In 2021 we have seen a bounce-back of global oil prices, a resurgent global economy, and a buoyant driving season, fueled by the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines. We have also seen the initial policy signposts from the new administration, and the resurgence of the virus, both here in the U.S., and other parts of the world.

In this session Mark Snead, President and economist at RegionTrack, Inc. will provide his view of what we might expect to see through 2022. Attend this session to get his expert perspective of the economic outlook for the industry as a whole, as well as for specific segments and regions of the energy-producing business.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the critical drivers and scenarios most likely to impact demand for oil & gas in a post-Covid environment
• Assess the differential impact on various regions and sectors of the oil & gas industry
• Analyze the implications of changing economic dynamics on oil and gas investment, production, and workforce decisions

Get down to basics about ESG and what it takes to implement a program. Hear from our panel experts who have been grass roots participants in implementation efforts for organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize a basic definition of ESG
• Identify the key components of a basic ESG strategy formation
• Determine key personnel and tools to consider in adoption of an ESG strategy

Attracting and maintaining top talent has and continues to be a focus of oil and gas companies. With today’s competitive market, what are you doing to ensure your organization has the best talent for today and tomorrow? This session will help you create a strategy to attracting and maintain top talent in today’s competitive market.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the importance of educating young professionals about the oil & gas industry
• Identify and outline ways to attract and retain top talent
• Determine what companies are doing now post COVID

Review cybersecurity trends, threats, the impacts and lessons learned from COVID-19, discuss key industry best practices, and predictions for the end of 2021 and beyond.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify cybersecurity trends & statistics
• Recognize current cybersecurity threats & concerns
• Analyze the impacts & lessons learned from COVID-19
• Recognize key industry best practices
• Assess predictions for 2021 & beyond

In this session, we'll look at relevant tax legislation that has passed Congress this year or is still in the works, including changes for businesses and those specifically impacting the oil and gas industry. In looking at what the future may hold on the legislative front, we'll also discuss the political landscape and the outlook for the 2022 midterm elections. 

Learning Objectives:

• Assess recent legislative changes in the business arena and specifically in the oil and gas sector
• Recognize current and potential relevant tax legislative proposals
• Analyze the political deadlines and landscape and their impact on legislation

Join Will Braeutigam, Deloitte’s SPAC Execution Leader, for a presentation on the special purpose acquisition company’s (“SPAC”) lifecycle, market trends and how its influencing the energy sector. The presentation will also cover common myths regarding SPACs and why many are choosing to go public via the SPAC vehicle.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess the SPAC lifecycle, market trends and how its influencing the energy sector
• Identify the accounting and SEC requirements of SPAC transactions

This session will explore relevant topics in financial reporting and accounting for entities in the oil and gas industry.

Learning Objectives:

• Determine recent accounting pronouncements and potential considerations for oil and gas entities
• Identify ongoing projects on the FASB’s agenda and relevant status updates
• Recognize trends and observations from SEC activities and staff comments and speeches that may affect oil and gas entities

Phrases such as remote work, hybrid work, the new normal, employee engagement, and future of work are pervasive in today's discussions about the workforce. In this session, we'll cut through the noise and focus on what business leaders need to know in today's climate to create a digital workplace that accelerates productivity and increases employee loyalty.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess the digital workplace landscape
• Identify workplace factors that greatly influence employee experience

Rather than focusing on the growing emphasis on transparency with respect to the tax policies and practices of companies as ESG takes on greater significant, this course will address the sustainability aspects of ESG and will acquaint the attendee with the various tax incentives that exist and are being proposed as the transition from fossil fuels to green energy occurs and gathers momentum. Of primary focus will be the tax incentives, current market conditions and current transactional issues for carbon capture and sequestration (CCUS), green hydrogen, solar and wind. Pending proposed federal tax legislation in the area will be addressed also along with its potential impact on the industry and transactions.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the various sustainable/renewable energy tax incentives that exist currently and that are being proposed
• Assess transactional and other market issues that are being encountered in the sustainable/renewable energy space.

There is a great opportunity to expand the available technologies that will lead the global energy industry in the 21st century, and this opportunity is being met head-on by the Colorado School of Mines.  The Mines Global Energy Future initiative will produce annual programming focused on the role of oil and gas, renewable energy, carbon capture utilization and storage, supply chain transparency, emissions monitoring, circular economy and more – themes that all reflect Mines’ scientific and technical expertise across the energy system and demonstrates the university’s cradle-to-cradle approach to creating a sustainable global energy future.  In this session, we will discuss the strategies that we will use to fund and develop new startup companies that will create and deploy these new technologies.  This will include the development of new business incubator and accelerators, Gap Funds, Innovation Funds and Venture Funds specifically designed to rapidly accelerate progress and deployment of these technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the basic concepts of the Global Energy Futures Initiative
• Assess the processes used by Business Incubators and Accelerators
• Recognize the difference between Gap Funds, Innovation Funds and Venture Funds

Participants in this session will gain insights to current financial reporting issues and risks, including areas of restatement, GAAP interpretive issues, areas of potential comment from the SEC staff and orientation to issues in the current financial reporting environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize current financial and reporting issues from a regulatory perspective
• Identify and gain insight on financial reporting risks from a regulatory perspective

Environmental, Social and Governance considerations have moved to the forefront of investor focus. With sustainability and climate change concerns driving policy changes and investor preferences towards advancing energy transition, oil and gas companies have high risk exposures to environmental and social factors, including carbon transition, waste and pollution and responsible production. Moody’s has introduced ESG scores along with credit impact scores to explain how ESG risks impact credit ratings. This session will cover Moody’s approach to assessing environmental and social risk exposure by industry sector and individual company ESG and Credit Impact scores.

Learning Objectives:

• Determine your understanding of ESG risk exposures for oil and gas companies
• Recognize how Moody's scores ESG risks and how those risks are incorporated into company credit ratings

In this session we will summarize the Oil and Gas market environment, discuss how companies use accounting information and one company’s approach to cost transformation.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate how the undersupply of Oil markets and gas markets have led to high commodity prices
• Recognize that practical accounting for managers differs from GAAP accounting
• Determine how a change management cost transformation approach can be disruptive and highly effective

In recent years, the concept of the “social license to operate” has gained increasing traction. This is usually defined as the level of acceptance of a project among communities, stakeholders, and the public. The costs of public and stakeholder opposition can be considerable, and projects will not be profitable or sustainable over the long term without this social license. The term has also been used more broadly to determine the level of public and stakeholder trust that a company possesses overall—and once lost, that trust can be extremely difficult to regain.

In this session learn more about the social license to operate and why DEI and ESG are industry imperatives and important to demonstrate to investors, employees, and society.   

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the 3 elements of a social license to operate: legitimacy, credibility and trust
• Recognize why ESG and specifically an inclusive culture is imperative for the energy industry
• Determine how the "S" really plays a role in the license to operate -
• Identify ways companies can and should demonstrate social proof of all they do in the ESG and DEI space

Learn about the challenges in estimating Fair Value during times when there activity in the marketplace is less than normal.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize and become familiar with the application of Fair Value in financial reporting
• Determine how to identify illiquid markets
• Analyze some of the complexities and considerations in estimating Fair Value in challenging markets

What do you get when you bring an attorney and a CPA in the room to discuss oil and gas trends?...Valuable insight on top-of-mind tax implications when getting deals done in the current market. Join us for a roundtable discussion on the opportunities and challenges many CFOs/controllers face when putting together a new deal or divesting as well as ongoing hot button tax issues.

Learning Objectives:

• Determine the associated tax implications when structuring new deals or selling/exchanging assets
• Recognize and gain insight on the current tax challenges in the space (carried interest, employee issues, legislation updates)

This session will discuss the next regulation which will impact essential businesses, while also presenting today's challenges of securing an O&G business.  In a world where every morning brings news of a new cyberattack, what strategy works, and what can take an organization from being defensive to offensive when dealing with threats?   

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how fraud, remote work, and IoT will bring about the next big regulation.
• Determine the most important part of a cyber defense

This session will explore the effects of the recent rash of bankruptcies in the upstream oil and gas sector (Extraction, Chesapeake, etc.) has on midstream oil, gas and water contracts Specifically, what effect does a producer's ability to reject an acreage dedication in bankruptcy have on the terms and economics of midstream contracts. Furthermore, are there alternative legal and contract structures that could return the original risk-reward proposition?

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate acreage dedications and covenants running with the land
• Recognize executory contracts and why an acreage dedication is now viewed as an executory contract

In this session you will discover how to simplify merger and acquisition data integration into any ERP by following a straight-forward methodology and validation approach. Get your data in right within a tight timeline.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the Acquisition Roadmap and life during the TSA period
• Identify and outline ways to manage data integration activities
• Recognize the best approach for testing management and success factors
• Determine tips, tricks, and best practices for future acquisitions

The last few years have been a wild ride for oil and gas prices and upstream operators' activity levels. As we move toward a full reopening of the economy, higher hydrocarbon prices are allowing operators to return to the drill bit while still meeting investor demands for capital constraints and real returns. But increased focus on ESG concerns and climate change is forcing operators to consider more than just dollars and cents when they make an investment decision. In this session, Neil H. Little, Vice President and Reserves Engineer at Netherland, Sewell and Associates, Inc., will discuss the current economics of investing in U.S. basins, and how carbon capture could provide operators with the chance to increase returns by utilizing their reservoir rock a second time.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the economics of different basins across the United States
• Identify the impacts of hydrocarbon prices, capital and operating expenses, and taxes in calculating break-even economics
• Reocognize the opportunity carbon capture presents operators to generate additional revenues from reservoirs they already own

Have you created a culture of a security within your organization? It's not a matter of if an incident will occur, it's a matter of when. Planning for a cybersecurity incident now can save you time and money in the future. Not getting cybersecurity right could mean going out of business when a breach occurs. This session will help you create a culture of security as well as learn about current trends and next steps.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize cybersecurity trends
• Identify the risks of error for your organization
• Determine and outline next steps to mitigate risk

This session is an introduction to restructuring as a tool for adapting to changing markets.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize restructuring as reorganizing to achieve efficiency and adapt to changing markets
• Identify and learn about recaps and roll ups

This session will cover major trends and outlook relative to various forms of energy capital, evolving terms and capital requirements to access. 

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key energy capital trends
• Assess the outlook on how firms will access capital

In February 2020, bp unveiled a new purpose and set out to reimagine energy for people and our planet knowing it would require reinventing bp. Jack Collins, President of Denver-based BPX Energy, will review bp’s ambition to become a net zero company by 2050 along with 20 aims set forth to achieve this and other goals. In particular he will focus on BPX’s contribution to these goals – specifically net zero emissions in operations, reducing methane emissions, and advocating for change. The session will also cover specifics for finance professionals including how the energy transition impacts tracking, accounting and compliance implications for financial reporting; changes to business fundamentals including increased electrification; and changing ways of work with increased automation.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the changing energy landscape and implications for companies
• Identify changing business fundamentals and ways of working
• Recognize emerging accounting and tracking requirements in this changing environment