The book “Chop Wood, Carry Water: How To Fall in Love With the Process of Becoming Great” by Joshua Medcalf is about a boy’s journey to achieve his lifelong goal of becoming a samurai warrior. When he arrives in Japan to pursue this dream, he is dismayed that his sensei instructs him to spend his morning — and many mornings after — chopping wood and carrying water to meet the community’s needs.

“Chop Wood, Carry Water” reflects a Zen Buddhist work practice that emphasizes focusing on the task at hand and the present moment. It’s here that I think about the Uinta Basin. We can’t control the price of a globally traded commodity, nor can we control the global or national politics that influence industry activity writ large. On a local level, we cannot account for decisions made by our state elected leaders, although we work tirelessly to educate them about the unintended consequences and unseen impacts of those decisions. Whether they choose to listen or not is out of our hands.

All we can control are the fundamentals of our business, and it’s worth noting that ours is an inherently risky endeavor. We don’t have crop insurance like our partners and friends in agriculture. We aren’t assured a rate of return like a regulated utility. Whatever decisions oil and gas companies make, all the risk and all the reward fall squarely on their shoulders, and success or failure carries real capital consequences.

That’s why we have to focus on making the best possible decisions, using the best available information at the time. Ours is a business built on prudent economics. How do we operate judiciously, efficiently and economically, no matter the conditions? How do we innovate to meet the needs of our many, many stakeholders? How do we continue to responsibly develop the products that supply our refineries, which, by extension, provide gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and thousands of products developed by petrochemicals we all rely on for our daily comforts?

Our business is complex. Do the people we elect fully understand the nuances of our business and the breadth of implications their enacted policies will have on us? We don’t expect them to know every single aspect of our business; that would be unreasonable. Anyone who earns an elected office is going to have an incomplete understanding of any number of issues on which they will be expected to take public positions. As advocates for our industry, we can only hope they listen to our expertise and insights.

Every day brings new challenges, often from places you wouldn’t immediately expect. As representatives of this industry in Utah, we address those challenges head-on. We work hard to cultivate relationships with a broad cross-section of stakeholders for just such occasions, so we can educate and inform about the unintended consequences and ripple effects of decisions made at the local, state or federal level. Rarely do policy choices solely affect just one subset of Utah, its businesses or its citizens. Even seemingly simple proposals can be fraught with peril.

With that in mind, this issue features a range of pieces that examine and explain Utah’s unique oil and gas operating environment. We examine everything from refinery maintenance and exports to geographic challenges and how housing affects gas prices, and much more. There’s a lot to consider, so we’ve tried to cover our challenges comprehensively without being overwhelming.

Meanwhile, while some of us convene in the halls of democracy to advocate for our industry, what do the folks on the ground do, the ones who keep refineries humming day after day? To put it bluntly: They chop wood. They carry water.

Modern living requires a great deal of energy, and demand is increasing all the time. Our industry never has an offseason. Someone is always keeping this industry (and, by extension, society) running. You’ll find them in these pages, too, in stories about philanthropy, safety, collaboration and our many upcoming events.

We don’t normally run an issue like this so close to the publication of the previous one, but we’re nothing if not responsive to changing circumstances, and we wanted to keep you updated on our efforts to educate and advocate on your behalf. We appreciate all that you do, and we hope you walk away from this edition of UPdate feeling more informed and enlightened.

And next time you talk with someone who works in our industry, thank them for the wood, the water, and the oil and gas.

Enjoy the issue.