Tanner was an intern for Wasatch Energy Management during Fall 2024.
Briefly explain what you did and the result of your internship.
For my internship at Wasatch Energy Management, I focused my efforts on two major projects. One was raising equity from investors for our current project. We raised $220 million for our WEM V drilling project, which will fund the drilling operations of 70 wells over the next few years in the Duchesne City Area. I became very familiar with the pitch deck and set meetings with new potential investors to introduce them to our company and explain how investing in oil and gas would be beneficial to their investment portfolio. I understood and explained the projected returns, the time horizon, as well as the tax benefits from this kind of investment. I also worked with the land team on the development of our leasing program. WEM has not had an active leasing team or program before this year so there were many organizational aspects that needed to be cleaned up. Using Excel, I created a Master tracker to track all of the different mineral interest owners across the basin who we have information for from our title opinions created by our attorneys. This was a very long and tedious process but allowed me to think critically about how to store and track complex data, but also how to present it in charts and tables for the management team to have a very good understanding of how our leasing efforts were progressing across all the different drilling spacing units.
What did you learn in your internship that you were not expecting to learn?
I was not expecting to learn some of the geological aspects of this business.
How have your future plans changed because of what you learned from your internship experience?
I am strongly considering staying at the company to work and take over managing our investor relations.
Please share how your experience led to personal inspiration or insightful revelation.
I had personal inspiration to explore how certain aspects of this industry could be made so much easier using the integration of AI for some automation help. There is some serious opportunity for this. I also feel strongly that I can build a company from the ground up. I am confident in my ability to pursue whatever I desire.
Would you recommend this internship to other students?
Absolutely, anyone looking to get into the oil and gas industry should pursue it. They would learn so much and get great respected experience for a resume.
Is there anything else you would like to say regarding your internship?
How much I appreciate Danny Gunnell and Kimball Hodges.