Energy Bytes

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Energy Bytes with John Kalfayan and Bobby Neelon. Your essential guide to the intersection of data and energy. This podcast dives deep into the world of energy, shedding light on how data, AI, and technology are revolutionizing this sector. Each episode equips listeners with insights into the most efficient tools and resources, paving the way for a data-driven future in energy. From technical nuances to broader industry trends, Energy Bytes offers an unparalleled perspective on the evolution of the energy industry. Join us as we decode the algorithms of energy, one byte at a time.

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August 13, 2026Episode 851 hr 13 min

EP 84: Ben Dickinson & Bryan Frantz from NexTier Completion Solutions

Everybody in oil and gas has been sitting on mountains of completions data and barely using it. Ben Dickinson and Bryan Frantz of NexTier Completion Solutions built the fix from the inside out, an end to end frac data platform made by the people running the pumps. John and Bobby get into why the closer you are to the equipment the closer you are to the truth, where frac data standards are headed, and whether efficiency has hit its ceiling. Plus AI coding and the hunt for a good Pittsburgh wing. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 0:00:00 - Back from summer break 0:00:41 - Trying to keep pace with AI 0:10:16 - Who NexTier is and where it came from 0:12:22 - Building an end to end frac data platform 0:15:17 - The industry's siloed data problem 0:20:39 - Agnostic architecture and one tool for everyone 0:26:44 - Borrowing solved problems from other industries 0:31:41 - The tech stack and starting greenfield 0:35:17 - Control systems and the job data schema 0:44:11 - Why frac data has no standard 0:47:08 - Fleet Stream and getting data to customers 0:53:23 - Has operational efficiency hit its ceiling 0:59:58 - How opinionated should the software be 1:03:08 - Physics vs data driven modeling 1:08:41 - The AI coding tools they use 1:10:35 - Western PA wings and pierogi https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

April 10, 2026Episode 841 hr 20 min

EP 83: Paul Brown from BDE Data

Paul Brown, Founder and Principal Engineer at BDE Data, joins John and Bobby all the way from Scotland for a conversation that covers a lot of ground. From his days as an international drilling engineer dodging pirates off the coast of West Africa to building WellSchematic.com and tackling the nightmare of digitizing 50-year-old multilingual well files, Paul is the rare person who speaks both languages fluently. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - Oil prices, energy costs, and life in Scotland vs Texas 01:50 - Paul's background and path from drilling to data 08:19 - WellSchematic.com and legacy well data as a service 10:52 - Drilling war stories: West Africa and the Falklands 15:00 - UK oil industry and energy policy 34:41 - Legacy well file digitization 38:06 - The PDF table extraction problem 42:22 - Open source models vs foundational models 44:31 - AI stack, data privacy, and cloud infrastructure 51:54 - AI's role in the upstream industry 56:04 - Getting tech adopted in the drilling world 59:06 - Coding journey: from PHP and Laravel to Python 1:02:22 - Advice for engineers getting into coding 1:09:38 - Programming languages and AI-assisted development 1:11:56 - Cursor and Claude Code 1:13:55 - Speed round: Scotland, whiskey, and cloud platforms https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

March 6, 2026Episode 831 hr 34 min

EP 82: John Ely, The Godfather of Frac

When you have 80 patents and a lifetime achievement award in hydraulic fracturing, you have seen some things. John William Ely, Founder of Ely and Associates Corp, and Jon Harper, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, talk frac history, pre-job diagnostics, the slick water revolution, geothermal, and why the industry keeps pumping the same thing and expecting different results. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - Intro and guest backgrounds 3:25 - John William Ely's origin story 7:45 - Offshore blowout and well control in the Middle East 11:25 - How fracturing has evolved over 50 years 19:30 - The slick water revolution and where we went wrong 27:40 - Pre-job diagnostics and what operators overlook 36:55 - Geothermal applications and completions challenges 43:50 - Parent-child well interaction and offset communication 47:00 - Refracing and diversion 54:15 - Increasing recovery factor 1:06:35 - Longer laterals, U-turn wells, and land-driven decisions 1:12:35 - Knowledge gaps in the next generation of engineers 1:25:20 - The untapped tight conventional opportunity 1:30:02 - Advice for young engineers entering the industry https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

February 27, 2026Episode 821 hr 9 min

EP 81: Deren, Dagen and Josh from Firm App

Owner relations in oil and gas has been shoved in a corner forever, basically a "here's your check, don't call me" situation, and Deren Boyd, Dagen Boyd, and Josh Wright, co-founders of Firm App, are building the platform to fix that. These three started in oilfield safety software with iScout, got acquired by KPA, and now they're tackling the massive gap between operators and their surface and mineral owners with AI-powered multichannel communication. We're talking voice agents with adjustable accents, auto-responding emails, chat widgets that actually work, and an owner-facing app that puts payment info and well data in people's pockets. Plus the OKC crew gives their take on Devon and Expand relocating and what that means for the city. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 Devon and Expand leaving OKC, what it means on the ground 4:42 What is owner relations and why has it been ignored 7:18 Timing and the generational shift driving tech adoption 10:10 How operators have been duct-taping owner relations together 12:05 The owner-facing app and multichannel approach 14:38 AI voice agents, email auto-response, and chatbot workflows 18:15 Building and rebuilding AI architecture every six months 21:29 Under the hood on voice AI, latency, and conversation nuance 26:37 School districts, 10,000 page websites, and unexpected use cases 34:58 The iScout origin story and oilfield safety software 42:17 Getting thrown in the penalty box and winning work back with data 46:13 Revenue statements, vendor portals, and what owners actually ask about 52:24 NAPE plans and the land community 54:48 Business model and implementation timeline 55:58 NIL, college athletics, and the dumpster fire 1:04:36 Dev tools, Claude Code, and the future of SaaS https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

February 20, 2026Episode 811 hr 24 min

EP 80: Kayla Ball from SensorUp

Bobby Neelon and John Kalfayan sit down with Kayla Ball to break down why the methane compliance space is stuck in the trough of disillusionment, how she ended up cleaning up Petra's flat file nightmare at IHS, and why vibe coding with Claude feels like training your own replacement. They dig into sensor data chaos across ops teams, why public data companies should be worried, the wild difference between building lovable prototypes versus commercial deployments with SOC2 governance, and how AI is forcing everyone to confront the fact that humans shouldn't be entering data into anything anymore. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - Devon and Chesapeake leaving Oklahoma City 4:50 - What SensorUp actually does beyond sensors 11:40 - Methane space challenges and compliance markets 18:30 - Why standardizing sensor data is so hard 26:40 - Getting into product management from geology 32:45 - AI automating regulatory workflows and field inspections 38:50 - Vibe coding prototypes versus productizing for enterprises 45:15 - Public data moat questions for IHS and Enverus 52:30 - Duck Lake and licensing components over custom dev 58:15 - Product management changing with Claude Code 1:04:40 - Data problems holding back AI adoption 1:11:20 - Speed round on youth sports complexes and baseball 1:22:40 - Hot takes and wrapping up https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

February 13, 2026Episode 801 hr 6 min

EP 79: Hussein Shel from AWS

Hussein Shel, CTO and head of business development for energy and utilities at Amazon Web Services, joins Bobby and John to talk about his journey from Chevron engineer to cloud technology leader. They explore how AI coding tools are changing the game for energy companies, why the barrier to entry for building apps has never been lower, and what it means when your reservoir engineer can now spin up their own solutions in minutes instead of months. Hussein shares why he thinks we're only scratching the surface of what's possible when you combine domain expertise with modern AI tools, discusses the cultural shifts needed for energy companies to move fast, and explains why he's both excited about AI's potential and concerned about its massive energy demands. If you’re into energy tech, you’re in the right place. John and Bobby have built a deep catalog of conversations with the minds modernizing energy inside companies like AWS, Snowflake, Devon Energy, and more. Listen to the full library on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch at https://collide.io/community. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - Welcome and introductions 03:14 - Early AI experiments and low-code tools 08:11 - Core principles that haven't changed 12:04 - Managing costs and governance 15:15 - Data access and shadow IT 17:16 - Building apps in weeks vs months 19:25 - Domain-specific foundation models 21:10 - AWS infrastructure and energy footprint 26:21 - Custom silicon and partnerships 29:11 - Current AI model landscape 33:36 - Enterprise adoption challenges 38:58 - Cultural change from the top 42:06 - Scoping problems and quick wins 46:16 - Legacy systems and technical debt 52:18 - Building AI-first energy companies 56:57 - Tech debt acceleration 1:00:04 - Speed round and favorite spots https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

December 23, 2025Episode 7948 min

Collide AI 2025 Wrapped Part 1: Why Forward Deployed Engineers Ship When AI Pilots Fail

Collide AI 2025 Wrapped Part 1 turns into a real talk on why forward deployed engineers win where AI pilots stall, with Michael Cortez, John, and Nick Smart swapping war stories from completions, geophysics, and the startup trenches while they map out how Collide Enterprise moves past basic chat tools into search plus workflows that actually hold up in the real world. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 Setup and intros 00:45 Michael’s path and joining Collide 01:59 Nick’s background and role shift 03:08 Collide Enterprise vs community 04:16 Search, RAG, and workflow evolution 06:31 Why out of the box AI falls short 08:41 Time savings and real work focus 11:39 Single source of truth vision 13:16 Small teams scaling bigger assets 17:18 AI adoption vs past tech hype 19:26 Digital transformation missing link 20:20 Why FDEs make pilots work 23:36 Biggest learnings this year 31:52 What’s next in 2026 38:57 Bold predictions for 3 to 5 years 47:37 Fine tuned models teaser and wrap https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters https://app.collide.io/content/RprbJAD

December 5, 2025Episode 781 hr 9 min

EP 78: Bruce Holman & Corey Scott from Energy Payables

Bruce Holman and Corey Scott showed up ready to blow up the idea that accounts payable has to be slow, messy, and stuck in the past. They walked us through how Energy Payables is flipping the script with a platform that actually makes sense for operators and vendors, think cleaner workflows, real transparency, and smart tech like AI doing the heavy lifting instead of some poor soul buried in spreadsheets. Between the stories from the field, the back-office chaos they’re fixing, and the vision they have for where oil and gas operations should be headed, this conversation feels like a peek at how the industry finally gets out of its own way and into something a whole lot more efficient. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - Intro 01:42 - EnergyLink Platform 08:37 - JIBLink Overview 14:15 - Understanding JIBs 18:10 - Vision for the Platform 20:57 - Evolution of Tech Stack 26:08 - Introduction to Energy Payables 28:18 - What is Energy Payables? 30:14 - Network Effects in Energy Sector 32:50 - Vendor Pain Points 38:15 - Energy Payables Pricing Model 40:25 - AI Impact on Energy Ogre 44:05 - AI for Normalizing Frac Data 47:43 - Data Extraction from PDFs 50:35 - Azure Cloud Solutions 52:07 - Introduction to DataFoundry 55:54 - Token Models Explained 58:12 - Overview of DuckDB 59:04 - Energy Payables API Insights 1:02:30 - Speed Round Discussion 1:06:44 - Contact Information 1:08:35 - Conclusion and Wrap Up https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

November 28, 2025Episode 771 hr 12 min

EP 77: Justin McBroom, Operations Data Specialist

Justin has a way of making the oilfield and the data world feel like they’ve always belonged together. He walked us through how he’s helped teams untangle messy workflows, clean up data quality issues, and actually make analytics useful instead of overwhelming. From his time at Marathon Oil to experimenting with tools like Snowflake and Alteryx, he’s all about boosting efficiency and giving people the confidence to make smarter decisions. We also ended up talking about where AI actually fits into oil and gas, not the hype, but the stuff that genuinely moves the needle. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - Intro 01:12 - Justin McBroom Introduction 05:29 - Data as a Strategic Asset 09:08 - Accessing Data Effectively 11:04 - Optimizing Spotfire Performance 14:30 - Common Pitfalls to Avoid 17:44 - Empowering Your Workforce 19:50 - Alteryx Virtual Query Builder Insights 27:38 - Justin’s 100+ Day Streak Achievement 29:37 - Analyzing Most Popular Posts 31:12 - Strategies for Successful Posts 33:55 - The Dynamics of Social Media Posting 37:18 - The Return of Vine 40:06 - Passionate Posts Discussion 46:02 - AI Designed for Success 50:29 - Recommendations for Companies 55:20 - Encouraging Tool Exploration 57:28 - Accountability in Work 1:06:06 - Speed Round Q&A 1:09:04 - Favorite Houston Restaurant Picks 1:09:31 - Tools Everyone Should Use 1:10:27 - How to Connect with Justin https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

November 7, 2025Episode 761 hr 18 min

EP 76: Christy Hopkins & Philip Heggelund from PandoScape

PandoScape is on a mission to make data actually make sense. We sat down with Christy Hopkins and Philip Heggelund, the CEO and CTO duo behind the company, to talk about how they’re untangling the mess of data integration in energy. From subsurface insights to cloud headaches, they’re rethinking how information flows across the industry. We got into the good stuff: cleaning up bad data, breaking down silos, and figuring out how to build real trust in data systems. Christy and Philip aren’t just building tools, they’re building a future where energy companies actually use their data instead of drowning in it. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - Intro 01:23 - Christy’s International Experience 03:22 - Recent Cloud Outages 06:05 - On-Prem AI Servers 10:59 - PandoScape Overview 18:05 - PandoScape's Services 20:50 - Unique Features of PandoScape 23:20 - PandoScape’s Technology Stack 25:00 - PandoScape’s Business Model 26:40 - Target Market for PandoScape 28:20 - Future Plans for PandoScape 30:00 - PandoScape’s Funding History 31:40 - Hiring Plans at PandoScape 33:20 - PandoScape’s Culture and Values 34:15 - Data Engineering vs Data Science 36:10 - Google vs Bing Comparison 40:10 - Impact of COVID-19 45:58 - The AI Hype Cycle 49:15 - Choosing the Right Tools 51:00 - Importance of Quality Data 52:32 - MCP Server Overview 56:25 - gRPC Technology 57:49 - MCP Server Functionality 1:00:32 - The Magic Layer Concept 1:06:08 - Memory of Things 1:12:30 - Speed Round 1:15:57 - Contacting the PandoScape Team 1:16:40 - Making a Good Mimosa 1:17:22 - Making a Good Margarita 1:17:33 - How to Drink Tequila https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters