21st Century Service Providers Part XXIII

Designing Transactions 

One area of the Accounting Voucher where Synallagi is different is the concept of designing transactions. We should spend some time on defining what it is that we’re speaking of. Where accountants will be spending their time in the future is designing transactions and leaving the processing, mostly through automation and Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration as a result of the design of the transactions, to the computers. If you’ve been reading Synallagi you’ll have an understanding of the methods of organization of the marketplace and the producer firm and how the Joint Operating Committee interacts with these. It will be with that understanding that we can begin to understand the concept of designing transactions. So let us begin with a simple description of the transaction's makeup. From Harvard Professors Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark’s paper “Where do Transactions come from? A Network Design Perspective on the Theory of the Firm.”

...objects that are transacted must be standardized and counted to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved. Also in a transaction, there must be valuation on both sides and a backward, compensatory transfer - consideration paid by the buyer to the seller. Each of these activities - standardizing, counting, valuing, compensating - adds a new set of tasks and transfers to the overall task and transfer network. Thus it is costly to convert even the simplest transfer into a transaction. p. 15.

Let's use a scenario where a group of producers have several producing wells of natural gas with some liquids production. They are situated next to a large gas plant that processes their gas in exchange for the liquids and markets their gas on the spot market. In this scenario we are evaluating these properties from the perspective of implementing them into Synallagi. We begin by analyzing the production accounting elements in the Accounting Voucher with the related Production Accounting Service Providers. The Production Accounting Service Providers assess their fees on the basis of a unit of work incurred during the production month for any of the many processes involved and however our user community configures the software during the development of Synallagi. At each point they’ll assess a fee for their service based on transaction design principles. The transaction designs contained in Synallagi that our user community developed, provides the automation and the related service provider then goes through their billing process and at the end of the month, when profitable production has invoked that process, produce their invoice for their services to their Joint Operating Committee clients based on the work output rendered. This implies our user community designed their work flow from a transaction design point of view. Professors Baldwin and Clark. 

The user and Producer need to deploy knowledge in their own domains, but each needs only a little knowledge about the other's. If labor is divided between two domains and most task-relevant information hidden with each one, then only a few, relatively simple transfers of material, energy and information need to pass between the domains. pp. 17 - 18.

and

Placing a transaction - a shared definition, a means of counting, and a means of payment - at the completed transfer point allows the decentralized magic of the price system to go to work. p.22.

Again if there is no production there is no basis for the Production Accounting Service Providers billing. Fulfilling Synallagi’ decentralized production model objective. This scenario shows how the Production Accounting Service Provider needs to design their transactions to produce the desired result, conduct their service and automate their billings. Additional transactions are designed from the process of gas production, sales of the natural gas, royalties and payment of the processing fee are all similarly designed into the Accounting Voucher. This is the role of the Accounting Voucher for the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee. Automation of the business processes of the innovative oil & gas industry through transaction design. The fact of the existence of production itself is creating an information unit that triggers the appropriate service providers to conduct their operations on the Joint Operating Committees behalf. 

The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on... Frederick Hayek (1945)

The Accounting Voucher has the “Transaction Design Interface” that provides a worksheet for accountants to design transactions. There is a defined process of analysis of how to break down these transactions and we will get into that as we proceed through the development of Synallagi. It is important to recall at this point that each Accounting Voucher is used as a template for subsequent months. So once a transaction is designed, it will be reused, and built upon through the implementation of it as an Accounting Voucher template providing the automation and autonomous operations that are invoked each month of production which is supervised through the service provider organizations.

The role of the Accounting Voucher in determining the source of the market or the firm as the originator of the transaction is minimal. However, it has a role in ensuring the costs of these transactions are minimal and are a source of both the producers, as represented in the Joint Operating Committee and service industries profitable operations. If there was a simple way to describe this purpose of designing transactions it would be as a tool to coordinate the firm or Joint Operating Committees use of the market. This conceptually falls between transaction costs economics, capabilities and transaction design. All three are areas that Professor Richard Langlois has included within his area of research. We have also used Professor Carliss Baldwin for her work in transaction design. Professor Richard Langlois in his paper "Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization."

However, a new approach to economic organization, here called "the capabilities approach," that places production center stage in the explanation of economic organization, is now emerging. We discuss the sources of this approach and its relation to the mainstream economics of organization. p. 1

and

One of our important goals here is to bring the capabilities view more centrally in the ken of economics. We offer it not as a finely honed theory but as a developing area of research whose potential remains relatively untapped. Moreover, we present the “capabilities view” not as an alternative to the transaction-cost approach but as a complementary area of research. p. 4.

The Accounting Voucher module of Synallagi transaction design takes the accountant away from the benign scorekeeping role to the role of active participant in the operation. One that looks at the market from the point of view of how best to coordinate the various elements and provide the greatest value add to the firm or Joint Operating Committee. In Richard Langlois “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization"

A close reading of this passage suggests that Coase's explanation for the emergence of the firm is ultimately a coordination one: the firm is an institution that lowers the costs of qualitative coordination in a world of uncertainty. p. 6.

And this is maybe one of the important considerations of the work that we do here in People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers. Is the realization that each producer firm and each Joint Operating Committee are going to be unique. That due to their makeup they’re going to be different in material ways. Innovation will have a dramatic scale in how it is measured against each firm or Joint Operating Committee. Automation, specialization and the division of labor, other aspects of the changes being imposed on producers will demand a high diversity in terms of their makeup. The standardized and objective approach we prescribe will be anything but cookie cutter. 

Either way it boils down to the same common-sense recognition, namely that individuals - and organizations - are necessarily limited in what they know how to do well. Indeed, the main interest of capabilities view is to understand what is distinctive about firms as unitary, historical organizations of cooperating individuals. p. 13.

Therefore, according to the research of Professor Langlois the transaction costs will be an immaterial item in comparison between firms or Joint Operating Committees. That is to say that they will be the same in all instances. And People, Ideas & Objects have asserted that they will be immaterial due to the application of standardization through Information Technologies. However the differentiating costs between firms and Joint Operating Committees will be these costs of coordinating the market. Making the Accounting Voucher module a critical tool in the ability to offer the producer firm the most profitable means of oil & gas operations. 

... while transaction cost consideration undoubtedly explain why firms come into existence, once most production is carried out within firms and most transactions are firm-firm transactions and not factor-factor transactions, the level of transaction costs will be greatly reduced and the dominant factor determining the institutional structure of production will in general no longer be transaction costs but the relative costs of different firms in organizing particular activities. p 16.

We have been discussing the Accounting Vouchers “Transaction Design Interface” and its purpose as a tool to coordinate the use of the market. We want to ensure that the efforts in coordinating the market are consistent with the objectives of the firm or the Joint Operating Committee and don’t conflict with the objectives of those who are initiating the work in the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning or other modules. As we can see coordination through the Accounting Voucher of Synallagi is focused on the business end of the transactions, not on the operational side.

The first question that most people will have is why are we concerned with the coordination of the markets in the Accounting Voucher? In a comment made to the editor of Capitalism and Society, Professor Richard N. Langlois wrote this comment in response to an argument made by Professors Giovanni Dosi, Alfonso Gambardella, Marco Grazzi and Luigi Orsonigo (2008). 

Here again, I think the problem is one of conceptual imprecision. It is perfectly common, and often unobjectionable, to contrast a market and an organization, that is, to contrast the institution called a market and the institution called an organization (such as, notably, a firm). But the opposite of “organization” in the abstract sense is not “market” but disorganization. More helpfully, the opposite of conscious organization is unplanned or spontaneous coordination. In this sense the market-organization spectrum (and similar spectra one could imagine) are arguably orthogonal to the planned-spontaneous spectrum. One could well wonder, as I have (Langlois 1995), whether large organizations do not in fact grow far more as the unplanned consequence of many individual decisions than as the result of the conscious planning of any individual or small group of individuals. And it is certainly the case that, as Alfred Marshall understood, both firms and markets “are structures for promoting the growth of knowledge, and both require conscious organization” (Loasby 1990, p. 120).

In this day and age, with such large distances, geographic, size, language and other considerations between vendors and producers, leaving the coordination of the markets to “spontaneous order” is asking too much of human ingenuity. Particularly with the focus of the industry to a further division of labor and specialization, where the risk and reward of oil & gas operations are so great, market coordination or transaction design will be a critical and necessary task to be carried out. Each operation may be the result of more people being involved, automation, autonomous operations specialization and the division of labor will have an influence here. Once again it is not from an operations point of view that we are attempting to influence the operation, it is from the business point of view. How will the transactions and business be captured in such a manner that the firm and Joint Operating Committee are incurring the lowest possible costs of the most efficient methods of these business transactions? From Professor Richard Langlois Economic Institutions and the Boundaries of the Firm: The Case of Business Groups."

As Harvey Leibenstein long ago pointed out, economic growth is always a process of “gap-filling,” that is, of supplying the missing links in the evolving chain of complementary inputs to production. Especially in a developed and well functioning economy, one with what I like to call market-supporting institutions (Langlois 2003), such gap-filling can often proceed in important part through the “spontaneous” action of more-or-less anonymous markets. In other times and places, notably in less-developed economies or in sectors of developed economies undergoing systemic change, gap-filling requires other forms of organization — more internalized and centrally coordinated forms. p. 6.

and

Let’s take a closer look at the nature of the “gaps” involved. Adam Smith tells us in the first sentence of The Wealth of Nations that what accounts for “the greatest improvement in the productive power of labor” is the continual subdivision of that labor (Smith 1776, I.i.1). Growth in the extent of the market makes it economical to specialize labor to tasks and tools, which increases productivity – and productivity is the real wealth of nations. As the benefits of the resulting increases in per capita output find their way into the pockets of consumers, the extent of the market expands further, leading to additional division of labor – and so on in a self-reinforcing process of organizational change and learning (Richardson 1975; Young 1928). p. 7.

We’ve seen over the course of the past number of decades that the speed and capacity for change by producer firms is poor. People, Ideas & Objects have asserted this is attributable to the bureaucrats desire to maintain low levels of accountability through poor ERP systems. Today organizations are defined and supported by software, and most particularly their ERP software, and they are therefore constrained by them. Synallagi has chosen the market to deal with this issue as opposed to cultural difficulties of change and historical performance of the firm as the other choice. There needs to be a means in which to affect a new trajectory in the performance of the producer firms and it is automation, Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration, specialization and the division of labor these last two being proven methods to build any economic value since 1776. This can best be accessed through the market which provides the added benefit of disrupting the producer firms bureaucratic culture. A culture that is counter to profitability and one that must be dismantled. The addition of transaction cost economics and these tools will augment the ability to enhance the transition and facilitate the performance trajectory necessary to achieve profitable energy independence in North America.

In the determination of the firm or market as a choice for the producer firms to use as the means of production, the question in oil & gas is academic. The geographic and technical diversity necessary to operate within the North American oil & gas marketplace, on the basis of the many levels and types of operations a producer could specialize upon, even in today’s market. The answer has and always will be the market. There is significant conflict and contradiction in the relationship between producers and the service industry as a result of the treatment the service industry has been subjected to over the past number of decades. It is suggested the producers will need to make a deliberate effort to remediate and rebuild the capabilities and capacities that are necessary in order to provide profitable energy independence in North America. 

The starting point of this rebuilding process for our user community is as follows. If we recall in the Resource Marketplace module the vendors and suppliers are maintaining their own contact data. Within that data is their key personnel that include their field staff. They should also be including their key business personnel for the purposes of the “Transaction Design Interface” to collaborate on these interfaces. In addition, their billing information and banking data, as well as other critical data and information that will help the producer firm or Joint Operating Committee efficiently coordinate and process the transactions they’re involved in. Lastly a collaborative interface should be provided for everyone within the Accounting Vouchers vendor pool to discuss how the transaction is designed and the template that is used by the specific vendor. Needless to say the involvement of our development of software for the service industry will begin here. 

21st Century Service Providers XXII

 Transaction  

This paper focuses on service provider organizations. It is therefore appropriate to place their role within the context of Synallagi.ai operating on Synnefa.ai. Once Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration is introduced, the role of the transaction changes fundamentally. The transaction—the synallagi—becomes the elemental unit of business throughout the oil and gas industry.

Transactions, the Elemental Unit of Business.

Every business activity is ultimately expressed as a transaction. Purchases, contracts, approvals, authorizations, production, sales, settlements, allocations, accounting entries, and financial reporting are all collections of transactions governed by defined rules, authority, and evidence. Organizations are therefore not simply collections of assets or departments; they are systems for creating, managing, and coordinating transactions.

The origin of every producing property illustrates this principle. A geologist purchases geological maps, seismic information, well data, technical studies, and other information relating to an area of interest. Each acquisition is an independent transaction undertaken in support of a geological theory or exploration concept. Individually these transactions appear insignificant, yet collectively they establish the foundation upon which the property’s future is built. They represent research and development activities whose value lies in their eventual contribution to discovering and developing a commercial resource.

As confidence in the opportunity increases, additional participants are introduced to secure a sufficient land position and distribute development risk. These agreements establish the Joint Operating Committee and define the commercial relationships that will govern the property throughout its productive life. From this point onward, every operational, commercial, accounting, legal, and financial activity becomes another transaction contributing to the evolution of the property.

Accounting Becomes Operational Rather than Administrative.

Engineering, geology, accounting, land administration, and commercial personnel each develop their own perspectives of the property. Exploration and production departments naturally concentrate on technical development. Accounting establishes cost centres, partners, Authorizations for Expenditure, ownership interests, and financial structures necessary to record expenditures. Beyond these initial administrative activities, interaction between the disciplines often diminishes substantially.

For decades the practical relationship between operations and accounting has consisted largely of approving invoices before metaphorically throwing them over a fifty-foot wall for payment and recording. Accounting has traditionally become a recording function rather than an operational resource. That separation is fundamentally inconsistent with the Synallagi vision.

Together, engineering, geology, and accounting represent the overwhelming majority of an oil and gas organization. Yet communication between these disciplines has historically been weak, collaboration limited, and business integration almost nonexistent. It is within this separation that the industry’s culture of “muddle through” has developed.

Engineers estimate drilling and completion costs using regional experience, reserves reports, historical information, and drilling contracts. Production forecasts establish expected revenues and royalties. These estimates become discounted cash flow models, reserve valuations, and investment decisions. Accounting subsequently uses the Authorizations for Expenditure to collect invoices and allocate costs to the appropriate property and accounts.

These estimates often provide reasonable technical approximations. They provide very little objective information regarding the actual profitability of the property.

Consequently, accounting contributes remarkably little to operational decision making. Its principal function has become recording expenditures against the accounts selected by engineering. While oil and gas should remain engineering-led, the events of recent decades demonstrate that technical excellence alone is insufficient to sustain profitable operations.

This difference becomes apparent when profitability itself becomes the operational objective.

One concern frequently expressed is that Synallagi may determine that an entire property should be shut in because production is unprofitable. While that remains a possible outcome, it is rarely the first conclusion reached through objective transaction analysis.

Because Synallagi records business activity at a much greater level of granularity, it can identify the precise sources of economic loss. A property containing fifty producing wells may become unprofitable because only five wells create abnormal operating costs, processing expenses, water handling issues, or other business anomalies. Shutting in those five wells may restore profitability across the remaining forty-five while preserving both reserves and production.

Once Synallagi reports the individual financial statements for each well, the five wells are shut in for the identified business reason. Engineers are then able to develop a straightforward solution that resolves the business issue and returns those wells to profitable production.

However, the analysis also determines that the resolution is not isolated to those five wells. Extending the same solution across the remaining forty-five wells would generate comparable profitability improvements throughout the property. Properties may have been optimized from a technical standpoint however they may benefit from a business perspective too.

That level of analysis is largely unavailable within today’s reporting systems.

Few producers can identify the actual accounting and administrative costs associated with processing oil production versus natural gas production. Natural gas operations are substantially more complex, yet accounting systems generally allocate only broad corporate overhead allowances rather than actual transactional costs. Likewise, depreciation, depletion, administrative support, and infrastructure costs are rarely assigned at a sufficiently granular level to determine true profitability.

If challenged, producers should simply be asked to produce a report showing the actual accounting overhead incurred during the previous month to process a barrel of oil versus natural gas. Very few organizations can do so because the underlying transaction information has never been collected or measured.

Providing standardized, objective, transaction-level accounting information is therefore fundamental to understanding where profits are earned and where value is destroyed.

The Permian Basin provides an excellent illustration.

Associated natural gas has frequently been treated as little more than a by-product of oil production. The commercial objective has been maximizing oil production, while the associated gas has often been sold at whatever price the market would accept, including heavily discounted and occasionally negative natural gas prices.

Much of this production is delivered to Waha before ultimately influencing Henry Hub pricing throughout North America. Since Permian associated gas represents approximately one-quarter of United States natural gas production, the treatment of these transactions materially influences the reference price upon which the remainder of the continent depends.

From a technical perspective, the objective of producing the oil has been achieved. From a business perspective, however, the transaction economics associated with natural gas have contributed materially to decades of depressed natural gas prices across the entire North American industry.

This demonstrates why transaction-level accounting matters. Technical optimization and business optimization are not always the same issue or objective.

Why Transaction Granularity Becomes Essential for Digital Assets, Crypto, and Future Financial Markets.

The importance of transaction integrity extends beyond accounting into the future structure of financial markets.

Whether digital assets, stablecoins, tokenized securities, or other forms of digital commerce ultimately become dominant is less important than recognizing the direction in which financial systems continue to evolve. Every generation has improved monetary systems to increase speed, confidence, liquidity, scalability, and security. Crypto-assets represent another stage in that progression.

Should working interests, royalty interests, production rights, or other oil and gas assets eventually become tokenized, every underlying transaction supporting those assets must withstand regulatory, audit, and investor scrutiny. Investors will not willingly exchange digital assets representing producing properties unless standardized, objective, continuously updated financial information supports them.

Synallagi has therefore been designed to establish that foundation. The same transaction architecture that improves operational profitability also provides the accounting integrity required for future financial markets. Whether investors eventually exchange working interests through digital wallets, conventional securities markets, or another financial mechanism altogether, confidence will depend upon standardized transactions, objective accounting, continuous governance, and transparent financial reporting.

Our Resource Marketplace

The role of Synallagi' Resource Marketplace Module within Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration is fundamental. Transactions do not exist in isolation; they occur within markets, and markets ultimately determine how resources, capital, services, capabilities, and opportunities are coordinated throughout the oil and gas industry. The transaction and the marketplace are therefore inseparable.

Throughout this series we have repeatedly emphasized that Synallagi is built upon three Marketplace Modules: the Petroleum Lease Marketplace Module, the Resource Marketplace Module, and the Financial Marketplace Module. Together they form the commercial architecture through which transactions are initiated, coordinated, executed, and continuously optimized.

It would be natural at this point to undertake a detailed discussion of the Resource Marketplace Module. However, doing so would substantially expand the scope of this paper and divert attention from its primary objective: the role of our user community, their service provider organizations, and the operational framework required to support Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration.

The Resource Marketplace Module deserves considerably more treatment than can reasonably be accommodated here. It extends well beyond the exchange of services or equipment. It encompasses the coordination of engineering and geological capabilities, specialized service providers, field infrastructure, operational capacity, Artificial Intelligence enabled services, Intellectual Property, knowledge, innovation, and ultimately the productive capacity of the North American oil and gas industry itself. It is one of the principal mechanisms through which Synallagi transforms fragmented industry participants into an integrated and continuously improving commercial ecosystem.

The importance of this module has become increasingly apparent during the preparation of this series of papers. As our understanding of Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration has matured, so too has our appreciation of the central role played by markets in coordinating both transactions and resources. The Resource Marketplace Module has therefore evolved into a much broader architectural component than originally contemplated within the Preliminary Specification.

For that reason, we have elected to defer a comprehensive discussion until a dedicated paper later in this series. By then, the concepts developed throughout these earlier papers—including autonomous processes, user communities, service provider organizations, governance, accounting, operations, and transaction orchestration—will provide the necessary foundation for explaining how the Resource Marketplace Module functions as one of the principal coordinating mechanisms within Synallagi.

Our objective is not to postpone the discussion because it is less important. Rather, it is precisely because of its importance that it deserves a dedicated treatment. The Resource Marketplace Module represents one of the primary mechanisms through which Synallagi rebuilds the capacities, capabilities, resilience, and profitability of the North American oil and gas service industry while simultaneously strengthening the producers it exists to support.

21st Century Service Providers - Part XXI

Autonomous  

Autonomous may be the most familiar term in the phrase Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration. It is also the term most likely to be misunderstood. Autonomous is often confused with automation, which is incorrect.

Automation is the use of largely automatic equipment or software to perform a defined task within a manufacturing, production, administrative, or office process. Automation performs what it has been instructed to perform. It executes a predefined function.

Autonomy, as used in Synallagi, is materially different.

Autonomous processes are the disciplined extension of Enterprise Resource Planning, Artificial Intelligence, user community design, service provider execution, Joint Operating Committee governance into operational workflows that no longer wait for manual instruction at every step. They proceed under defined authority, evidence, controls, contracts, audit requirements, and economic purpose.

Autonomy is not independence from governance. It is governance made operational at scale.

In Synallagi, an autonomous process is not an uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence agent acting independently. It is a governed business process embedded within the Enterprise Resource Planning system, operating within the authority of the Joint Operating Committee, the user community, service providers, software rules, contracts, audit controls, Intellectual Property, and the other Organizational Constructs.

A practical definition is as follows.

Autonomous processes are Enterprise Resource Planning enabled business processes that initiate, execute, validate, reconcile, report, adjust, and escalate transactions or operating events without requiring continuous human direction, while preserving evidence of authority, timing, work performed, exceptions, and financial impact.

These processes include the capacity to detect that a transaction or operating condition requires action; apply predefined business rules, accounting rules, contractual terms, and Joint Operating Committee authority; coordinate between producers, service providers, users, and software services; prepare or execute the required transaction; validate balances, approvals, exceptions, and audit evidence; escalate unresolved matters to qualified human authority; and incorporate approved process improvements without exceeding defined governance boundaries.

The key distinction is straightforward.

Automation performs a predefined task. Autonomous processes govern a continuing business activity within defined authority.

The Material Balance Report provides a useful example. Its comprehensive reporting, reconciliation, and analytical purpose is to balance North American oil and gas production volumes across each month. When those volumes are reconciled and verified, they establish a factual operational data foundation. That foundation can become the one authoritative production record for each producer firm, regulators, Joint Operating Committees, working interest owners, and other authorized users of the information.

This is not merely an operational matter. Once production volumes have been validated, accounting can proceed from the same verified source. Revenues, royalties, allocations, entitlements, and related accounting entries can be generated from the production record. The objective is to give production volumes and financial reporting the same evidentiary integrity. The production record and the accounting record should not operate as disconnected interpretations of the same business event.

To achieve that result, volumes must be balanced across working interest owners, contractual allocations, chemical allocations, facilities, products, custody transfer points, and ultimate points of sale. The Material Balance Report is already a standard report used throughout the industry, and balancing is already performed to varying degrees. What has not been practicable historically is balancing this information on a continental basis, across the scale and complexity of North American oil and gas operations. That was beyond the practical capability of legacy systems. That limitation is now becoming obsolete.

The ability to conduct this balancing through autonomous systems supported by Artificial Intelligence is within the scope of today’s technical possibility. Synallagi would not begin as a perfect or omniscient system. It would improve over time as recurring issues are identified, prior resolutions are evaluated, approved methods are reused, and different balancing approaches are applied where they are suitable. A solution that resolves a recurring facility allocation issue in one context may inform the handling of a comparable issue elsewhere, subject always to authority, controls, and verification.

Over time, the range of possible balancing methods will expand materially. The detail involved in monthly oil and gas production, ownership, allocation, processing, transportation, sale, royalty, and accounting activity is immense. As that detail is successively aggregated, the complexity becomes difficult for people to comprehend unaided. Autonomous processes supported by Artificial Intelligence allow that complexity to be governed, reconciled, analyzed, and escalated without surrendering control of the process.

For Synallagi, the operative definition is therefore as follows.

Autonomous processes are governed operational workflows that execute, monitor, adjust, reconcile, report, and escalate business activity with minimal direct human intervention, while remaining constrained by defined rules, authority structures, audit controls, economic objectives, compliance requirements, governance frameworks, Joint Operating Committees, and the Organizational Constructs.

Autonomous processes are Enterprise Resource Planning enabled business processes that can initiate, execute, validate, reconcile, report, and escalate transactions or operating events without requiring continuous human direction, while preserving evidence of authority, timing, work performed, exceptions, and financial impact.

This introduces a new level of complexity into Synallagi. That complexity should not be understated. As the model develops, its scope will exceed the comprehension of any single individual. That is not a weakness in the design. It is the point at which the architecture begins to perform the work for which it is being designed.

We are at the base of that trajectory now. Synallagi is being extended through content-enabled additions, more detailed requirements for developers, and clearer design material for our user community. These outputs will be published on our blog and placed below the existing specifications to support and expand the material already available on the wiki.

I will also reiterate a point made at the beginning of this document. Brevity is no longer a constraint I intend to impose on this work. In a world of comprehensive Artificial Intelligence, a reader with access to a quality Artificial Intelligence tool can extract, analyze, summarize, compare, and contextualize this material in ways that were not previously practical. The value of the document is no longer limited to its immediate readability. Its value also arises from the depth, precision, and continuity of the material available for analysis, especially when combined with the broader background developed in Synallagi.ai and Synnefa.ai by People, Ideas & Objects and others. 

Asynchronous  

Asynchronous operations are defined by People, Ideas & Objects as:

Synallagi applies asynchronous process management to oil & gas ERP by allowing long-running Joint Operating Committee transactions to advance as far as authority, evidence, and available information permit, while preserving missing approvals, signatures, ballots, documents, or other dependencies as governed unresolved states until they can be completed.

Asynchronous means that work does not have to occur at the same time, in the same place, or in a single uninterrupted sequence in order to be valid, coordinated, governed, or completed.

In Synallagi, asynchronous has a specific business and Information Technology meaning. It describes the disciplined organization of business activity so that transactions, decisions, approvals, evidence, exceptions, settlements, and reporting can proceed independently across time, systems, organizations, and participants, while remaining coordinated through defined rules, authority, audit controls, and economic purpose.

Asynchronous does not mean disconnected, delayed, casual, or unmanaged. It means the work is coordinated by architecture rather than by everyone being present at the same moment, or every formal document being completed before any productive work can proceed.

In a Java-based ERP system such as Synallagi, this has practical operational consequences. A process may reach a point where the next required step is out of sequence, incomplete, delayed, or anticipated to arrive later. Rather than stopping the entire process, Synallagi can preserve the state of that process, whether through Java virtual threads, persistent workflow state, or temporary storage in the Oracle database. The system can then continue the process as far as authority, evidence, rules, and available information allow. When the missing step, approval, document, ballot, signature, or evidence is eventually received, the process can retrieve the stored state and complete the transaction.

This is not a relaxation of governance. It is governance made operational in a more efficient form.

In oil & gas, this matters because the Joint Operating Committee, producers, service providers, engineers, geologists, accountants, regulators, software systems, Artificial Intelligence processes, and capital markets do not naturally operate on the same clock. The traditional model forces too much work into synchronous bottlenecks: meetings, approvals, reconciliations, emails, spreadsheet exchanges, monthly waits, and manual intervention.

Joint Operating Committees are a clear example. There are approval processes, ballot processes, counterpart signatures, executed documents, and formal authorizations that may be required before a transaction is finally complete. In practice, verbal consensus may already have been achieved, commercial intent may be clear, and the operational work may already be underway, while the formal paperwork remains incomplete. The administrative system should not be forced to stop all related activity merely because one formal approval has not yet arrived.

Under an asynchronous model, invoices, costs, allocations, evidence, and related processing may proceed on an unsigned or conditionally authorized basis, provided the ERP system clearly identifies the missing approval, preserves the audit trail, applies the appropriate controls, and prevents the transaction from being finalized beyond its authority. The process advances as far as it legitimately can. It then waits only at the point where the missing approval, ballot, signature, or document is required to complete the transaction.

The objective is not theatrical. It is operationally modest but economically material. Synallagi uses asynchronous processing to balance processing load across the month, reduce administrative congestion, and support the service providers who will be responsible for executing much of this work. Rather than compressing too much activity into month end, transactions are advanced continuously as evidence, authority, and information become available.

This is essential to a faster and more reliable month end close. The faster the industry can complete property-level financial statements, Joint Operating Committee reporting, reconciliations, exception handling, Material Balance Report alignment, and financial analysis, the sooner producers and service providers can understand the prior operational month and determine what actions are possible in the next one.

The value of asynchronous processing is therefore not found in abstraction. It is found in operational tempo. The process does not wait unnecessarily. The system does not surrender control. The missing item is isolated, tracked, stored, retrieved, and completed when available. Everything else that can be governed, evidenced, processed, reconciled, and prepared is advanced without delay.

Asynchronous Conclusion:

Asynchronous means business activity proceeds through governed, event-driven coordination rather than real-time human synchronization, allowing each transaction to advance as far as authority, evidence, and available information permit while preserving incomplete steps for later completion.

For Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration, the word “asynchronous” is critical because it separates Synallagi from the old administrative model. It means transactions do not sit idle waiting for perfect sequencing, complete paperwork, or synchronized human availability. They progress under defined governance, with each step executed when the right conditions exist, and with any missing authority, approval, evidence, or documentation captured and resolved before final completion.

21st Century Service Providers - Part XX

 Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration  

The purpose of the 21st Century Marketplace Vision series, beginning in 2026 and continuing forward, is to define the material changes being made to Synallagi as it is upgraded to include Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration.

To date, this concept has been addressed indirectly. We have approached it from several perspectives, but have not yet provided a complete operating definition or comprehensive vision. That is understandable. Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration is not a narrow feature that can be inserted into Synallagi through a simple amendment or explained retrospectively through a short clarification. It represents a substantial expansion of architecture, process design, marketplace structure, Artificial Intelligence, workflow governance, transaction execution, auditability, and operational control.

For that reason, the subject is being addressed through a series of focused papers and podcasts rather than through one comprehensive document. Each paper will add another layer of understanding. Together, they will define the broader vision, the operational consequences, and the opportunities this creates for producers, our user community, service provider organizations, investors, and the greater North American oil & gas economy. These papers are incremental. They build on Synallagi' specification as it exists today while extending it into a more capable, governed, and commercially effective operating architecture.

The first two papers in the 21st Century Marketplace Vision for Oil and Gas series addressed Issues and Our User Community. This paper, focused on Service Providers, is the third in the series, with additional papers scheduled to follow.

This is also an appropriate time to make a formal announcement regarding the delivery environment for Synallagi with Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration. What we have historically referred to as Cloud Administration and Accounting for Oil and Gas software and service now has a formal name: Synnefa.ai.

To step back briefly, Synallagi is the Greek word for “transaction.” In a broader commercial sense, it also carries the meaning of “the deal.” Synnefa is similarly Greek in origin and means “clouds.” Synnefa.ai is therefore the natural companion to Synallagi. Synallagi defines the transaction. Synnefa.ai defines the cloud-based software and service environment through which transactions, marketplaces, accounting, administration, Artificial Intelligence, governance, and orchestration are delivered to the North American oil & gas economy.

Admittedly, Synnefa.ai may be a little more difficult to pronounce and remember at first. The easiest way to think of it is by recalling a childhood moment when a father might yell downstairs during roughhousing with friends or siblings: “That’s enough, eh.” Drop the word “that,” keep the “s,” and the pronunciation is essentially “senough eh.”

Synallagi.ai and Synnefa.ai may require some adjustment from our user community and the industry at large. That is a reasonable imposition. The naming reflects the architecture. Synallagi defines the transaction, the deal, and the commercial event. Synnefa.ai defines the cloud environment in which those transactions are orchestrated, governed, monitored, executed, reconciled, audited, and reported. New terminology always requires time. After all, how did people first pronounce Xerox?

An Oil & Gas Synallagi

A business is not merely an organization, an asset base, a strategy, or a legal entity. A business is a continuing system of transactions: exchanges, commitments, obligations, deliveries, receipts, payments, adjustments, allocations, settlements, approvals, evidence, and records. These are what we define as Synallagi. Without these transactions, there is no business activity to administer.

The question, therefore, is direct. What is a Synallagi in oil & gas? What is its scope? What is its scale? What volume of transactions is processed by individual producers, by each Joint Operating Committee, and by the industry as a whole? Equally important, who is currently administering these transactions, and are they the appropriate resources to be doing so?

These are the questions our user community is addressing with our software developers. Their work is to design and develop the software processes that their service provider organizations will ultimately deliver through Synnefa.ai. The objective is not merely to automate existing administrative work. The objective is to identify the transaction, define its authority, determine its evidence requirements, establish its audit controls, process it efficiently, and integrate it within the broader accounting, operational, marketplace, and governance architecture of Synallagi.

Consider the drilling contract. The contract, the file, and the management of that contract are substantial. Drilling a ten million dollar shale well, followed by a five million dollar frac completion operation, is not administered on a few pages. It involves contracts, bids, technical specifications, field reports, service orders, approvals, equipment, materials, personnel, logistics, timing, safety, geological interpretation, engineering judgment, cost control, and performance evaluation. Yet many non-operated producers are asked to accept their share of those costs through fifteen to twenty account lines on a Statement of Expenditures. These are often the same accounts, and substantially the same costs, that were approved earlier through the Authorization for Expenditure. On that basis, accountability is deemed to have been achieved.

Every two years, the cost of an operator audit is shared at the Joint Operating Committee. The auditor reads the tour reports, reconciles the number of casing joints, reviews invoices, examines supporting documentation, and tests whether the costs charged to the Joint Account are appropriate. The process is not without merit. There is both science and art involved in a proper audit. However, from the perspective of meaningful administrative innovation, the process appears to have frozen some time ago.

Since the 1980s, operators have rarely accepted audit challenges to the integrity of their systems. A confirmed error can carry significant consequences within the operator firm. For an operator to accept an audit finding, refund the amount, and adjust the underlying methodology would be an extraordinary event. It rarely occurs, in part because the engineers responsible for the work are diligent. Precision is an honourable attribute of their profession, and the professional standard they apply to the well is substantial.

Most of what occurs within a fifteen million dollar drilling and completion is managed by the engineer. Much of the administration around that contract is also managed by the engineer. The strategic question is whether this administrative time is the best use of that engineering resource. Engineers should be competitively evaluated on their ability to make the well financially viable and to generate value for the Joint Operating Committee. Their primary contribution should be scientific, technical, operational, and economic performance.

Ensuring that auditors do not find mistakes is good practice and should continue. Accountability is not optional. The question is whether there are better ways to make a ten to fifteen million dollar shale drilling Synallagi achieve the same or greater accountability with less administrative effort, stronger evidence, better auditability, and greater efficiency. The opportunity is to reduce the administrative burden on engineers, technical resources, accounting personnel, administrators, service providers, and all others involved, while improving the quality of the transaction record itself.

At the other end of the scale is another oil & gas Synallagi: processing an employee expense account for a brief meeting at Starbucks. This too can become an administrative burden. It consumes the time of senior management preparing expense reports, the time of those reviewing them, and the time of those processing them. The dollar value may be insignificant, but the administrative pattern is not. Across a producer organization, repeated small transactions accumulate into substantial overhead, delay, and distraction.

Today, business credit cards can be issued to employees and configured so that only authorized and eligible business expenses are written directly as Synallagi through Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning. Personal costs, or costs that do not qualify under the company’s transaction policies, are sent directly to the employee for settlement. No form filing. No manual review of coffee receipts. No unnecessary internal processing burden within the producer organization. The process can be reduced to a simple designation by the employee that a charge is corporate. If the transaction is eligible under policy, authority, and configuration, it is processed on that basis.

These two examples define the scale of the issue. A fifteen million dollar drilling and completion transaction and a small employee expense item are both Synallagi’. They differ in value, complexity, risk, authority, evidence, timing, audit requirements, and operational significance. Yet both must be identified, governed, processed, recorded, reconciled, and reported. The task before our user community, software developers, and service provider organizations is to determine how each type of oil & gas Synallagi should be structured within Synallagi and delivered through Synnefa.ai.

A Synallagi Material Balance Report example is included as Appendix II of our Master Appendix. In that example, a Synallagi is created at the wellhead based on an agreed production allocation methodology. Volumetric values are captured through Internet of Things devices placed at defined points within the production system. These values are then reported to the producer through satellite and cellular-based communications.

From that point, Synallagi’ automation takes the volumetric reporting and applies the contractual, regulatory, royalty, revenue, processing fee, ownership, and other requirements necessary to determine the financial consequences of production for the month. Where amendments to volumes, prices, ownership, contractual terms, processing costs, or other variables are required, those amendments are processed through the automation of the relevant business processes.

Production volumes are then reconciled across the continent on a monthly basis. This is conducted autonomously through Artificial Intelligence and overseen by our user community’s service providers. Once continental balancing of the volumetric data has been achieved, the industry increases its level of accountability. Volumes are no longer merely reported by individual producers as isolated operational data. They are captured, calculated, reconciled, amended where necessary, and converted into financial consequences that are recorded on the financial statements.

The result is a level of integrity in production volumes that is consistent with the financial information reported by the producer. The Material Balance Report therefore becomes more than a reconciliation tool. It becomes an example of how Synallagi can convert physical production activity into an accountable transaction architecture, with evidence, timing, authority, reconciliation, and financial impact all embedded in the process.

The strategic question is broader. What other oil & gas transactions can be managed in a similar manner? Does that list include components of the drilling contract? In my opinion, it must. The unnecessary consumption of administrative time across oil & gas can be tamed and, over time, iteratively eliminated through our user community’s capabilities, structure, and architecture.

Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration by Synallagi can therefore be applied to a wide variety of value-adding activities that reduce the overhead cost of oil & gas administration. These overhead reductions are in addition to the revenue enhancements gained through our price maker strategy. The value is not found in one isolated process. It is found in the systematic identification, redesign, automation, orchestration, and governance of the transactions that currently consume the industry’s time, capital, and technical resources.

Whether the issue is reducing the administrative burden placed on engineering and geological resources, eliminating the tedious and unnecessary internal processing of expense reports, or using Internet of Things devices, satellite communications, automation, and autonomous operations to calculate, report, reconcile, and value production volumes, each case represents a Synallagi. Each transaction can be defined, designed, built, implemented, monitored, and managed through our user community and their service provider organizations.

Synallagi treats the transaction as the elemental unit of business. Each transaction carries economic, legal, operational, accounting, evidentiary, timing, and governance consequences. By organizing business around transactions, Synallagi provides the architecture through which producers, the Joint Operating Committee, our user community, service providers, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and markets coordinate their work.

This is the iterative vision in which Synallagi, with Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration delivered through Synnefa.ai, now stands. It is not a static design. It is an operating architecture through which each transaction can be identified, improved, automated, governed, reconciled, and eventually optimized. We are not simply asking how existing transactions can be processed faster. We are asking what the transaction is, who should administer it, what evidence it requires, what controls govern it, how much human effort it deserves, and how Synallagi can make the business of oil & gas more dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable.

Notice

At this point, People, Ideas & Objects is announcing the Transaction as Synallagi ninth Organizational Construct.

The Organizational Constructs, in no particular order, are now as follows. Trust and Transactions will be published as part of the 21st Century Marketplace Vision series of papers.

• The Joint Operating Committee.
• Hyper Specialization and the Division of Labor.
• Endogenous Technical Change, including the shared infrastructure of Synnefa.ai.
• Markets.
• Intellectual Property, possibly the most consequential Organizational Construct for our user community and their service providers.
• Information Technology.
• Innovation.
• Transactions, in the comprehensive form of Synallagi.
• Trust.

Organizational Constructs define, support, and constrain the domain of the producer firm, the Joint Operating Committee, and markets. They are direct replacements for bureaucracy. They provide the means to define boundaries, responsibilities, authority, accountability, and the structure of the software itself.

It is reasonable to expect overlap between the domains of each Organizational Construct. Where that overlap occurs, the operational architecture is strengthened. Much of the domain delivered by Synallagi will involve multiple overlapping constructs. In many cases, several Organizational Constructs will apply simultaneously, creating a tighter control framework through which the oil & gas industry can operate with greater accountability, efficiency, discipline, and profitability.

This notice therefore commits People, Ideas & Objects to write the Trust and Synallagi Organizational Constructs as one of the deliverables in this series:

21st Century Marketplace Vision: Trust and Synallagi Organizational Constructs.

Podcast # 37 - 21st Century Service Providers - Section 1

 People, Ideas & Objects are excited to share Podcast #37, which covers Section 1 of our third paper, “21st Century Marketplace Vision for Oil & Gas - Part III - Service Provider.” The full paper is accessible through our Paper Index, and you can download the episode directly via the Podcast Index.

21st Century Service Providers - Part XIX

 An Inversion

These positions contain a broad range of attributes. The role may appear narrow because the producer process being managed is only a small slice of the industry’s accounting or administration. Yet that narrowness in scope is precisely what creates the opportunity for depth to manage the complexity introduced through Synallagi.

The focused nature of the role contrasts with the broad scope of disciplines, technologies, regulations, geophysics, chemistry, facts, and market conditions that influence the producer. By specializing in one process, both our user community members and their service providers can focus intensely on these details of a specific subset of industry operations. They are then able to manage the scope of accounting, regulatory, administrative, Information Technology, marketplace, and Intellectual Property expertise as hyper specialists, codify that in the software specification and support the tacit knowledge delivery to industry through their service provider organization. 

This is arguably the inverse of today’s situation. At present, people are placed inside the incomprehensibly broad and diverse domain of a producer organization's knowledge, expected to understand everything, provided with limited authority to act, inadequate resources, and made responsible for “doing it that way” because it has been done that way for decades. Taking on a scope of complexity too difficult to comprehend, standardize or simplify. Responsible for everything with no authority over anything.

The choice now rests with the people currently working in oil & gas accounting and administrative roles. Which environment appeals to them, Synallagi or bureaucracy, and which does not? There are places and advocates for people who desire each approach in oil & gas. To guarantee that Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration is executed correctly, members of our user community and service providers act as the primary supervisors of individual specific processes across the population of North American oil & gas producers. A global industry wide data set for that process.

The appeal to potential participants in Synallagi is clear. They are not avoiding change. They are managing career risk in an industry notorious for inaction, retribution, excuses, and institutional resistance. Synallagi offers a different path: specialized authority, defined responsibility, advanced software development tools and resources, and a direct role in rebuilding North American oil & gas around a culture of reserves preservation, performance and profitability.

Revisiting Speed as an Issue 

In the first paper of the 21st Century Marketplace Vision series, (Podcast Index) we identified the principal issues confronting the North American oil and gas industry. Among them was Time. We stated directly that time is speed, and speed is cost. If the industry continues to believe that time and speed are not material factors in today’s difficulties, or that they will not become far more consequential in the future, then there is much to be concerned about.

The pace, tempo, and operational intensity now required of organizations are difficult to overstate. The burden is already overwhelming. To continue without removing bottlenecks, streamlining processes, and restructuring organizations to sustain today’s operating requirements is a material strategic failure. The greater concern is that while the industry struggles to maintain today’s pace, tomorrow will have already moved beyond its reach.

What has become evident is that the officers and directors of producer firms have allowed the oil and gas industry, the service industry, and the broader oil & gas economic infrastructure dependent upon producers to atrophy. Action that advances the sound governance of North American oil and gas does not appear to be aligned with their interests. Their interests are personal, entrenched, and, by their own standards, well satisfied.

This leads to the need for a new operating philosophy within the industry. Ernest Hemingway expressed the logic of sudden failure in The Sun Also Rises:

How did you go bankrupt?

Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

I have argued many times that bankruptcy has become part of the business model employed by producers. It allows systemic failures to be rolled over repeatedly. Officers appear largely unaffected by the declaration of bankruptcy and may even be granted substantial bonuses shortly before it occurs. Directors and shareholders are shown to the street. Bankers take control and are forced to exchange debt for newly issued common shares. The same assets and, often, the same officers continue forward. Those who should have acted, and did not, emerge adequately protected. Others bear the cost and the process begins again.

The industry is now at a point where continued inaction cannot be tolerated. Too much is at stake, and too much damage has already extended beyond the boundaries of oil and gas. The absence of meaningful action on business-related difficulties that have persisted for the better part of fifty years is difficult to reconcile. There is little discussion, no credible initiative, and no sustained effort from those who have held the authority, responsibility, resources, and accountability to resolve these problems.

Speed is therefore not a secondary issue. It is a primary strategic constraint. The distance the industry must travel to reach People, Ideas & Objects Synallagi, our user community, and their service provider organizations is substantial. The time required to deliver our product, even with disciplined efforts to limit development timelines, is significant. Every period of continued inactivity increases the complexity of the solution. That is evident in the expanding scope of this 21st Century Marketplace Vision series. Delay increases the degree of difficulty, raises execution risk, and increases the probability of failure. In practical terms, delay escalates cost.

The future will impose demands on producer firms that are not yet fully understood. Consumer energy needs will increase. Investors may begin to prefer oil and gas assets traded through crypto-based instruments rather than equity interests in producer firms. Geologists who have spent their careers specializing in a specific zone may find their capabilities stranded when the producer firm employing them shifts its attention to clean energy, Libya, Argentina, or some other corporate diversion. Synallagi changes that outcome. Their skills would have been made available to any Joint Operating Committee operating within that formation, augmenting its capacities and capabilities as required, independent of any individual producer firm’s change in strategy.

The potential of the North American oil and gas industry has never been greater. The need for a dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable industry has also never been more urgent. The industry will be required to fund and support opportunities now emerging across the North American economy. It is being tasked with providing the energy foundation for what may become an Artificial Intelligence defined, Information Technology based Industrial Revolution.

That race has not yet begun. Each industry is ready at the starting line. Oil and gas, however, is lined up backwards, fifty meters behind the start, fully convinced it will win.

21st Century Service Providers - Part XVIII

 Summary of Our User Community Members

In the second paper of this 21st Century Marketplace Vision series, we discussed the role and responsibilities of our user community. If we were to summarize what the industry needs from them, it is leadership in the accounting and administrative domains of oil & gas.

Each member of our user community is licensed to manage a specific domain or process within Synallagi software. Their role is to deliver Synallagi software and service through their service provider organization to the industry at large. This delivery combines the explicit knowledge captured in the software with the tacit knowledge applied by their service provider organization.

What Synallagi proposes is a radical rebuilding of the oil & gas industry to address the business issues identified in Part I: Issues of this series. These are issues the industry has failed to resolve for the past half century. Today’s Information Technologies now make it possible to support a new organizational structure in which our user community and their service provider organizations are formed from the transfer of producers’ administrative and accounting resources into a more specialized, accountable, and commercially effective structure.

Through shared infrastructure, hyper specialization, the division of labor, and other features of Synallagi, People, Ideas & Objects offers producers a compelling value proposition. Reasonable assumptions suggest that the number of people required to populate these roles within our user community and their service provider organizations will be materially smaller than the number currently required to account for and administer the industry. It is also reasonable to expect that only a limited portion of today’s administrative and accounting professionals will be interested in these roles. These two facts appear to be synergistic. 

The prevailing assumption may prove largely correct: a substantial portion of the work people currently perform will be absorbed by Artificial Intelligence. That raises the obvious concern that humans may be displaced in significant numbers. However, an alternative and more constructive outcome is also possible. Rather than mass displacement, Artificial Intelligence may materially improve the quality of life for most people by changing the structure, duration, and value basis of work itself.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the standard working year was approximately 3,000 hours. Today, it is generally understood that a full-time position requires approximately 1,700 to 2,000 hours of work per year. It is reasonable to ask whether, in the near future, the standard full-time work commitment will be reduced again, perhaps to something closer to 900 to 1,000 hours per year. This may be the more probable outcome. Artificial Intelligence will assume responsibility for a meaningful portion of the work that previously consumed human time, while humans will be redirected toward supervision, judgment, design, governance, accountability, and higher-value decision-making.

The critical issue is not simply whether Artificial Intelligence replaces tasks. The more important question is whether Artificial Intelligence generates the incremental value and profitability that employees previously contributed through time-intensive work, while the employee’s remaining contribution becomes equally valuable through higher-quality, higher-leverage activity. If that occurs, their compensation will become less dependent on hours worked and more directly tied to value creation, profitability, accountability, and measurable contribution.

This aligns with the compensation structure we are developing for our user community and service providers. Their compensation will not be organized around the traditional industrial measure of time alone. It will be configured and managed through our Targeting Framework, which will be described in detail in a forthcoming paper in this series. A Targeting Framework aligns compensation with the value, profitability, accountability, innovation, and performance generated for the oil & gas industry through Synallagi. (See Appendix I, Our User Community Compensation.)

Those most inclined to pursue leadership roles will likely be the first to move toward our user community. Others will occupy what might be described as hands-on mid-management roles, administering Synallagi software, supervising its automation and autonomous Artificial Intelligence functions, and delivering the tacit knowledge that service providers bring directly to producers.

Recruitment for our user community and their service provider organizations is therefore inherently limited. It is an opt-in process. Participants will determine their own acceptable level of career and financial risk and decide accordingly. Participation is subject to an application process, and prospective participants will receive a clear understanding of the work and its requirements before they are asked to commit fully to the change.

Our user community members are individually owned and operated organizations in which People, Ideas & Objects have no financial interest. We license them to envision, architect, design, and develop the specific software producers will need. The basis of our user community member’s license is the exclusive right to manage a specific domain through their wholly owned and operated service provider organization.

Historically, we have stated that this work was undertaken with direct input from oil and gas producers themselves. That phrase is imprecise and, in hindsight, materially incomplete. It may suggest that producer firms alone were the source of industry input, when the intended meaning was always broader. The development of Synallagi depends on the full North American oil and gas ecosystem, not merely the producer firm perspective.

The correct scope includes our user community, service providers, engineers, geologists, accountants, administrators, contractors, service industry firms, financial participants, technology providers, Artificial Intelligence specialists, and the wider range of disciplines required to rebuild oil and gas accounting, administration, operations, governance, and marketplaces. Producers are participants in this environment, but they are not the exclusive or dominant source of operational knowledge.

People, Ideas & Objects remedial effort is to correct this language going forward. We will no longer frame the work as producer-directed or producer-defined. Instead, Synallagi will be described as ecosystem-informed, user community-led, service provider-enabled, and technologically supported. This more accurately reflects the structure of the work, the source of its knowledge, and the institutional model required to establish a culture of reserves preservation, performance and profitability.

Another error we seek to correct in the definition of Synallagi is the methodology of how our user community earns the domain of user community license they’ll own and operationalize through their service provider organization. In prior discussion we noted that Artificial Intelligence would be used to assimilate the contributions of all of our user community input and then designate who contributed the most valuable. We now wish to change that to:

Artificial Intelligence-based license allocation is a high-risk governance topic if not framed carefully. Allocation of exclusive service provider licenses cannot appear arbitrary, opaque, or merely algorithmic. It should be positioned as an Artificial Intelligence-assisted recommendation process, subject to governance, review, appeal, audit trails, conflict-of-interest controls, and People, Ideas & Objects’ final authority. Otherwise, the license allocation model could create perceived unfairness inside our user community.

A Summary of Service Provider Organizations

The role of the service provider is more operational in nature. Service provider organizations are responsible for the day-to-day accounting and administration of oil & gas processes. Some may initially assume these positions will be drone-like, defined by repetitive output and limited discretion. Nothing could be further from the case.

Just as our user community members will have a high level of interaction with oil & gas engineers, geologists, accountants, administrators, contractors, service industry firms, financial participants, technology providers, Artificial Intelligence specialists, and the wider range of disciplines required to rebuild oil and gas accounting, administration, operations, governance, and marketplaces. Their service provider organizations will have equally significant operational relationships with them. In many respects, they are the eyes and ears, feet and hands of our user community members. This is particularly important during initial software implementation and during scheduled deployment of Oracle and Synallagi quarterly upgrades.

If a service provider is responsible for one aspect of a regulatory domain, it will become expert in that domain (subject to rotation) and use that expertise to ensure producers always achieve the most profitable means of oil & gas operations. This includes anticipating changes in the business environment, interpreting regulatory developments, and ensuring that the software reflects these changes in a timely and accurate manner.

If a service provider is responsible for a process element within the Material Balance Report, it will understand both its own domain and the up and downstream effects that changes in other areas may have on its process. The service provider must maintain awareness, interpretation, and advocacy within its domain to ensure producer profitability remains the governing priority.

As employees of a user community member’s organization, service providers operate within a team responsible for managing a defined process across the industry. They are able to influence change through the exclusive role of our user community members in architecting, designing, developing, and innovating the software for that specific process.

They will use the most advanced technologies to ensure their process is operational, functioning as designed, and continuously tested for accuracy and effectiveness. Their role is not to interfere casually with the process itself. Rather, they are custodians and supervisors of the machines, automation, and Artificial Intelligence used to conduct the work.

To organize the diverse population of service providers into a coherent and manageable framework, the development of a comprehensive taxonomy will be essential. We anticipate classifications such as process-domain service providers, cloud infrastructure service providers, coordination service providers, Artificial Intelligence governance service providers, and audit and compliance service providers, among many others. As our user community and their service provider organizations evolve, additional classifications will naturally emerge to reflect increasing specialization and the division of labor.

The Industrial Command & Control software being developed by People, Ideas & Objects and our user community may provide the foundation for identifying, organizing, supporting, and coordinating these classifications. In doing so, it will help ensure that the appropriate expertise, responsibilities, and capabilities are consistently aligned with the operational requirements of the North American oil and gas industry.

21st Century Service Providers - Part XVII

 Note to Reader  

This paper examines the role, objectives, methods, and structure of our user community’s service provider organizations. Building upon our previous papers on our user community and issues, it continues the evolution of Synallagi through a series of initiatives that strengthen both the organizational framework and the software itself. These developments will include the expanded application of Artificial Intelligence, the incorporation of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies, and the addition of two new Organizational Constructs: Trust and Transactions. (Note: transactions are not merely records—they are one of the fundamental organizational constructs around which the entire architecture is built.)

Each of these developments represents a significant subject in its own right. This paper, the first part of two on the Service Provider's Vision, introduces them as components of an integrated vision rather than attempting to examine each in exhaustive detail. Much remains to be written, and these concepts will be expanded in subsequent papers throughout our 21st Century Marketplace Vision series.

Readers will likely notice that these two papers are longer than previous publications and that many concepts are revisited from different perspectives. This is intentional. The architecture of Synallagi is highly integrated, with each component influencing many others. As new capabilities are introduced, they must be understood not only individually but also in terms of their relationships with the broader system. Revisiting concepts in different contexts helps establish those connections. This first paper of two speaks to many of the issues involved.

Although the overall vision is straightforward, the technologies and organizational structures supporting it are evolutionary. They build incrementally upon one another, with each advancement creating the foundation for the next. This reflects the direction in which business, software, and Artificial Intelligence are rapidly evolving. Our objective is therefore to introduce these developments in a disciplined, sequential manner, allowing readers to understand both the individual innovations and the larger architecture they collectively create.

The vision presented here represents only one stage in a much broader progression. As this series continues, additional research, refinements, and capabilities will be incorporated, progressively revealing the complete 21st Century Marketplace Vision and the role Synallagi is intended to play in the future of the North American oil and gas industry.

These papers are intentionally detailed. That level of depth is necessary for our user community and their service provider organizations to contribute the analysis, knowledge, and practical experience required to develop Synallagi over the long term. The architecture cannot be built from broad concepts alone; it requires comprehensive discussion of the underlying principles, assumptions, processes, and interactions that define the system.

Their length also reflects the realities of the Artificial Intelligence era. These papers are intended not only for human readers but also as training and reference material for the Artificial Intelligence tools that our user community and service provider organizations will employ. The greater the depth and context available, the more effectively those systems will be able to analyze the material, identify relationships, generate insights, and contribute new perspectives within their respective domains of expertise.

For many years I pursued brevity, and failed at it most every day. In retrospect, that failure may prove to have been an unexpected advantage. What once appeared to be excessive detail can now be recognized as a valuable asset in a world where powerful Artificial Intelligence systems derive greater understanding, richer context, and more meaningful insight from comprehensive bodies of knowledge than from abbreviated summaries.

An Entire New Discipline  

During the summer of 2004, while promoting the Preliminary Research Report, I had the opportunity to have an acquaintance review the work. After reading it, he offered a simple observation that has remained with me ever since:

“It’s an entire new discipline.”

Over the past two decades, no comment has resonated with me more deeply. It reinforced my belief that we were moving in the right direction and, more importantly, that the scope of what was being proposed had been recognized by someone whose judgment, experience, and accomplishments I greatly respected.

That individual was Mr. B. J. Seaman of Calgary. Together with his brothers, Doc and Don Seaman, he helped establish Bow Valley Industries, an organization that played a pivotal role in the emergence and growth of Canada’s independent oil and gas producer sector. He was also one of the original owners of the Calgary Flames, reflecting a lifetime of leadership, entrepreneurship, and commitment to the community. His obituary provides only a brief summary of a remarkable life, but it is fitting that I acknowledge him here.

More than twenty years later, I believe Mr. Seaman’s observation has proven remarkably prescient. What began as the Preliminary Research Report has evolved into Synallagi—a comprehensive architecture encompassing Enterprise Resource Planning software, marketplaces, Intellectual Property, our user community, their service provider organizations, governance, Artificial Intelligence, and new organizational structures for administering the North American oil and gas industry. It is no longer simply a software project or a business model. It is a framework for organizing an industry around resource preservation, performance, accountability, innovation, and profitability.

Looking back, I believe Mr. Seaman recognized something that was not yet fully apparent, even to me. The objective was never merely to build better software. It was to establish a fundamentally different way of thinking about the administration, governance, and operation of the oil and gas industry. In that respect, his assessment remains the most meaningful observation anyone has made about this work. His comment has sustained my motivation in the many trying times since.

It is, indeed, an entire new discipline.

Synallagi offers a solution to the systematic destruction of the shale endowment by the industry's leadership. Within a mere two decades, what was one of the greatest sources of wealth for the world's leading economy has been squandered and decimated. This outcome alone should be sufficient grounds to disqualify the continued tenure of those irresponsible, unaccountable and North American producer officers and directors. 

It is no longer sufficient for a producer to merely own oil and gas assets. Ownership of the reserves alone does not ensure profitability. Unprofitable reserves are valueless in a competitive market. Producers must have access to the software, systems, user community, service providers, Intellectual Property, and governance architecture that make those assets capable of generating profitable production. Everywhere and always.

Synallagi changes the operating discipline of the industry. Unprofitable production is shut in to maximize producer profitability, preserve reserves, and prevent the continued destruction of commodity value. Unprofitable properties are not abandoned to seek a new frontier. They’re transferred to the inventory of innovative projects where Synallagi’ user community, their service providers, and producer firms engineers and geologists work with standard, objective and factual accounting information and analysis to determine what is the most effective and efficient way to return them to profitable production and to perform financially and competitive as necessary in North American capital markets and to do so as quickly as possible.

This distinction is critical. The purpose of shutting in unprofitable production is not contraction for its own sake. It is disciplined value preservation. Producing at a loss destroys a property's reserves, weakens producer balance sheets, damages the service industry, undermines investor confidence, and contributes to continued commodity overproduction and overall price declines. Shutting in unprofitable properties creates the economic space required to safeguard other properties profitability, restore the shut-in properties profitability and rebuild credibility. (See Appendix VIII Synallagi' Price Maker Strategy.)

No amount of conventional cost control will solve the problem. Producers have spent decades reducing costs, pressuring the service industry, deferring maintenance, capitalizing expenditures, and stretching the productive capacity of assets and organizations. That strategy reached its limit decades ago and has only served to transfer the bust portion of the boom / bust cycle to the service industry. It is and has always been oil & gas overproduction, or unprofitable production and the resulting damage to commodity prices at issue.

Since 2012, Synallagi has been in the marketplace offering a full “rip and replace” Enterprise Resource Planning software development and implementation model. The past fourteen years, including the past eleven years in which producers’ capital structures have lacked any support, reveal two defining characteristics of the status quo.

First, the “muddle through” culture remains deeply entrenched, persistent, and immovable. Second, the industry’s recurring strategic redirections—from heavy oil, to shale, to clean energy, back to shale, and now toward international opportunities—have followed a predictable eighteen-month cadence without resolving the underlying issues. Each pivot has deferred accountability rather than restored performance.

The result is not stabilization. The difficulties have become more prevalent, systemic, and chronic. The deeper and broader our analysis proceeds, the clearer it becomes that the existing organizational configuration is incapable of resolving the industry’s structural problems.

Synallagi’ cumulative value add is therefore material. It is not a marginal efficiency initiative. It is a market rehabilitation mechanism. The oil and gas commodity markets will require a dedicated multi-year rehabilitation and recovery. That recovery cannot occur without effective production discipline. Synallagi provides that discipline through standardized, objective determinations of profitability at the Joint Operating Committee level and the operational consequences from unprofitable production being shut in until it can be returned to profitable status. Something we have stated repeatedly over the past fourteen years, yet the monetary value of the issues has only amplified.

Production discipline is ultimately established through the North American capital markets. Producers who wish to maintain their capital structures, independence, and access to investment capital must consistently meet the performance expectations of those markets. Failure to do so inevitably places both their financial independence and long-term future in question.

Only disciplined production provides the means to optimize a producer’s production profile in accordance with those expectations. By ensuring that only profitable production occurs, production discipline preserves capital, protects commodity values, strengthens investor confidence, and establishes the financial performance required to compete successfully in the North American capital markets. It is not simply an operational objective; it is a foundational requirement for long-term producer performance and independence.

The full paper can be accessed here.

Another Day, Another Paper

 In keeping with our tradition of publishing the ugliest content we possibly can—and doing so consistently—People, Ideas & Objects is pleased to announce the third paper in our 21st Century Marketplace Vision research series.

From the outset, it became apparent that the concepts underlying Synallagi had grown too broad and too interconnected to be presented effectively in a single document. Attempting to do so would produce a paper so large and complex that much of its meaning would be lost. Instead, we have chosen to publish this work as a series of focused papers, allowing readers to absorb the concepts incrementally and build a deeper understanding of where Synallagi is headed with Autonomous Asynchronous Transaction Orchestration.

This third paper examines the role of our user community’s service provider organizations. The subject has been divided into two papers, with this publication representing Part 1 of 2.

Our service providers are the operational foundation of Synallagi. They combine their tacit industry knowledge with the explicit knowledge embedded within the software, delivering both to the North American oil & gas industry. Their role extends beyond implementation and support. They are responsible for continuously refining business processes, developing innovations, and ensuring that producers realize the full value of Synallagi.

Like members of our user community, service providers participate in a performance-based compensation model that rewards measurable value creation. Performance incentives remain persistent with the individual, and shared with our user community members, encouraging long-term innovation and continuous improvement. These incentives are objectively calculated through the Synallagi Targeting Framework, which measures the economic value generated by service provider innovations and allocates compensation according to the benefits realized by producers. The Synallagi Targeting Framework will be the subject of a future paper in the 21st Century Marketplace Vision series.

This paper may also be read in conjunction with the accompanying Appendix 1 Our User Community Compensation:

To make the material more approachable, we will publish the paper in sections over the coming weeks, allowing readers to absorb the concepts in manageable portions should they prefer a more gradual approach.

At the same time, we are expanding the Synallagi wiki to distinguish between what has traditionally been the Business Specification and the next stage of development—the integrated Technical Specification. Increasingly, these two perspectives cannot be separated. The technical architecture has become an integral component of the business architecture, particularly as Artificial Intelligence, automation, orchestration, governance, and marketplace design become inseparable elements of the overall system.

These technical specifications will be published alongside these research papers and incorporated into the wiki as development progresses. And you can be assured I’ll never forget about the podcasts, which somehow figure out what it is I’m saying.