly admit that at present, the output quality is poor, with numerous errors throughout (some of which are hilarious in nature), however, we would like to release this information should it be of value to any users.
With the help of time and money, we plan to increase the quality of this output as we build out sponsors that help support the growth of the show.
Evan Anderson: You know how you you know, what your journey look like for Well Services to a p back not up minerals fun. And you know what role if any Alex played in that and you know, I've read a little bit about how he's played a mentor to you and I'm curious as to how he kind of shape your professional development.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: True. I appreciate being able to share and a little bit less. Well, I guess Well Services I have to say is is both an interesting place to stop and a tough place to Pivot from I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity that Columbia gave me. to be able to come abroad from the hardships that were being endured in Venezuela at the time and the fact that you know, they have a very unique system of really creating opportunities and a passport with which to enable a person to enjoy success in any part of the world at the same time, I think as Look to transition from services to you know, the EMP side. It wasn't it wasn't an easy and easy transition because it's really seen as to almost completely different businesses one invests heavily in R&D and is really tied to execution of services. The other one is more of an understanding of risk and underground risk and asset management. Management and so it was a it was an important step for me to be able to go to Brigham and then giving me a chance to in some ways take a small step towards a closer point of contact with the NP and then when I began rise up in late 2014 likes was one of the instrumental persons in giving me a chance both with his time. As well as capital in order to start Riser one. And so thankfully he's been a person not only that took that initial step but has taken many steps to be on that to support us and or hold us accountable to always look to Endeavour above and beyond where we're at.
Evan Anderson: Absolutely. What was your what was your investment thesis or you know, what was the bridge between Brigham and and in erisa?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: Brigham was a fantastic place to work and because they were kind of at the Forefront of really systematically investing and minerals at the same time. As I saw the opportunity investing in minerals. I saw the complementary thesis of being able to invest in the fractionalized interest of normal and what specifically intrigued me about normal was the fact that you were able to see Really the the slice of the pie that represented the ownership from the point of view of the operator. And so to me that allowed for both better Investments as as a mineral company, but also more data with which to better understand how to invest in a continuous basis that could be married really well with You know Ai and specifically, you know kind of basic machine learning pieces to advance the knowledge base that that could give you.
Adam Cohen: So what got you interested in those type of Technologies? And was that something Central to the way you were looking at Raisa getting that company started?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: Yes, sir. Thankfully I've been exposed to what I would call volumes of data since my career began be it an ExxonMobil in cleaning the production allocation databases to setting up a database and Hardware that enabled Slumber yeas track comes to communicate in a continuous basis to a central database for a group. data scientist or back then statisticians to understand how best to enable them to be managed and or what the cost structure needed to be and so as I got into the empty side, I'd always had this kind of conception of large amounts of data can be turned into a powerful tool as long as you have the ability to dissected appropriately and Cheryl and some ways became really an enabling force in oil and gas to do so because before you were doing one, maybe two Wells and billions of dollars of Investments here was fractionalized interests in the United States at a much smaller scale of capital being done thousands upon thousands of times per year. And so the ability to aggregate that had financial implications that were exciting the ability to have a data available and will be able to be accessed. Also have exciting opportunities with respect to the investment thesis. That was built.
Evan Anderson: Absolutely. Yeah, you know, I noticed that that as a private Equity backed pork Co you have a VP of data analytics as part of your management team and it's rare when you look across the landscape of sponsor portfolio companies. You don't see that kind of representation at the management level or it's rare that you do so it sounds as though technology and Data was very important to culturally from the beginning of the creation of erisa. And it sounds like it was very much integral to the design and the strategy when you launch the Endeavors, is that fair to say?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: It was a non-negotiable point at the time that we raise Capital to be able to have a CTO that could empower the vision that we had with respect to what we wanted to do. So, yes.
Evan Anderson: What's your view on the industry in the landscape when you think about data and technology and how it can be utilized whether that be on the operations side or on the the the acquisition side of real assets. Do you have a you have a strong opinion or out the industry in general?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: I think that we we have places where especially in hard work and all modeling that with Weaver's and as an industry that have actually been really strong historically at the same time. The I think that the piece that has kept us maybe in some ways as a laggard is the fact that Companies and will generally only gas companies tend to be very protective of what they're doing and how they're doing it less. So in the end with the Advent of shale and what the public information that that represents but I think that between shell kind of democratizing a little bit some of the pieces of information that are out there. And then furthermore the fact that the cost structure of oil and gas needs to be to a point that makes for an attractive investment, which hasn't been so for the past to say decade makes it to where it becomes not no longer kind of a choice it becomes a need and I do think that there are opportunities for technology to really have an influence on that cost structure coming down pretty significantly.
Adam Cohen: So what round of funding are you currently in if if I can ask you that?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: For yes, we're currently launching a
Adam Cohen: for Raisa
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: couple of race riser for those of fund.
Adam Cohen: Okay. So how many you know rounds did it take before investors in the past who might have said no are now interested in Raisa and the use of Technologies in the space. And also I think up front how much how much more rejection did you have? If any when you were presenting this to potential investors with technology, you know make a break for you.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: It's a difficult question to answer in that I think the history that we now have in having built something that enables us to have a differentiation and the success that we can show in putting that differentiation to work. I think will enable us to have conversations that are a lot more positive than at any other point. Time in the history of erisa at the same time. I think that as we go into this raising environment, this is probably one of the most bearish or negatively sentiment it environments against all and gas that I've encountered even more difficult than you know, 2014 2015 and the reason being not so much driven by By a bit covid and all macro. He is G positions, but I think the fact that you haven't really done a great job as an industry of returning capital and you have those macro pieces at joining to the thesis. It creates for a sentiment that is difficult to overcome even with technology. And so before when I first started Riser technology might have been kind of a nice to have But democracy says of you know the interest in Shale in 1415 and the capital that was behind it really helped give it Tailwind. Even if it looked hard at the time. I think now you have kind of a much more bearish macro Outlook people that have lost a lot of capital in the process. And so thankfully, I think we now have a quiver of parsley would be able to reduce some of those barriers by the fact that we can show success in the last four to five years.
Evan Anderson: We have got to imagine, you know, so off. My technology is being an afterthought for companies, you know, they stand up their vehicle. They get their management teams in place, then they start thinking about technology and infrastructure and you know given the structure of the private Equity structure the traditional structure. You don't have a lot of g a budget up front to invest heavily in data. Technology. How did you get in the constricting nature of g a budgets relative to that the fun structure? How did you think about funding a large-scale technical effort and balance that with overhead and everything else?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: You know for us a key to be able to do that successfully was one being able to consistently show that we would be imprudent and successful in the Investments that we're making regardless of technology or new technology. And so consistently being able to
Evan Anderson: right
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: show that the bottom line returns were there and then the And peace was being able to build from the ground up office and Cairo allowed us to tap into what is a massively talented Market of software engineers and data scientists that we could hire at a very substantial differentiated cost to what you'd be able to hire if you'd be able to hire it in the US.
Evan Anderson: Yeah, absolutely in do you think that helped ease might find technology is a route to oil and gas and that maybe a story that resonates a little bit differently this go-round.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: You know my I'm a little bit I guess in my mind the way that I think about it is for me technology is an enabler to better understand how to invest and if I truly believe that we have a differentiated view of being able to invest and be able to create a pipeline of Investments. I'd rather not do it as a service but do it for myself. Right balance sheet if I were to
Evan Anderson: right
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: think about it as a service. I find that there might be, you know, some potential headwinds in that I see the the industry consolidating so they should be you know in the long term fewer buyers of technology and then furthermore what I see is you need you need somebody Within These companies he's that is able to both understand the language of the technology that they're wanting to implement and have influence over the people that make decisions as far as capital and and
Evan Anderson: Yep.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: And and that's tough. I think some have cracked that code but it isn't easy to you know, talk about machine learning have somebody within the company that believes it understands it can monetize it and show it to the the the Decision makers and make a make an
Evan Anderson: right
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: natural decision. And so what I see is is is it's a tough road. Yes potentially less Capital intensive, but no less harder to crack.
Evan Anderson: Yeah, I know. I guess my question was I totally agree with you? I guess my question was more on the lines of a Quant approach to private markets as opposed to a service or or simply something that that that augments our enables a team executing on a traditional kind of path. Do you see that story resonating with with with endowments or Pension funds do you see technology as you know, you know in it could be applied to any real asset oil and gas is one of many potentially but do you see kind of a Quant approach to private markets as being a story that may resonate with that audience?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: I think so. I think again, I think that it needs to be towards an end that ultimately brings a differentiated return. And so I think there's a lot of really exciting, you know, exciting technology out there that does a lot of really, you know, different pieces that that I would And I love him and enjoy and at the same time the lack of congruence or completeness and all history of being able to show success in creating value. And when I say value, I mean dollar value that you can show historically and consistently I think makes it to where unless you have that history of success and it's very clearly tied to the technology that you Use them you're going to have a
Evan Anderson: Yep.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: hard time selling it or it making a difference to the pitch that you're trying to make.
Evan Anderson: Totally great.
Adam Cohen:
Evan Anderson: So think about those value propositions when you think about the technologies that you guys have built in are utilizing do you tend to think about the acceleration of deployment of capital? And irr do you think roic you think of just being able to to scale your business with less overhead in in asked energy and a budget or all of the above?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: It's really an all of the above. The first one is consistency of underwriting at a discount at multiple of investor cash. So what you said was going to happen did it happen and if it didn't why it didn't it happen and then being able happen and then being able to do that
Evan Anderson: right
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: at scale and thus with you know, the ability to grow the pipeline that you are exercising this underwriting process. With a team that looks similar to what it looks today and where it's not slightly bigger. I'd basically multiples different to the growth that you expect to be able to manage on an asset level.
Adam Cohen: So how do you quantitatively assign value to technology when it was in place from the very beginning? So how do you determine what the value of the technology is? And the return that it's provided to you and and investors?
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: I think for us we don't even really get into technology and valuation to also technology is an enabler mechanism that we are and that's not really up for grabs. What's up for grabs is the end product that creates and so what we think about when we talk to investors is here's the assets. Here's the pipeline is the history of the results that it has created and how we managed it and So that you know, this is enabled by the fact that we have these things but it's not really what's up for grabs.
Adam Cohen: Are there technologies that have performed exceptionally? Well that you would recommend other companies to consider adopting and others that you've either sidelined or removed from your system now that you're in round 4 of your Capital race.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: Nothing that comes particularly to mind. I think that there's a lot of different technologies that are all really have, you know, value-add to me that the important thing that we have is kind of a central thesis of how to invest and the technology enables the breaking of those of the silos of the different groups. To think about the investment and creates consistency in how we do it and accountability in how we've done and so I don't think I'm saying anything that is earth-shattering. I think you can do this through various different technologies that are out in combination. You just need to have a culture that kind of follows through and is consistent in doing so much more so than a technology in it of itself.
Evan Anderson: Saint Louis, you said that the technology was a A non-negotiable for you when you started out on your own path here. What was the turning point in your journey that they created such conviction for you.
Luis Antonio Rodriguez: You know the I think it came with the understanding or maybe settling to the fact that I'm I have a lot of biases that I can only see by the fact that data is able to discern whether the bias is playing. Effect or not and a person whom I trust that judgment on and we have data on which to base the conversation. I can have a different point of view that makes me step back on any given decision that I'm about to make and so I think at some point during my process of managing frat Cruise implementing statistics to understand the relationship between operations and costs at Columbia business school and then Brigham it all kind of matured to a point where I thought you know people and data together with trust in judgment but being so that bye-bye data was a winning way. Being able to invest at least in the long term, you know, you can have one one shot at luck and and call yourself. Very good. If you're thinking about 10 20 years of consistency, I think...
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