February 28, 2013 at 10:25 am

Two weeks ago, I attended the Winter Meeting for the North American Prospect Expo (NAPE) in Houston, Texas. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (Anadarko), my summer employer, was gracious enough to send me there to learn more about Anadarko and the oil and gas industry.  For those who are unaware, NAPE is the world’s largest exploration and production expo that spans several days. According to NAPE’s website, the NAPE Expo provides a marketplace for the buying, selling and trading of oil and gas prospects and producing properties via exhibit booths.  Roughly 20,000 people attended the expo and over 1,000 companies exhibited at the event.

Only one word can describe NAPE: stunning. The expo was contained in the George R. Brown Convention Center and made Jerry Jones’ football stadium look like a shoe box. Every company spent thousands of dollars on their booth with the intent to seal the big deal, show off their future or to intimidate the competition. Throughout the day, industry experts, leaders and consumers shared their ideas through lectures series, presentations and networking. It was unbelievable how much you can learn about the oil and gas in a short period of time.

Anadarko showed me that I made the right decision to work for them during my visit to Houston. I was given first class treatment and every Anadarko employee was extremely hospitable. The Land Division setup several meet and greet events for me to interact with my future co-workers and educated me on the future of Anadarko by explaining their strategy. Additionally, it was great to meet my fellow interns from different school, but specifically Oklahoma College of Law and South Texas College of Law. They gave me a different perspective on the law school experience and I am excited to get to know them this summer!

As a whole, NAPE was an excellent experience and it helped me to further my career. I am very thankful to Anadarko for being so kind and sending me on such an eye opening trip. Everyone at Anadarko treated me so well, I wanted to drop out of law school and start working the next day. I really want to thank Brett and Katie, the Anadarko TU campus recruiters, for helping me over the last few months. They came to TU’s campus to recruit and from there have been my contacts for getting assimilated to the Denver office. Hopefully, you all will be able to meet them when they return! (That is if they ever come down from the mountain) I hope you all enjoyed the post this week!

Keep your stick on the ice,

Andrew