The interview with filmmaker and National Energy Talk host Mark Stansberry started off discussing a shared petro-powered experience involving motion pictures and media. ESG University’s founder Jason Spiess had the privileged to be invited on to the production studio and set of Sherwood Forest, a docufilm about a historic time in American Oil and Gas’s impact on global independence and empowerment.
The short story is by the summer of 1942, the future of Great Britain and the outcome of World War II depended on petroleum supplies. At the end of that year, demand for 100-octane fuel would grow to more than 150,000 barrels of oil every day and German U-boats ruled the Atlantic.
In August 1942, British Secretary of Petroleum, Geoffrey Lloyd called an emergency meeting of the Oil Control Board to assess the “impending crisis in oil.”
Thus began the story of the “little-known, or at least seldom recognized, all-important role oil and oilmen played in the prosecution of the war,” according to two historians who extensively researched archives in Great Britain and the United States. Short story is they drilled in Sherwood Forest.
The longer story is being told by Oscar Winner Gray Frederickson. Frederickson and Stansberry worked together on the docufilm on Sherwood Forest, which told the story of how Lloyd Noble along with 44 roughnecks played a critical role during World War II.
Frederickson is best known for being a long-time producer for Francis Ford Coppola and winning an Oscar as one of the co-producers of The Godfather Part II at the 47th Academy Awards. In addition he was also nominated for Apocalypse Now.
Sherwood Forest was nominated for a regional Emmy in the historical documentary category. It was also picked up by NETA for national distribution.
“Sherwood Forest is an incredibly powerful documentary for our entire world right now,” Stansberry said. “There are several reenactments, which were filmed in Oklahoma locations, and around 58 cast and crew were involved. British Petroleum (bp) greatly assisted in providing footage from its archives of the 1943 timeline of Sherwood Forest. It has been quite a challenge to complete the project, especially due to COVID-19 restrictions. The release date is Spring/Summer 2022. I share with you the production team’s synopsis of Sherwood Forest:”
The interview segways into a “decade of discussions” in the oil and gas industry. Both Spiess and Stansberry talk about some interviews and events that transpired over the past decade in energy.
“I would say that one of my favorites is with Barry Corbin,” Stansberry said. “Barry has been in over 225 films, close to 250, everything from Urban Cowboy to Yellowstone. He was our narrator for Sherwood Forrest's Top Secret.”
The interview then went into Stansberry’s past, which involved international business and energy. From China to Russia to Oklahoma, Stansberry was active in the global marketplace.
“I had done work both in Russia and China in the oil and gas industry, primarily the oil and gas in Russia, meeting with the Minister of Energy and Eurasia products back in the 1990s,” Stansberry said. “And then also in the 90’s, it was with the Chinese that were there was a gas natural gas delegation that had met here in Oklahoma and they invited me to go over to to China and I started watching how they they acted on different things.”
The conversation pontificated whether NAFTA or other policies led to a major shift in the global marketplace, one that saw corporations flourish and small businesses disappear.
Through my company, it was called the Oklahoma Royalty Company, I was CEO," Stansberry said. "We were one of the first, at that time, a small company signed an import-export agreement, which were unheard of for small companies, but mainly the big ones, Exxon and others, were working on these."
The interview also discussed the emerging Agriculture and Energy markets synergizing into the Carbon Management Market.
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Stansberry Reflects on 10 Years of Documenting the Oil and Gas Industry