Two Oil Leaders Call for Put the 'E' Back into 'Exploration & Production'

August 26, 2025--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Oil and gas companies need to put more money into exploring for new reserves, and less cash in investors' pockets. That's the upshot of a roundtable discussion August 18 at the 30th annual EnerCom Denver energy investment conference. Of course, since investors, some of whom hold stakes in oil and gas companies, were part of the audience, the executives didn't say the quiet part out loud -- that oil and gas companies should stop sending such a high percentage of their free cash flow to investors and redirect in to exploration activities. But it was easy enough to connect the dots.