Arkansas oil and gas director retires after 20 years
Larry Bengal stepped down as the director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission in April. (Courtesy of the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment)
Larry Bengal was on a mission.
His target? The band playing during the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact's annual meeting, which was in Arkansas in 2003. More specifically, a member of that band: Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
'I told my wife, 'Let's go up and meet Gov. Huckabee,' because he was playing with his band, Capitol Offense, at the time,' Bengal said.
As Bengal reached out to shake the governor's hand, Huckabee jumped off the stage.
'I thought, 'This is really great, Arkansas is a friendly place,'' Bengal said.
Instead of shaking his hand, Huckabee walked past Bengal and helped his wife who had slipped on the dance floor and was lying 'flat on her back.'
'My first words to the governor, who I would end up working for two years later, were, 'She hasn't been drinking, governor,'' Bengal said. 'He was a Baptist preacher, so I thought, 'Oh, I gotta say something.''
The incident must not have left a poor impression on Huckabee who in 2005 named Bengal director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, a position he held for 20 years before handing it over to his successor, Allen York, last month. While Bengal remained the state's chief energy administrator, he passed on that title as well Wednesday, his official retirement date.
'I am extremely pleased with my time; I'll be retiring here in Arkansas,' Bengal said.
Possessing a deep knowledge of the oil and gas industry that many at the Department of Energy and Environment and beyond have praised, Bengal came to Arkansas after stints in the private sector and then as the director of the Illinois equivalent of the AOGC.
During his two decades as director, he oversaw pivotal moments in the state's oil and gas sector, such as the rise and fall of the Fayetteville Shale play, and more recently, the growing push to source lithium directly from salty brines deep underground in south Arkansas.
He also studied well-induced seismicity — earthquakes caused by deep injection wells — served as a representative to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact and testified before Congress.
While Bengal's career focused on the earth and what lies within it, he was inspired by programs created for the sake of reaching the stars.
'In the '60s, when Russia was putting up Sputnik and we were behind in the space program, President [John F.] Kennedy, as we all know, made a pledge to go to the moon by the end of the decade,' Bengal said. 'He also started science projects around the country because we were way behind, everyone thought, in science and technology. And one of the programs that he started was called the Earth Science Curriculum Project, which was a federal program to teach earth science to high schoolers.'
Various high schools around the country were selected for the program, Bengal said, including his own in Philadelphia.
'At 15 years old, I took that course and fell in love with geology. So I've only ever wanted to be a geologist,' Bengal said.
He attended the University of Wisconsin, earned his bachelors degree and then started a decades-long career in geology, oil and gas, although he started as a geologist at a time where coal dominated the energy industry.
'Back in the '70s, when I started, coal was king,' Bengal recalled. 'We were running out of gas, and I started my career because the country wanted to make gas out of coal.'
He spent several years in Illinois, working for its geological survey and then later for its oil and gas regulator.
Reflecting on his career in an interview last month, Bengal said the Fayetteville Shale stood out in his mind as one of the defining aspects of his career. He wrote many of the rules promulgated by the commission during his tenure, including some of the first regulations in the country to regulate hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) fluids, after public concern about chemicals and pollution from the practice of extracting natural gas grew louder and louder.
Fracking, by his explanation, had been happening for decades prior to the natural gas boom earlier this century, just never at that scale. Bengal said the massive amounts of fluid and chemicals getting pumped into the ground as a result was why fracking had 'captured the public interest.'
'The public really was inundated with all sorts of, I guess, misinformation and horror stories of what was happening with hydraulic fracturing, that it was contaminating the water' Bengal said. 'All of this [fracking] was happening at such depths that that was not the case.'
The interest in fracking made it, and Arkansas by extension, a worldwide issue.
However, there were examples in other areas of the country where a defective well 'had caused an issue' — although Bengal said those were 'small in extent' — so states had to take action to 'allay those fears and show that it was done safely.'
The commission's work during the play was also crucial in preparing it for the next big rush, Bengal said, this time for lithium.
'Fortunately for Arkansas, we've already learned some of those lessons in brine production because we already have a brine statute; I think we're the only state that has a brine statute,' he said. 'We've learned to be diligent in trying to understand issues before we knee-jerk a solution.'
Bengal said he feels 'fortunate and blessed' to have worked on the development of the Fayetteville Shale and lithium, as well as the challenges of dealing with earthquakes.
'You don't get an opportunity much to deal with new things and be involved in the development of solutions to address those new things,' he said. 'I feel very fortunate that I was able to be in Arkansas and be involved in so much of that development.'
While Bengal may be retiring, he's not going far.
In an emailed statement congratulating the man her father hired 20 years ago, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she would be appointing Bengal as an AOGC commissioner.
'Congratulations to Larry Bengal on an incredible 20 years at the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission,' Sanders said. 'We trusted Larry to help build up Arkansas' modern oil and gas industry. And more recently, we've happily leaned on him to develop the lithium industry in South Arkansas, which is why I am proud to appoint him as a member to the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission to continue his great work.'
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