...there was a time when investors lined up around the block whenever a producer announced an offering. That world has long since disappeared—so long ago that many today may not even recall it. By 2015, investors had delivered a clear message: dissatisfaction with the performance and accountability of oil and gas producers. From that point forward, they withdrew from further investment in the industry, in effect telling management—restore accountability, deliver results, and perhaps we’ll return.
Meanwhile, at People, Ideas & Objects, we spent two decades warning that North American producers were unprofitable and inflicting lasting damage across the broader energy economy. We documented multi-trillion-dollar losses and argued relentlessly that this was not sustainable. It was easy for producers to dismiss these warnings, casting us as outliers who “didn’t understand” their so-called strategic brilliance.
Officers and directors, of course, chose to rely on the conviction, confident that “muddling through” would eventually prove the critics and investors wrong. Yet here we stand: a decade without investor support and two decades of repeated warnings ignored.
The truth is unavoidable. When value is abandoned or left unrealized by its rightful owners, others inevitably capture it and make something of it. To allow such leakage of value—on this scale, over this length of time—constitutes mismanagement. Especially when numerous mitigating strategies, solutions, and investor demands have long been available and ignored.
Natural Gas Price Structure Destruction
Few will forget the summer of 2025. It marked the moment producers were proven wrong—conclusively. The questions now are unavoidable: What happens next? Where do we go from here? How will this be resolved? And why did it happen at all?
Shareholders deserve clarity. The issue at hand is the collapse of natural gas price structures. Over the past 22 months, since People, Ideas & Objects first raised the alarm, two central facts have remained unaddressed:- Producers’ fundamental misunderstanding of free-on-board LNG.
- The long-term structural decline in natural gas—from a 6:1 oil-gas ratio in 2009 to 50:1 in 2024.
The resulting revenue destruction is quantifiable: $4.7 trillion in losses across the industry.
Initially, People, Ideas & Objects paid the credibility cost of raising such an extraordinary figure. The market reacts to trillion-dollar claims, and in our case, it responds with indifference and isolation. For nearly two years, nothing was done.
Then came the turning point. Shell elected to sue Venture Global—suing, in effect, over the very issue we raised. The case, seeking $3.6 billion, highlighted that Venture Global had purchased gas at Henry Hub, liquefied it, and sold it FOB into Japan and Europe at global prices. The tribunal’s rejection of Shell’s claim validated our analysis: Shell acknowledged its own lost revenues, Venture Global captured the arbitrage, and the credibility has shifted back to People, Ideas & Objects.
Now, as of September 2, 2025, officers and directors of all producers face a non-negotiable duty. They must disclose material risks, along with mitigation steps, through press releases and, more importantly, through quarterly reports. With the Q3 10-Q reports due September 30, 2025, there is no excuse for silence on a $4.7 trillion structural revenue shortfall.
Can producers continue to avoid reporting obligations while value destruction compounds? The record is damning:- Did they fail to understand the issue?
- Or simply too indifferent to act?
For each officer and director over the past 16 years, one of those answers will apply. And it must be remembered: over the past 22 months of their silence producers were aware of the legitimacy of our claims.A Pattern of Avoidance
Our hypothesis of “a designed lack of accountability” has its roots in history. Oracle abandoned its oil & gas ERP effort in 2000; IBM followed in 2005. Both cited the same issue: producers had no appetite for systems that enforced accountability. People, Ideas & Objects have faced the same resistance with the Preliminary Specification. The conclusion is clear—this absence of accountability is not incidental, it is systemic. Implemented by way of skeleton budget allocations to accounting and systems. Shell’s Response and the Industry’s Default
In the wake of the tribunal ruling, Shell stated:
Shell said it was disappointed with the tribunal’s decision. “Trust in long-term contracts is the bedrock of the LNG industry and essential for continued investment and sustainable growth,” the company said in a statement.
This is emblematic of the industry’s reflexive posture—deflect blame, warn of dire consequences, and ignore the root cause. Yet the facts remain:- Shell signed the contracts.
- Industry ignored a decade of investor demands for accountability and profitability.
- Shell has dismissed People, Ideas & Objects’ solutions since 2012.
- Shell failed to address the collapse in gas pricing from 2009 to 2024.
- Shell chose litigation over reform.
- Shell valued its claim at $3.6 billion and Venture Global estimates upwards of an additional $197.9 billion in incremental revenues from their contract.
This is not misfortune. It is mismanagement.
Historical Dishonesty
The industry’s dishonesty is not new. On July 4, 2019, when People, Ideas & Objects published Profitable, Energy Independence in North America—Through the Commercialization of Shale, we argued that unprofitable wells should be shut in. Producers countered with a falsehood: that shutting in wells caused reservoir damage. Within nine months, 25% of global oil production was shut in during the negative oil price crisis. No subsequent reservoir damage was reported to have been realized.
This pattern—deny, disparage, and deflect—has defined the producers’ response for decades.
The fiduciary obligations of officers and directors are clear. They cannot claim ignorance of a $4.7 trillion destruction of value, nor can they dismiss a solution on the table since 2012. Instead, they have defied their shareholders, disregarded investor warnings, and undermined the integrity of the industry.
They must now answer for it.
A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being.
— Sun Tzu
Arbitration Decisions & Consequences
The outcome of Shell’s arbitration makes one point inescapable: every producer now owes a duty to their shareholders to disclose the consequences. SEC rules are clear—material events must be disclosed promptly, typically within four business days via press release or Form 8-K, or sooner if the stock price is materially impacted.
Yet no 8-K filings have been observed. This silence is unacceptable.
For two decades, producers sold gas at Henry Hub netback prices, leaving the $4.7 trillion shortfall to accumulate across the industry. Whether a startup or a major, each producer’s exposure is proportional to its period of operations. The arbitration ruling validates the claim. Venture Global’s own Q2 report disclosed $197.9 billion in potential future earnings under the disputed contract, providing undeniable evidence that value leakage on this scale is real and material. People, Ideas & Objects’ $4.7 trillion assessment over 25 years is no longer speculative—it is substantiated.
If producers fail to issue a timely press release or 8-K, they remain obligated to disclose in their 10-Q filings for the quarter ending September 30, 2025. For Shell, this will be filed October 30, 2025. The clock is ticking. Officers and directors face serious consequences if failure to disclose is determined. And disclosure must include not only the financial impact, but the qualitative context: a decade of obstinacy toward investor demands and repeated rejection of viable solutions such as the Preliminary Specification.
Litigation Exposure
Shareholder litigation will not be straightforward. A record exists of management’s willful neglect:- 2009 – Ignored the beginning of the structural decline in natural gas pricing.
- 2015 – Investors explicitly demanded greater accountability and performance.
- 2019 – Industry dismissed shut-in strategy as damaging reservoirs.
- 2020 – Covid crisis shut in 25% of global oil production with no reservoir damage.
- 2023 – People, Ideas & Objects identified LNG FOB value leakage.
- 2024 – EIA recorded lowest average natural gas prices in history (February 50:1 ratio).
- 2023–2025 – Producers maintained silence on LNG and larger structural price breakdown.
- 2025 – Shell lost arbitration against Venture Global.
This is a track record of conscious disregard.
D&O Insurance at Risk
It's been nearly two decades since insurers faced a systemic challenge on this scale. The $4.7 trillion shortfall may yet rival the collapse of synthetic CDOs. Insurers have grounds to cancel coverage, leaving officers and directors personally liable. While most producers indemnify their executives, the sheer magnitude of this disaster could easily overwhelm both indemnification and insurance. The result would be bankruptcy proceedings, in which shareholders would likely be extinguished, with only unsecured creditor claims in litigation offering them any potential recovery.
The alternative for shareholders may be to exit positions now, before insolvency risk escalates.
Mitigation Options
There is a path to mitigation—but it requires action. Producers officers and directors can reduce their litigation and fiduciary exposure by funding development of the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. This would demonstrate to courts, insurers, and investors that officers and directors acted decisively to resolve long-standing issues and deliver the performance gains demanded by shareholders.
Investors have consistently asked for a Tier-1 ERP solution. Only two exist:- SAP – Already installed in many producers, but performance has not improved. Its custom integrations simply mirror existing culture, reinforcing the status quo. As our disconcerting hypothesis suggests, lack of accountability is preserved by design. SAP is the bureaucracy.
- Oracle Cloud ERP – The basis of the Preliminary Specification. Oracle has invested since 2004 in rebuilding its ERP from scratch in Java, and combined with their premier database, provides the foundation necessary to achieve industry transformation.
The Preliminary Specification is purpose-built for oil & gas. It delivers a decentralized, price-maker model ensuring all production is profitable, with 14 modules, 7 organizational constructs, and 3 marketplaces. It embeds a new culture of reserve preservation, performance and profitability.
Intellectual Property Constraints
It must also be emphasized: People, Ideas & Objects’ Intellectual Property is a protected competitive advantage. Any solution producers adopt must respect that IP. Replicating our design is not an option. Our research took a decade before publication in 2012, and would take any alternative at least another decade, based on some other methods to replicate where the Preliminary Specification was in 2012. Time producers simply do not have.
The choice is stark: acknowledge the $4.7 trillion shortfall, disclose truthfully, and act on it—or continue to stonewall until insurers, investors, and the courts enforce accountability through failure, bankruptcy, and litigation, both corporate and personal.
