After over 14 years on Mars, the Curiosity rover has climbed ~1000 meters of sedimentary deposits in Gale crater to the elevation of a striking boxwork pattern that helped motivate the Gale crater landing site. In this interval, wide, road-like linear ridges with dark central lines intersect at right angles around wind-eroded, sand-filled depressions ~10 meters across. Before landing, we interpreted the ridges as fracture haloes, implying a sequence of formation steps:

• deposition
• lithification
• fracturing of the host rock, which may have been contemporaneous with
• fluid flow through the fractures under sufficient pressure to cause the fluid to percolate into ~2-3 meters of rock on either side, creating a cementation or alteration zone around the fracture, and
• preferential eolian erosion of weaker zones in the rock. Now, after 8 months on the ground exploring these features, we stand by the general interpretation of the ridges as fracture alteration zones but also have more detailed questions! I will share the images from Mars, showing fracture hardening, fracture alteration zones, and evidence for groundwater flow.

Today, unconventional reservoirs in the Permian Basin produce more than five million barrels of oil per day, while the Marcellus Shale delivers over twenty-five billion cubic feet of natural gas. These production volumes are so large that it is difficult to imagine bigger plays ever being discovered. Yet, as this talk will demonstrate, the history of our industry suggests that much larger and more prolific unconventional plays will almost certainly be found outside the United States.

Larger hydrocarbon accumulations. Sweeter sweet spots. Thicker pay sections. In theory, international unconventional opportunities should represent an explorer’s best possible scenario. In practice however, unconventional exploration outside the United States has struggled to gain traction except in a few countries because of numerous mostly above-ground challenges.

This however is about to change since unconventional reservoir technologies such as four-mile long laterals, methods for optimizing proppant placement, use of hydraulic completion units, and the ability to drill more than 21,000 feet of section in 48 hours have evolved to a point that technology advancements can economically overcome most above ground challenges, especially when used to develop reservoirs as good or better than the best Tier 1 acreage in the United States.

Now is therefore the time for international unconventionals to fulfill their promise. The time when acreage in the most prolific sweet spots will be captured. The time when plays larger than the Permian Basin and Marcellus Shale will be discovered. The time when an explorer’s dream will become reality.

Attend this talk to learn more about the promise of international unconventionals and join the discussion during the Q&A period if you have insights to share.

Produced water management has become an increasingly important regulatory and environmental issue in Texas oil and gas operations. Rising production volumes have expanded reliance on Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class II disposal wells, drawing greater attention to well integrity, subsurface fluid migration, and induced seismicity risks. At the same time, advances in recycling, beneficial reuse, and emerging critical mineral extraction technologies are reshaping how produced water is managed, introducing new legal, regulatory, and contractual considerations for operators, landowners, and regulators across the state.

The energy industry is beginning to use a new class of systems often described as agentic AI. These systems are designed to handle multi-step technical work, check assumptions, apply domain rules, and coordinate information across different datasets. The goal is not to replace engineering or land expertise, but to provide a reliable digital partner that can reduce manual effort and support faster, more consistent decisions. This session explains how these agent-style systems can support a wide range of upstream and midstream workflows. Examples include early screening of opportunities, interpretation of operational context, generation of structured technical summaries, and coordination of reservoir or commercial evaluations. These are only a few of the areas where operators are experimenting with this approach.

The talk focuses on practical design principles rather than hype. Topics include how to structure agent workflows, how to connect them with proprietary and physics-based models, and how to build controls that keep output traceable and defensible. Attendees will gain a clear, realistic view of how agentic systems can improve performance, safety, and decision quality in daily operations.