City Bank

Last week's Sixth Annual Oilfield Water Connection Conference in Irving delivered. As usual. Great work, Joseph Triepke and Peter Cook - you make it all look so easy. Conversations ranged from produced water and infrastructure, to AI/data centers, procurement bottlenecks, facility needs and everything in between. One of the best parts of these conferences is that the industry gets compressed into a few days. You reconnect with old friends, meet new people, hear where the market is moving and inevitably end up continuing conversations at airports, hotel courtyards and over a cold beverage after teardown. We even got to witness some lovely wedding photos being taken at the hotel in the midst of all of it all. I took a little walk one morning, pre-conference, and ran into some "art in public places" and really delighted in the moment. Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Lanmark booth, dropped a card in to win some “water,” grabbed a Lanmark Lizard, or simply said hello. THIS is why we “conference.” #OilfieldWaterMarkets #ProducedWater #PermianBasin #LanmarkEngineering #EPC #WaterInfrastructure #OilAndGas #MidlandTX Doug Bourgeois , Patrick Bailey - Data Midstream, Terri Cruz FEDCO - Fluid Equipment Development Company , Shelby Landgraf - The University of Texas Permian Basin , Natalie Johnson + Douglas Marcille, CPM, LSSBB - Lightning Dome Protectors , Logan Baker - Railroad Commission of Texas , Jeffrey Wehler - Keystone Clearwater Solutions , Jonathan Rehkopf - Texas Pacific Water Resources - Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL) , Ted Wooten - Railroad Commission of Texas (and then I had run into some friends at the airport on the way in and included their photos for good measure!).

Sometimes the “out there” ideas end up being the ones people remember most. Or at least, that was my plan. What started as a fun little conference giveaway turned into something much bigger than I expected. After the conference, four different attendees texted me photos and videos of their kids playing with their Lanmark Lizards™ . . . completely unprompted. And honestly? That may have been the best part of the entire event. Even cooler - multiple conference attendees asked for the contact information for the young entrepreneurs behind the Lanmark Lizards so they could order custom 3D printed items of their own. The lizards were created by 3D Finch - two young brothers taking their first steps into entrepreneurship and business ownership. Lanmark Engineering was proud to be their first commercial customer. In an industry built on infrastructure, engineering and problem solving, I think sometimes we forget how powerful creativity, encouragement and community can be too. A tiny colorful lizard somehow created: conversations, smiles, networking follow-up calls and business opportunities for young entrepreneurs. Not bad for a “crazy” conference idea. 😂 THIS is why we conference. (To the folks who "pre-ordered" your lizards pre-conference, I have them on my desk and will mail them to you this week). #PermianBasin #Engineering #Entrepreneurship #EPC #LanmarkEngineering #ProducedWater #SmallBusiness #Community #3DPrinting Leiken Finch

Spent time at the Permian Basin Water in Energy Conference April 7-9, 2026, and the takeaway is simple: Water isn’t a side issue anymore. (It really never was). Water is driving the future of the Permian. Key themes throughout this two day conference: water + energy + capital are fully connected; regulation is accelerating; infrastructure is the bottleneck (and CAPEX vs. OPEX); power + data centers are reshaping demand; tech is moving from theory to deployment, and end-use is the next frontier. The bottom line is that the conversation has shifted from “can we?” to “how fast can we build it?” That’s where strong EPC execution matters. At Lanmark Engineering, we’re focused on helping turn these conversations into real, buildable projects across SWDs, midstream systems, and water reuse infrastructure. Because in this next phase of the Permian, execution wins. Sponsors (A–Z): Aquafortus Technologies | B3 Insight | Big D Companies | Brown and Caldwell | Cascade Services LLC | Chevron | Commodore Midstream Partners | Concept Tanks - USA & Canada | ConocoPhillips | Coterra Energy | Deep Blue | Diamondback Energy | Envirotech Engineering | Eurofins | GCA | GelTech | GeoMark Research | HydroSource Midstream | Liberty Energy | Mustang Extreme Environmental Services | Natura Resources | NGL Energy Partners LP - NGL Water Solutions | Octane Energy | Ovintiv | Oxy | Permian Basin Petroleum Association (PBPA) | Priority Power | Ratliff Ranch | SCS Technologies | Select Water Solutions | TETRA Technologies, Inc. | Texas Pacific Land Corporation (TPL) | Texas Produced Water Consortium | WT Oil & Gas | WaterBridge | Wells Fargo | Western Midstream | Winkler Services | Permian Basin Water In Energy Conference | The University of Texas Permian Basin I was lucky enough to take a few photos with water and other industry-related professionals: Steven Roeder ; José Ortega ; Christian Lombardini ; Natalie Johnson ; Jim Woodcock (oh the stories we could tell about how exciting it was to create this conference), and two of my favorite folks Wayne Brunt ; and Duane Peter Germenis - one of the classiest, most helpful and super intelligent folks I know.

If there's one thing I value pretty closely to integrity it is consistency. And what an excellent showing of consistency by Safety Mojo . I had the pleasure of running into Sonja Ikeler at a Permian Basin STEPS event this past month. Sonja showed up. And boy did she. She was sporting her very own custom-designed shoes that were paid for by her company. They wanted their employees first steps, their first thoughts, their steps in between and their last steps of that day to be guided by SAFETY. She was given $200 to design her own sneakers and look at the fantastic results! A company that promotes safety on all levels is pretty cool in my book. Nathan Dart

On my way to using AI, a strange thing happened. I found my voice. A little clearer. Those questions I wasn’t sure I should ask myself, AI did. Those sentences that seemed to make all the sense in the world (that even kind of rhymes!), didn’t. And where I thought I completed a thought, AI knew I didn’t. And that’s why I was afraid to begin using it. Because it knew what I thought I already did (but didn't!). Using AI definitely exposed several shortcomings of mine with respect to clarity. Then, I found that over just a short amount of time that I was learning more about myself from AI. How to speak, write and think more clearly. How to better position my question so that I received a more clear answer. So, yes, I am a regular AI user, but like AI, I am learning from my inputs and hopefully growing a little more with each instance. I didn’t expect that to be the outcome. Clarity, whether in engineering, business, or communication always compounds. Lanmark Engineering - from concept to completion. Thanks, Derrick Clark and Permian AI Collaborative and JR Adeyemi / Dan Parlin / Gold Scale Agency for bringing your insightful brand of education on this topic to the Permian. We are better for it. Enjoyed seeing Shelby Campbell Wes Johnson Dana Torossi Ryan Shewchuk Darien Smith Lewis Hinojos Francisco Javier Muñoz Cadena Derrick Black Derrick Clark Corey Emsoff, MBA and I know there were more there that I knew, and I apologize for any missed tags. (The above was self-written. Mistakes, bad sentences are all my own. The sentence beginning with "clarity" was a slick AI provided tie-in to EPC work).

Lanmark Engineering is very excited to be a part of such an excellent conference.

Water conferences: Always an excellent opportunity to learn more and connect with those who are leading our industry.