Last week, nearly 15,000 participants descended on Houston for the 2015 NAPE Summit, featuring international and business conferences as well as over 850 exhibitors. This annual networking event brings prospects, producers and purchasers together to forge important business connections and hear industry thought leaders.

Related: Winter NAPE EXPO Business Conference Highlights - 2014

If low oil prices are a predictor of where the industry is headed, you couldn’t tell by the packed convention hall and the atmosphere of optimism. Keynote speakers including Jack Stark, President and COO of Continental Resources, focused on the record production set by North American producers in the last five years. He listed some of the industry’s recent wins:

• Unprecedented growth from 2005-2015
• World changing upstream technologies
• Discovering a whole new, vast class of reservoir (shale plays)
• Reserves at all time highs
• Created jobs and increased our energy independence
• Improved efficiencies such as cutting drilling time from 45 days to 17
• A midstream evolution: pipelines, rail, rail to barge and connections to all coasts

The Chief Upstream Strategist for IHS, Bob Fryklund, encouraged participants not to push the panic button too quickly. Fryklund acknowledged that the conversation has changed in recent months but was quick to remind participants of the cyclical nature of the industry and that history indicated we would weather this storm.

The Keynote speakers took an optimistic tone, but some attendees expressed more caution. Several, who wished to remain anonymous, shared that they are convinced that a recovery is farther down the road. They expressed concern for their employees and their shareholders and are working to make hard decisions that will see them through the rest of 2015.

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