2026: The Voice Revolution

As we usher in a prosperous and profitable 2026, it's essential to look back and evaluate the true impact of Artificial Intelligence in 2025. Did it live up to the hype? I believe it surpassed expectations, and 2026 holds even greater promise. For People, Ideas & Objects, AI has been a game-changer, and last year witnessed a significant acceleration in the quality of these sophisticated tools.

The next frontier for me is maximizing productivity through AI, which suggests a shift away from keyboards, especially on mobile devices, and toward microphones. This transition is proving to be challenging and feels unnatural; the immediate instinct is always to type. Interacting with voice or whisper seems to engage a different cognitive process, demanding a change in how we formulate and articulate our thoughts. Initially, the sight and sound of people talking to themselves in public will be a source of annoyance and discomfort, but by the end of the year, this will likely become a ubiquitous, everyday activity.

The consumption of voice-based content is already a norm. I find myself setting playback speeds for podcasts, YouTube, and other media sources to 230%, allowing for much faster information intake. Similarly, the time spent reading research papers can be drastically reduced by first summarizing them, identifying key sections, and then having the relevant parts read  back at an accelerated pace. To fully leverage these tools and methods, all the data and information we consume and produce must be organized and searchable. The transition to voice is straightforward for 2026 but represents a potentially invaluable shift for the future.

Happy New Year!

Two Decades and Counting

 On December 29, 2005 I wrote the following as the first post of this blog. 

Hello,

I want to invite everyone to this new blog to discuss the role of innovation in oil and gas, a topic that is complex, is being addressed globally, and might possibly be one of the most important corporate issues throughout the business world. That issue being how do we continue to fuel the global economy?

The purpose of this blog is going to be threefold, 

• discuss the methods of organization of oil and gas firms, and specifically the possibility of replacing the hierarchy or bureaucracy with the industry standard Joint Operating Committee (JOC).
• debate the attributes and elements of innovation in oil and gas.
• explore the impact of today's information technologies, and their role in making energy firms more innovative and accountable.

I would welcome any and all comments from readers and encourage a lively debate through this fascinating new medium of blogging.

Thank you

Paul Cox

People, Ideas & Objects

Time flies when you’re having fun. 

I don’t know if it’s seen as obnoxious stubbornness or consistent prescience. I would like to think the latter. 2005 was the heyday of the industry with oil & gas prices registering pre-shale dynamics of $50.04 and natural gas prices were $13.05. 

Here’s to another 20 years and getting this job done. 

Consolidated Losses?

 An article on oilprice.com offers a timely snapshot of current sentiment in the Permian. Exxon, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips are now positioning their post-consolidation performance as proof of a new operating model. The passage that drew my attention is noted in my references annotations:

Production climbed 400,000 bpd year-over-year even with WTI dipping below $60. Rig counts fell 15%, yet output still increased. The Permian isn’t following the old rules because its operators aren’t playing the old game.

The narrative is familiar: a shift “from wildcatters to industrialists,” with legacy shale developers displaced by super majors armed with scale, laboratories, and shareholder discipline. The majors highlight lighter proppants, AI-directed laterals, multi-well simultaneous fracs, and steady break evens in the $30–$40 range. Their messaging frames the Permian as a low-cost, long-lived franchise—hardly the conduct of firms preparing for decline.

I remain unconvinced.

Our long-standing critique at People, Ideas & Objects is that the industry continues to confuse technical execution with running a business. The commentary celebrates field-level efficiencies while ignoring the commercial realities that determine whether these operations create economic value. The super majors once dismissed shale as a short-cycle anomaly, then declared it fundamentally uneconomic, and then pivoted to “clean energy transition” narratives. Now they’ve returned with the latest story line as a consolidation strategy. At least for now...

The numbers don’t add up. The article acknowledges that the acquired producers carried roughly $80/boe break evens. These companies were purchased in the public markets—often at premiums of roughly 10%. That implies an entry cost closer to $88/boe. Even allowing for higher volumes, a 400,000 bpd uplift is insufficient to credibly compress break evens to $30–$40. The arithmetic does not reconcile. Yet these claims are presented as though cost structure simply resets upon consolidation.

As we noted recently, break even costs embed losses—un-recovered costs between realized revenues and break-even—back into the reserve base. Under current pricing, this dynamic pushes roughly an additional $30/bbl into the break even cost structure for every incremental barrel produced. Those costs must ultimately be recovered within the life of the reserves to avoid uneconomic outcomes and stranded investment.

Shale amplifies this problem. High initial volumes, steep decline curves, significant drilling and completion costs, and recurring redevelopment requirements compound the accumulation of capital that must be recovered later. Production front-loads the barrels but not the full cost. Remaining reserves then require new capital—new laterals, new fracs, new infrastructure—adding layers of un-recovered costs that linger until the Ceiling Test forces a reckoning. The SEC’s Ceiling Test exists precisely to ensure that booked reserve value does not exceed actual economic value. Its purpose is to strip un-commercial barrels off the balance sheet.

This is why I struggle with the celebratory tone around Permian “industrialization.” Technical gains are real, but they do not override the underlying commercial model. Until the industry manages itself as a business—not merely an engineering challenge—the structural economics will continue to be misrepresented, deferred, or pushed onto an ever-growing reserve base that ultimately cannot support them.

The majors can consolidate operators. They cannot consolidate losses.

Questions to Close the Year

 The Cloud ERP Strategy: Questions for 2026

The ongoing, rapid transition to cloud-based operations requires immediate consideration from oil and gas producers regarding the adoption of a single, industry-standard Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, such as the Preliminary Specification.

This strategic imperative raises critical questions:

• Unified Approach: Is a standardized, objective and unified ERP approach essential for future operational success, and would a failure to adopt it constitute a strategically irresponsible decision?

• Vendor Integrity & Risk: Given the shift to multi-vendor, AI-driven cloud ERP systems, how can vendor integrity be effectively authorized and verified? Furthermore, does a single-vendor solution offer superior advantages by simplifying operations and mitigating business risk?

• North American Strategic Benefit: What strategic benefits will North American producers gain from establishing "People, Ideas & Objects Intellectual Property" as an Organizational Construct to define and set clear boundaries for the ERP environment?

We must resolve the industry-standard and objective question in 2026: Should the standard be an ERP system like the Preliminary Specification and Oracle, or a derivation of an existing major system (e.g., Exxon's or Chevron's)? Considering the potential for proprietary bias inherent in a system derived from a single producer like Exxon, the key remaining question is how the industry values the objectivity and non-proprietary advantage offered by the Preliminary Specification and People, Ideas & Objects.