Carlsbad Mayor's Energy Summit to feature industry, government leaders in virtual format

New Mexico and energy industry leaders will converge in Carlsbad next week for the 2020 Carlsbad Mayor’s Energy Summit.

The annual event, one of the city’s biggest each year, is held each fall to celebrate the contributions the industry makes to Carlsbad and the Permian Basin of southeast New Mexico.

The usually full-day event will be held virtually this year between 9 and 11 a.m., Sept. 24, shot live from the Pecos River Village Conference Center.

Many of the guest speakers will call in remotely from other locations, and City of Carlsbad public information officer Kyle Marksteiner said the event would follow the State's COVID-19 public health orders. 

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It will be broadcast live on the Carlsbad Foundation’s website: carlsbadfoundation.org/summit. More details were forthcoming.

The event will include several speakers from the oil and gas sector and New Mexico state government discussing the industry progress in the last year and the Permian Basin’s role, and the presentation of the 2020 Spirit of the Oilfield awards

Former Carlsbad Current-Argus publisher and Director of Washington Ranch Danny Fletcher will serve as master of ceremonies.

Director of Investments at Mack Energy Corporation Billy Munn, who joined the company in 2004 was also planned to appear.

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He was president of the Retex Gas marketing division at Tom Brown Inc. and served as manager of gas supplies for refineries at Holly Corp after graduating from University of Texas on a golf scholarship in 1960.

Rick Cannon, Delaware Basin production manager with XTO Energy was also speaking at the summit.

He began his career with ExxonMobil as a reservoir surveillance engineer for assets in the Gulf of Mexico, and held engineering, operations and management positions in New Orleans, Houston, Alaska, Australia and Norway.

Cannon joined XTO in 2013 as an operations manager overseeing the company’s Haynesville shale operations in eastern Texas.

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The event will also include a presentation from Vicki Hollub, chief executive officer of Occidental Petroleum since 2016.

She was the first woman to lead a major American oil company and attended the University of Alabama where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mineral engineering. Hollub was also in the 2016 class of Distinguished Engineering Fellow from the University of Alabama College of Engineering.  

Also from Occidental, General Manager of Permian Resources Babatunde Cole was slated to speak. Cole oversees development and prod of unconventional reservoirs in the Delaware Basin in New Mexico.

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He joined Occidental in 2012, and previously worked as an engineer for Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil in Canada, holding Bachelor of Science degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science from Western University in Ontario, Canada and a Master of Science from the University of Houston.

Aside from industry leaders, the Summit will host several local government representatives both at the state and local level.

Former New Mexico governor and former chancellor of New Mexico State University Garrey Carruthers was scheduled to speak.

Carruthers also served as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and director of the New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute at NMSU.

He was also the state chair of the Republican Part of New Mexico and U.S. deputy secretary of the interior for land and resources from 1981 to 1984.

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New Mexico Department of Transportation District 2 Engineer Timothy Parker was planned to give a talk on roads and transportation in the region.

NMDOT’s District 2 includes Carlsbad and Lea counties and is the biggest of the state’s six transportation districts, encompassing several main thoroughfares into the Permian Basin oilfields.

The District serves 133 communities and maintains 7,750 lane miles – about a quarter of the state’s road network.

District 2 also has the most four-lane miles in New Mexico and no interstate highways.

Parker will lead a $300 million state-funded roadway investment in Eddy and Lea counites that will see improvements to State Roads 31 and 128.

Eddy County Manager Allen Davis was also expected to speak and address roads in the county.

He assumed the role of county manager in September 2019, after a 37-year career in the oil and gas industry spanning New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, California and Australia.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.