Peter A Snell

Tax deductions are simply an entry point, not a full-orbed strategy. Investing in oil and gas can deliver real tax efficiency. But we need to dig deeper and ask: are the fundamentals sound? No rational person risks $100,000 just to save $30,000 in taxes if the remaining $70,000 is exposed to poor execution. Production matters, asset integrity matters, and growth opportunity matters. Best practices don’t position projects around deductions. They position them around durable assets and disciplined execution. If the foundation works, the tax benefit simply enhances the return. If it doesn’t, the deduction won’t save you.

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Vision without execution drifts. Execution without vision shrinks. I've seen both. Neither builds anything that lasts. In capital-intensive work, this tension is expensive. You can have a compelling story and no discipline to back it. Or you can have operational precision and no clarity on what you're actually building toward. Both will cost you. What holds the two together isn't a framework or a management style. It's the standard you operate under. When the work is governed by something higher than ego or optics, vision stops being ambition dressed up as strategy. Execution becomes faithfulness and drives performance. Decisions get made against a fixed reference point, not a shifting one. Practically, that means matching competence to responsibility. Tying authority to accountability. Refusing to justify bad decisions just because the numbers seem to demand it. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much." — Luke 16:10

Most people think oil and gas are about fuel. In reality, it’s much bigger than that. Upstream development means we harvest hydrocarbons and move them into the supply chain. From there, they become part of more than 6,000 everyday products. Not just gasoline, but materials, components, and infrastructure. That’s the physical work. At PetroVybe, there’s a whole other layer underneath that. We operate in rural communities that need economic value through jobs and resource development. There’s nothing more American. And we do it with a clear understanding of who ultimately owns the resources. Resources are entrusted. People are entrusted. And opportunities are entrusted. That framing changes how you operate.

In development projects, consequences are real. Capital is exposed, communities are affected, and outcomes carry weight. That weight shapes judgment. Biblical stewardship treats work as an arena of formation. Decisions about timing, partners, and risk are not neutral. They cultivate habits. Conviction tested under pressure becomes steadiness. Discipline practiced repeatedly becomes credibility. Authority accumulates when responsibility is carried without compromise. The aim is sustained, utter faithfulness. Ecclesiastes 2:24: "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.”

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Something shifted in energy demand, and most people haven't caught up yet. Data centers are expanding. AI infrastructure is scaling. Industrial load is compounding. But here's what's different this time: The big technology firms aren't just buying power anymore. They're integrating backward into generation. Some are building their own capacity outright. When a buyer starts moving upstream to secure supply, that's not a trend. That's conviction. For producers, it opens a different kind of conversation, one beyond traditional channels. The question isn't whether demand is real. It's whether you can pair disciplined production with scalable infrastructure and bring it online responsibly. There's plenty of supply in the ground. The constraints are capital, speed, and execution. Moments like this don't come around often at the utility layer. The operators who win will be the ones who move with clarity. Biblical Stewardship in this environment means asking one question and not flinching from the answer: “Where does real demand meet real delivery?” That's where durable value gets built. "Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings." — Proverbs 22:29

Everyone's talking about the AI boom. Fewer people are talking about what has to be true for it to actually work. Demand is real. That part's not in question. But demand doesn't build itself into value, infrastructure does. Storage is still a constraint. Transmission takes years. Production has to be paired with usable delivery, or none of it moves. The opportunity right now isn't in the headline. It's in the layer beneath it, the utility infrastructure that has to exist before any of this scales the way people expect. That's where physics and economics stop arguing with each other. Risk gets reduced when it's mitigated by something so tangible. And tangible means you can produce it, move it, and deliver it where load actually sits. "The wise man builds his house on the rock." — Matthew 7:24

Experience does not equal expertise. In oil and gas, you can spend decades drilling wells and still misallocate capital if your strategy isn’t aligned with the asset. Expertise is having the humility to not consider yourself an expert. It’s wisdom earned through the compounding of both success and failures, to achieve continuous improvement in results. These are the fundamentals of expertise. They are slower and less flashy, but more durable. So where does one start developing expertise? Consider Proverbs. You can start with Chapter 1 just read a chapter a day. There are 31 chapters and you can finish it in a month.

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Jesus is not a background detail in how I run our business. He is the standard. My King is Jesus, and that changes what the work is for, how decisions get made, and what holds when the quarter is hard. Too many Christian leaders keep that private, as if conviction is something to be rationed around professional settings. That posture produces a divided leader, and a divided leader produces a confused team. State it clearly. Then let the work prove it. Authority forms in the consistency between what you say and what you do. Not in how carefully you manage the edges. "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." — Matthew 5:16 (ESV)

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My King is Jesus. I say that in investor meetings. I say it with partners who don't share that conviction. I say it with the team, with landowners, and with anyone who asks why we operate the way we do. That's not a values statement. It's a description of who is actually running this business. There's a version of Christian leadership that keeps faith carefully managed, present enough to be visible, hedged enough not to cost anything. That’s not what we were called to do. We were called to be bold in Christ. Jesus called himself God. He died publicly, and He rose, defeating death forever. That is either the most important truth in human history, or it isn't. I've staked my life and my business on the first. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." — Romans 1:16 (ESV)

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Demand destruction doesn't warn you. You plan for it now or you manage it later, and managing it later is more expensive. When prices rise fast, demand pulls back. When demand pulls back, production economics shift. The operators who survive that cycle aren't the ones who got lucky. They're the ones who built their model around fundamentals before the pressure arrived. It’s important when building forecasts and projections to use wholesale pricing because it’s conservative and ensures accountability. That can mean less sizzle in a pitch, but it’s more real (and don’t we all need some more of that?). Honest accounting of what an asset is actually worth is the foundation you need to build on. "The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them." — Proverbs 11:3 (ESV)

The Strait of Hormuz is a long way away from home, but it can have real-world consequences at home. It's a chokepoint for a significant share of the world's energy supply. When it's threatened, supply chains tighten, prices move, and the real cost of depending on distant infrastructure becomes visible fast. Every barrel produced domestically is one less barrel held hostage to a geography we don't control. That's not a political argument. It's a resilience argument. Black swan events don't create the case for domestic energy investment. They just make it impossible to ignore. Just another reason why investing in local infrastructure makes us more resilient and stronger. “Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds.” — Proverbs 27:23

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Most oil and gas deals available lead with the tax deduction. The tax savings can be real. But the deduction is a feature of the investment, not the investment itself. The underlying asset still has to work. When we sit down with a prospective partner, we emphasize the failure that is certain along the journey to success. We walk through the risks, the worst-case scenario, and what has to go wrong for this to fail. That filters the room fast. It’s really about clarity about the opportunity in context of the real risk. This is really critical to the right partner fit, but it also honors the people who aren’t the right fit. They’re able to discern if the risk profile suits them. “For we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man.” — 2 Corinthians 8:21

Check out my latest article: “Oil Prices are Up. You Must Be Loving This…” linkedin.com/pulse/oil-pric… via @LinkedIn

There’s a growing appetite for “real assets.” Tangible production as opposed to paper trades and valuations. Energy sits squarely in that category. We produce something that people use every day. It powers infrastructure, industry, and daily life. That’s utility-level value. In uncertain markets, real assets regain attention because they do real work. But especially here, discipline is required. Production must be paired with growth. Equity must be supported by tangible output. Biblical Stewardship is about anchoring capital to durable value.