Breakeven Mis-belief

 The energy sector is once again engaged in the "break even" debate, intensified by declining oil and gas prices and the sustained reality of systemic overproduction. This situation compels producers to justify their operations despite having “restructured” their cost base through consolidation, creating a financially tenuous position. This analysis suggests that reported "break even" figures for Permian Basin oil and gas production may be significantly understated. People, Ideas & Objects are rightly questioning Reported Breakevens

Major consolidated producers are currently claiming WTI breakeven prices as low as $40 per barrel, with ExxonMobil stating its core "premium" Permian inventory (post-Pioneer acquisition) has a WTI breakeven in the low-$30s, and some of its best acreage approaching the high-$20s on a half-cycle basis.

Key Caveats on Producer Claims (ExxonMobil Example):

• These are development breakevens (NPV-positive at 10%), not corporate cash breakeven.
  
  

• They assume optimal conditions: full-field development, long laterals, pad drilling, and integrated infrastructure.
  
  

• Crucially, they exclude sunk acquisition costs, such as the $65 billion paid for Pioneer Natural Resources.

To illustrate the potential understatement, consider a representative $10 million well (drilling, completion, equipping, and takeaway capacity) on a 15,000-foot lateral. While initial production may be high (e.g., 1,100 boe oil and 900 boe gas), steep decline rates (60–70% in the first year, 30–40% in the second) can drop production to approximately 100 boe/d within a few years, without subsequent interventions.

Several key cost exclusions and problematic assumptions lead to an artificially low breakeven point:

1. Selective Criteria: Breakeven is often structured for payback within the first two years based on selective cost inclusion.
   
   

2. Excluded Operational Costs: Royalties, operating expenses, and corporate overhead are frequently omitted.
   
   

3. Acreage Bias: Calculations are based on premium acreage and may not represent the average shale well.
   
   

4. Associated Gas Valuation: Associated natural gas is valued at the Henry Hub benchmark, which ignores wide regional differentials. When realized prices approach zero or become negative (e.g., sold/disposed of at –$0.25/Mcf), a significant cost is created in terms of breakeven. If $5.00/Mcf is a profitable price the loss will be $4.50 + $0.25 = $4.75 requiring ($4.75/$0.50) 9.5 profitable natural gas volumes to cover the loss. Material downward adjustments in natural gas reserves are not considered in producers breakeven calculations.
   
   

5. Exclusion of Acquisition Costs: Acquisition premiums are not allocated to individual wells. For example, ExxonMobil's Pioneer acquisition premium amounted to approximately $90,210 per daily boe of production at the time. Allocating a proportionate share of this premium to a new well—factoring in its rapid production decline—would drastically increase the effective capital cost.

Recalculated Breakeven Example:

By integrating a proportionate share of the Pioneer acquisition premium ($41.5 million) into the capital cost of the model well, the total breakeven target for capital alone is estimated to be $129.21 per barrel for the total oil volumes produced (estimated ultimate recovery of 386,946 barrels), assuming the monetary value of natural gas production is a wash. This figure is substantially higher than commonly quoted prices. Peer Comparison of Claimed Breakevens (Late-2025)

Peer Comparison of Claimed Breakevens (Late-2025)

• ExxonMobil.
  
  

• Claimed Breakeven (WTI): $30–35 (Best: high-$20s)

• Narrative & Edge: "Manufacturing mode shale." Post-Pioneer scale, integrated infrastructure, lowest unit costs.

• Strategic Risk: Diminishing returns if development pace outruns geology.
  
  

• Chevron.
  
  

• Claimed Breakeven (WTI): $35–40 (Best: low-$30s)

• Narrative & Edge: Capital discipline over growth, optimizing for free cash flow. Conservative spacing, lower decline profile.

• Strategic Constraint: Smaller Tier-1 inventory relative to Exxon.
  
  

• ConocoPhillips.
  
  

• Claimed Breakeven (WTI): $35–40 (Best: low-$30s)

• Narrative & Edge: Portfolio optimizer; Permian competes internally with other basins. Strong execution consistency, disciplined reinvestment rate.

• Strategic Constraint: Permian is not a strategic centerpiece, limiting scale efficiencies.
  
  

• Diamondback Energy.
  
  

• Claimed Breakeven (WTI): $30–35 (Best: high-$20s)

• Narrative & Edge: "Pure-play efficiency leader." Best-in-class well execution, short decision cycles.

• Strategic Constraint: No downstream integration, higher volatility exposure, capital access sensitivity.

Skeptical Take: All major producers focus their quoted breakevens on "Tier-1" inventory, neglecting the higher costs and diminishing returns from "Tier-2+" acreage exhaustion. While Exxon benefits from scale, pure-play operators like Diamondback often achieve superior economics on a well-by-well basis.

Executive Summary:

• Exxon is positioned to have the lowest-cost shale manufacturing system due to scale.
  
  

• Diamondback is often considered the best operator in terms of pure execution efficiency.
  
  

• Chevron is focused on capital stewardship and lower corporate risk.
  
  

• Conoco is the best portfolio allocator, managing the Permian within a diverse portfolio.

Greater transparency and the inclusion of all relevant costs—particularly acquisition costs and realistic associated gas valuation and volumetric adjustments—are essential for a more accurate assessment of shale profitability and sustainability.

In Conclusion:

The consistent failure of producers to address their poor financial performance is striking. People, Ideas & Objects has observed producers, over decades, pivot from one excuse to another, with the only constant being the coordinated delivery of their message.

As we've documented, they have demonstrated an inability to generate profit. Significant losses stemming from a lack of genuine profitability have impacted an industry soon to be crucial in supplying the energy that fuels our progress. This responsibility has been evident, yet deliberately ignored. The officers and directors of these producer firms—the only ones with the authority, resources, and duty to act—have consistently failed to do so.

Consequently, People, Ideas & Objects offers a material value proposition, repeatedly validated by the inaction of producer officers and directors. The established history shows their decade-plus inability to effectively respond to investors. What we see as a positive sign is that the need for change is widely recognized, and the multi-decade adherence to the current status quo is proving fatal to their current administration.

Our Value Proposition: Joint Operating Committee

 Once People, Ideas & Objects' Preliminary Specification aligns the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee with the corporation's compliance and governance frameworks, it creates synergy and alignment across all industry and producer processes. Partnerships have been essential since the industry's inception and will continue to be so until its end. The Joint Operating Committee is the industry's standard for organizing partnerships, with a comprehensive understanding reflected in Operating Procedures and Accounting Procedures. These procedures are maintained by independent industry associations that publish and study the methods necessary for operating a partnership in oil and gas.

In our Preliminary Research Report, People, Ideas & Objects hypothesized that the introduction of computers in the 1960s caused a divergence between the accounting and administration perspectives and the operations perspectives of firms. Accounting and administration became focused on the information capabilities of computers, while operations remained centered on partnerships as represented by the Joint Operating Committees. This divergence was exacerbated by tax regimes, regulations, and SEC requirements, which directed the attention of accounting and administration towards the corporation rather than the business operations within the Joint Operating Committees. As a result, the operational information captured at the property level by accounting is now often inadequate for decision-making, which instead relies primarily on independent reserves reports.

Value or Construct?

Does making the Joint Operating Committee the key Organizational Construct of the Preliminary Specification qualify as part of our value proposition? If so, how?

We believe it does. A producer firm has to balance two different organizational focuses and objectives. The technical side is centered on the business of the business, while the rest of the firm is focused on regulatory requirements, reporting, corporate compliance and governance demands.

The first issue involves data inconsistency. Producers often see the same or similar data captured across different parts of the organization, but the data is inconsistent. The needs and requirements for data vary, particularly when it comes to production-related data. For instance, is the data monthly or daily, gross or net, spec or raw, natural gas or oil, actual or accrual, nominated or produced, sold or inventoried? What’s the chromatograph on that stream? These complexities often lead to confusion and inefficiency, as highlighted by the common response, “I just want the number we get off that monthly fax from such and such. I don’t know what number it means. I was told to use it when I started this job.” This situation is unfortunate and needs to be remedied. Production-related data is complex, difficult to manage, labor-intensive, and subject to numerous amendments and accruals, typically finalized within 60 to 90 days after the production month closes. People, Ideas & Objects believe there has to be a better way.

Therefore, we developed the Material Balance Report, part of both our Partnership Accounting and Accounting Voucher modules. The Material Balance Report standardizes the reporting of production to establish certain objectives. First, the volumetric balance is subject to the same rigor as debits and credits in the financial system. Second, it ensures volumetric balance within the partnership itself. All aspects of every production transaction are contractually defined and secured through agreements. Third, the report will be system-balanced and reconciled in terms of the larger system of industry production.

Different users need different perspectives and uses of the data. This is achieved through the Preliminary Specification Material Balance Report. E.F. Codd’s Relational Theory shows that different uses of the same data are one of the attributes of relational databases. Engineering the Material Balance Report as People, Ideas & Objects suggest provides the means to identify and accommodate these different uses. When we consider technologies, such as the Internet of Things, that are just beyond the grasp of what’s available today, and understand that the purpose of the Material Balance Report is to automate follow-on processes from the production data being generated, we can see how oil & gas employees can alleviate themselves from the tedium of manual processes. They can then invest time in capturing their tacit and explicit knowledge in the software and services of Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas, focusing on the difficult, time-consuming, and critical work needed to make the industry dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable. This approach keeps the industry moving forward and achieves what we know must be done.

But a Rebuilding?

Why discard everything when some aspects are still functional? People, Ideas & Objects believe that North American oil & gas producers are currently operating at about 25% of what would be considered competitive. The industry has spent decades considering spending as inherently profitable, leading to homogeneous and indistinguishable financial statements across producers. These statements typically feature large property, plant, and equipment, minimal working capital, high debt levels, overstated assets, and shareholders who face diluted interests and fake profitability.

If the industry believes it is prepared to tackle the next 25 years with the current structure and leadership, this perception is misguided. The endowment of shale resources is beneficial, but rebuilding the service industry is crucial. The service industry, mistreated for decades, will require long-term proof and free industry cash to support their rebuilding efforts.

Our research taught us that when compliance and governance are aligned with operational decision-making, accountability results. This is intuitively understood. We believe this to be a source of conflict throughout the oil & gas industry, creating an atmosphere and culture of unaccountable decision-making. The contradiction occurs when operators assume the responsibility of managing the Joint Operating Committee. This is based on the need to have the requisite capabilities available to conduct necessary field operations. The Joint Operating Committee holds operational decision-making authority, which is then delegated in the Operating Procedure to an operator based on voting by its producer participants. A threshold percentage is established for any decision to pass. Let's assume 60% is required for approval, and the operator has a 33% working interest. Decisions are then made on this basis, AFE’s are issued, funds are spent, and the initiative fails. Who’s responsible and accountable for the difficulties—the operator or the Joint Operating Committee? 

We believe this to be the root cause of a related issue we identified in our discussion regarding Specialization and the Division of Labor. When producers have never been held accountable for day-to-day individual field decisions during their tenure, why would they be held accountable for decisions when they’ve assumed officer or director roles in the firm? Just “muddle through.” The industry culture developed over the past six decades underpins this unaccountability. In its place, a culture of excuses, blaming, and the generation of what we call viable scapegoats has emerged. To resolve this, the Preliminary Specification aligns and implements the Compliance & Governance module to the operational decision-making framework of the Joint Operating Committee, establishing an organizational culture of accountability for decisions.

The next point is related to the accountability issue and to other issues around resource restrictions in the earth science & engineering technical resource supply. Professor Richard N. Langlois was an extensive source of primary research we used throughout the Preliminary Specification. His research in industrial and innovation economics raises what he calls the agency issue or rights assignment problem in his working paper “Modularity in Technology and Organization.”

The question then becomes: why are capabilities sometimes organized within firms, sometimes decentralized in markets, and sometimes coordinated by a myriad contractual and ownership arrangements like joint ventures, franchisees, and networks? 

Explicitly echoing Hayek, Jensen and Meckling (1992, p.251) who point out that economic organization must solve two different kinds of problems: "the rights assignment problem (determining who should exercise a decision right) and the control or agency problem (how to ensure that self-interested decision agents exercise their rights in a way that contributes to the organizational objective)." There are basically two ways to ensure such a "collocation" of knowledge and decision making: "One is by moving the knowledge to those with the decision rights; the other is by moving the decision rights to those with the knowledge." (Jensen and Meckling 1992 p. 253). p. 27.

Moving the decision rights to where the knowledge exists was the appropriate decision to be made in the 1950s. However, this is inadequate today due to the difficulty for the producer as operator to maintain the full suite of just-in-time engineering and geological capacities and capabilities in the ever-expanding sciences. The solution therefore is specialization and the division of labor, which only exacerbates the difficulties and demands more from the operator. People, Ideas & Objects suggest we’ll soon reach the point where these capacities and capabilities will grow beyond what the commercial producer can support. Our solution to replace the operator definition is called Pooling.

Therefore, what rebuilding will be done? The current administration doesn’t understand there are issues. They wouldn’t know how to correct them, nor how to fix them. Consolidation is the principle they’ve hitched their wagon to, and already it's having severe consequences for both the service industry and the people who work there and in oil & gas. The only other alternative is the Preliminary Specification, designed specifically to rebuild the industry on these issues, as detailed in May 2004's Preliminary Research Report. The Preliminary Specification, published in August 2012, offers our solution: rebuilding the industry on the basis of a new culture of preservation, performance, and profitability.

The Joint Operating Committee 

Identifying, supporting, and aligning producers' processes within the Joint Operating Committee provides real value to producer firms, enhancing their performance and enabling progress in an industry that has at best stalled at a critical point in its history. People, Ideas & Objects don't believe consolidation is the answer and offer the Preliminary Specification as an insurance policy in case of its failure. Today, half of the producer firm utilizes the Joint Operating Committee. The engineering and earth sciences are deeply rooted in the traditions and culture of the industry's partnerships. However, they operate without the support of accounting information tailored to the oil & gas business, which instead caters to external interests like tax authorities, the SEC, and regulators. These external entities understand the communicated corporate related data because they define it, but engineering and earth science professionals are unaware of the flexibility and value of performance reporting that can help them determine what works and what doesn't. For four decades, they've been told that spending money is profitable—”just look at the balance sheet and income statement!”

Unaware of which property is profitable and which is not, they cannot determine where and why they may be losing money. They don't understand the financial impact of any actions taken or what measures can mitigate issues. They live by two truths: spending is profitable, and field costs need to be pared down.

Aligning the corporation’s compliance and governance frameworks with the Joint Operating Committees legal, financial, operational decision-making, cultural, communication, innovation, and strategic frameworks resolves the issue of “two separate organizations” operating within the producer firms. Although the value in doing so is inherent in the alignment, the quantifiable benefits are incalculable. Starting with the same actual, factual, balanced, and reconciled data used throughout the organization, the People, Ideas & Objects user community can make changes to the software to accommodate innovation. This reduces the redundant, costly, and non-competitive tasks of each producer building and maintaining accounting, administrative, and systems capacities and capabilities.

Focusing the culture of the rebuilt oil & gas producer around the Joint Operating Committee centers the focus on individual assets and their performance. There will be no ambiguity about the financial consequences of any action taken when actual, factual, standard, and objective accounting is conducted through the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. This provides an understanding of these changes. All modules of the Preliminary Specification focus on the Joint Operating Committee. Engineers will be able to prepare pro forma financial statements based on their planned changes. They'll have access to the Artificial Intelligence, Performance Management, Resource Marketplace, Research & Capabilities, and Knowledge & Learning modules focused on the same Joint Operating Committee or whatever domain they define. The alignment of the financial and operational domains of oil & gas producers should have occurred long ago. We’ll soon discuss why this hasn’t happened and how it has contributed to the industry's downfall.

Conclusion

The concept of alignment may have been popular among technology enthusiasts a decade ago, but many such initiatives failed to deliver the promised business value. At People, Ideas & Objects, we address business issues by enhancing productivity and performance through specialization and the division of labor, supported by automation. This approach can significantly impact the industry's performance if the internal conflicts within organizations are eliminated. The current structure of having two distinct organizations within one firm creates independent silos working against each other, and consolidation only entrenches and prolongs these issues.

NVIDIA will soon breach a $3 trillion valuation. Tesla doesn’t appear too far behind if I’m reading what their future may look like. What we can say today is that Information Technology is mature in terms of its offering. As an investment it’s behavior is similarly mature. There are more exciting and dynamic industries to be involved in. The value that is being generated remains spectacular and will continue to the foreseeable future. What we have in North American oil & gas is analogous to an individual who’s been living in a homeless shelter for a few decades. Scratching out a living between the free food and currency they can get their hands on. On the periphery there are a group of people who are doing quite well through their schemes and manipulations of those less fortunate. But outside of this dystopian landscape the industry has been there so long that no one expects anything of it. Clean energy, yeah sure why not. Consolidation, yeah why not. Name me one initiative in the industry that has worked in the 21st century. And don’t mention shale, a resource known to always be there, a resource that is only produced as a result of the innovations that the service industry developed in order to access those reserves. Innovations the producers fought the service industry for years before they even tried them. Just as People, Ideas & Objects fight them daily for the past decades to enhance their profitability. What galaxy are these officers and directors from?

The future we envision is a highly competitive oil & gas industry thriving in North American capital markets. Consolidation, as a strategy, merely seeks to manage inefficiencies on a larger scale. In contrast, People, Ideas & Objects see immense potential in this industry. The path forward lies in embracing our Preliminary Specification, fostering a culture where the industry is dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable. Leveraging specialization and automation to unlock the true value and competitiveness of North American oil & gas.

Our Value Proposition: Information Technology

Before the final stretch of our campaign, we started a series in mid-January that breaks down the individual elements of our value proposition. Now that we can return to our regular writing schedule, I'll wrap up the remaining posts on this subject. You can find the previous entries grouped under the label "Value Proposition:" which includes posts titled:

• Introduction
• Capital Component
• Hyper-Specialization and the Division of Labor
• Intellectual Property
• New Growth Theory
• Markets
• Innovation

Today, we'll proceed with our discussion on Information Technology.

Information Technology and Its Impact on Business

Over the past few decades, information technology has dramatically transformed business landscapes by enhancing productivity, performance, and fostering innovative business models. As these technologies have matured and become more integrated, they promise even greater performance and productivity enhancements. A pivotal technology in this evolution is cloud computing, which introduces a cost-effective model for users by shifting large capital expenditures to manageable operating costs. This model is particularly embraced by People, Ideas & Objects in the context of the oil & gas industry, where it revolutionizes access to state-of-the-art IT capabilities at low, variable costs.

This approach extends beyond just IT infrastructure to encompass software, services, and support within the oil & gas sector, using the shared cost methodology. Our model, termed "Cloud Administration and Accounting for Oil & Gas," applies cloud computing principles across oil & gas administrative and accounting processes. This is crucial, especially in a regulatory environment where building and maintaining necessary administrative capacities is costly. By sharing costs, oil & gas producers can avoid these high overhead costs that traditionally hamper profitability.

The traditional model where each producer independently incurs these costs does not offer a competitive advantage. Instead, through our shared and shareable model, producers will achieve state-of-the-art administrative capabilities at reduced costs with lower, variable overhead costs based on the producer's profitable production profile. 

Moreover, the adoption of Oracle Cloud ERP applications in our framework allows senior management to continuously adapt to technological advancements with minimal disruptions. The Preliminary Specification, integrated into our model, will handle future Oracle upgrades and adaptations, ensuring that the producers' needs are effectively met by our user community and service providers.

Finally, our approach with Oracle Fusion Applications avoids the pitfalls of traditional ERP customization. By embedding industry-specific features into the Oracle Fusion Middleware using object-oriented principles, we ensure that our customizations are both sustainable and adaptable to ongoing changes without significant redevelopment. This methodology aligns with Oracle's best practices, accommodating rapidly changing needs that support dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producers.

People, Ideas & Objects Information Technology Strategy

At People, Ideas & Objects, our strategic advantages lie in our user community, research, and intellectual property—not in software development. As such, we own and manage the software code derived from the Preliminary Specification and our Intellectual Property, while contracting the software development work to Oracle Corporation. Oracle's expertise in implementing their software products ensures high-quality development, eliminating the need for us to spend years assembling and training a capable team.

Since the first quarter of 2014, we have prioritized the development of our user community, recognizing this as the key differentiator in the quality and value of our offerings. In the oil & gas industry, time is a critical resource. Therefore, focusing on community engagement and intellectual property—rather than internal software development—maximizes our use of time, resources, and expertise. This strategy aligns with our belief in the importance of specialization and division of labor across the economy.

If oil & gas producers consider developing ERP solutions internally, they must face the reality that such undertakings would require immense scale and cost, likely duplicating efforts and expenses that could be more efficiently managed through our collaborative model. Sharing development costs through People, Ideas & Objects is far more economical than what would be spent on achieving comparable depth and functionality independently within each producer's firm.

Moreover, the dissatisfaction expressed by producers' shareholders and banks in 2015 highlighted the industry's broader issues with performance, accountability, and transparency. Despite this, the subsequent inaction over the years underscores the challenges and inefficiencies of working without a unified, effective business model. Our approach not only addresses these inefficiencies but also leverages shared resources to foster innovation and accountability in a sector that demands transformation. Using Oracle will cut many years off the development time. Years the producers can ill afford.

Oil & Gas ERP and Accounting Challenges

In our extensive discussions, we have consistently pointed out that the accounting practices of oil & gas producers over the last forty years have often been questionable. Mismanagement of overhead and capital costs raises significant governance concerns, which have not gone unnoticed by the investment community. We assert that these dubious accounting practices are facilitated by inadequate ERP systems, leading to critical issues in governance and financial oversight that should have become pressing matters for boards of directors.

Despite the essential role of ERP systems in ensuring effective accounting, the oil & gas industry suffers from a lack of effective systems. Currently, there are no tier 1 ERP providers that offer systems specifically tailored for oil & gas, which further exacerbates the problem. Although SAP provides ERP solutions to some major producers, their systems do not cater specifically to the unique needs of the oil & gas industry, often resulting in inefficient workarounds.

Our involvement with Oracle began in May 1991 when we initiated a collaborative development of an oil & gas ERP system, formalized by a contract in 1992. Despite Oracle's support, my initial venture into the oil & gas ERP market ended in failure in February 1997. This failure highlighted a broader issue: competitive ERP vendors have generally met the industry's needs without sufficient financial support from producers. This lack of investment has led to a situation where the personal gain of officers and directors contrasts sharply with the industry's overall financial underperformance and investor dissatisfaction.

Our May 2004 Preliminary Research Report incorporated insights from Professor Anthony Giddens and Professor Wanda Orlikowski, who have explored how technology, organizations, and society interact through Structuration Theory and the Model of Structuration. This theory suggests that any disparity among these elements can lead to conflict and failure. In this context, we've argued that the prevalent use of outdated, bespoke ERP systems in the industry serves to maintain a lack of accountability in financial reporting, allowing corporate leaders to avoid scrutiny and keep their methods unchallenged.

While acknowledging the significant efforts of my competitors under challenging conditions, it's important to note that since May 2004, there has been a deliberate lack of support for further ERP development. This has led to a market once populated by over 20 providers now dominated by a few, like P2, who have survived by absorbing others. Meanwhile, the IT market has matured significantly, but this evolution is largely ignored by oil & gas producers in their administrative and accounting practices. Instead, they often opt to highlight the latest IT trends—like the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning—as progress, regardless of the actual applicability or impact on their operations.

Oracle CloudWorld 2022 and 2023 Conferences Overview

At the 2022 Oracle CloudWorld conference, Oracle unveiled significant innovations in corporate ERP systems that enhanced business process automation. A standout feature was the advanced expense report process, which allowed employees to directly allocate expenses to specific cost centers using a partnered credit card company. This process, governed by Oracle’s automated policies, streamlined approvals and minimized administrative tasks, offering substantial time and cost savings across organizations.

In 2023, Oracle took another leap forward at their conference by integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence into their platform. This development further automated complex processes, enhancing efficiency and reducing the need for manual intervention.

Despite these advancements, there remains a notable distinction between consumer-facing and corporate applications, particularly in user interface (UI) design. The complexity of enterprise applications has historically made UI development challenging. However, Oracle has initiated improvements in this area with the development of their Redwood Platform, specifically tailored for enterprise applications. These changes are promising, and I recommend reviewing two specific videos that discuss these updates further. (Here and here.)

At People, Ideas & Objects, our primary focus and competitive advantage is our dedicated user community. Since 2014, we have emphasized the importance of involving users in the development of quality enterprise applications—a rigorous and essential process. Guided by our User Community Vision, we equip our users with the necessary tools to tailor applications that meet the unique demands of oil & gas producers, ensuring optimal profitability and operational efficiency.

Our approach to resolving challenges in the oil & gas sector is defined by a commitment to quality. Partnering with Oracle enables us to stay at the forefront of technological innovation. Our user community benefits from a vast array of Oracle’s resources, including access to diverse communities of developers and user groups. Once funding is secured, People, Ideas & Objects, along with our user community and service providers, will fully leverage Oracle’s products and services to realize our ambitious goals.

Our Value Proposition: Innovation

 People, Ideas & Objects et al need to worry about the startup to junior sector as much as any other classification within the industry. And we provide them with the most cost effective solution possible. This is purely because of the fact that the industry’s rebuilding will be done on an innovative basis. Innovation is the basis of the Preliminary Specification. It enables People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers to achieve our two opposing objectives of providing oil & gas producers with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations everywhere and always, and providing consumers with the lowest possible cost of an abundant and reliable domestic energy supply. With our decentralized production model and price maker strategy, we ensure that all production is profitable. Including Exxon's, Shell’s and that startup oil & gas firm that began this morning. And to do so innovatively to ensure that the ever escalating costs of oil & gas remain affordable to consumers. In addition, the commodities production profile and reserves continue to expand. Achieving profitable North American energy independence.

Enter two variables not available in prior decades and centuries. The cloud computing era coincides with the maturation of the overall technological infrastructure represented by the Internet. We are in the infancy of the Internet. Second, there is the "service" aspect of our user communities' service providers. We found that the level of innovation attributable to the small and medium sectors of an industry was as substantial as the larger sectors. Although the larger sectors contributed large amounts in terms of total expenditures, their impact was no greater than that of what the other sectors contributed. People, Ideas & Objects et al provides our solution for all sectors of the North American oil & gas industry and for all producers. Professor Giovanni Dosi was one of the key sources of research we used to determine the framework necessary for an innovative oil & gas industry. Innovation within a science and engineering-based business is therefore an inherent part of both profitable operations and consumer affordability. Professor Dosi’s paper “Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation” September 1988, discusses and asks what are “the sources of innovations opportunities, what are the roles of markets in allocating resources to the exploration of these opportunities”?

People, Ideas & Objects research in oil & gas focused on these points: 

The main characteristics of the innovation process. 

• The factors that are conducive to or hinder the development of new processes of production and new products.
• The processes that determine the selection of particular innovations and their effects on industrial structures.  (p. 1121). 

According to Professor Dosi, there are two major issues that need to be addressed: 

• The first issue is the characterization in general of the innovative process.
• And second, the interpretation of the factors that account for observed differences in the modes of innovative search and in the rates of innovation between different sectors and firms, and over time. (p. 1121). 

Professor Dosi then states that: 

Typically, the search, development and adoption of new processes and products in market economies are the outcome of the interaction between:

• (a) Capabilities and stimuli generated with each firm and within the industry of which they compete. (p. 1121). 

The purpose of People, Ideas & Objects research in oil & gas focused on the organizational capability and capacities of the producer firm. Specifically in the earth science and engineering disciplines. It was also emphasized that innovations are based on both the firm and the industry. Coordination of the capabilities and stimuli of both the firm and the industry would therefore need to be advanced through changes in the organizational structure of both.

(b) Broader causes external to the individual industries, such as the state of science in different branches, the facilities for the communication of knowledge, the supply of technical capabilities, skills, engineers, and so on;  (p. 1121). 

Additional issues include 

(c) The conditions controlling occupational and geo-graphical mobility and or consumer promptness / resistance to change, market conditions, financial facilities and capabilities and the criteria used to allocate funds. Microeconomic trends in the effects on changes in relative prices of inputs and outputs, including public policy. (regulations, tax codes, patent and trademark laws and public procurement.) (p. 1121) 

People, Ideas & Objects propose that innovation represents a critical Organizational Construct which compels organizations to either flounder or flourish. Innovation serves not only as an Organizational Construct in its own right but also, as we have defined in the context of the Joint Operating Committee, it is one of the seven key frameworks of this construct. From this perspective, innovation is seen as a defined and replicable process, which can be systematically established through thoughtful organizational design. Crucial to this design is the integration of ERP software, tailored to identify and support the specific needs of the organization and its industry. In the 21st century, innovative organizations are fundamentally reliant on such ERP software systems. The Preliminary Specification lays the groundwork for these innovative producers. It is up to the competitive nature of the officers and directors to harness their innovative potential, coordinating their earth science & engineering capacities and capabilities effectively.

Our second source of primary research material regarding innovation came from Professor Richard N. Langlois. Throughout our review of his work we determined the appropriate nature of the organizational design of the producer firm and the oil & gas industry itself. Selecting specific areas of the firm or market where the process and its management should be. Where capabilities should reside. By fully implementing the Internet and using Professor Langlois' research, which included Professor Carliss Baldwin's determination of where exactly that transfer between firm and market should occur. We designed the appropriate software tools, such as our task and transfer system. This will enable our user community to define which processes to undertake and manage in their service provider operations. Introducing enhanced efficiency in oil & gas administration and accounting. 

Building on other innovations that provide value generation such as cloud computing. People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service provider organizations can accomplish this through the introduction of Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. A service that turns the fixed producer overhead into a variable industry-based overhead that can be provided to any producer no matter what their size or production profile. It is possible for producers to shut-in unprofitable production and produce only profitable properties, increasing shareholder value as a result. A substantial portion of our published value proposition of $25.7 to $45.7 trillion over the next 25 years is attributable to introducing this production discipline. This is to eliminate the known $4 trillion in damage and destruction caused by overproduction in natural gas since 2007.

The Preliminary Specification has captured this understanding of innovation and incorporated it within the culture of the industry we are rebuilding in these Organizational Constructs. It is also part of the Joint Operating Committees innovation framework. Each of the fourteen modules of the Preliminary Specification is materially affected when we identify the Joint Operating Committee as the key Organizational Construct. Which provided us with an opportunity to incorporate this understanding of innovation into the design and reorganization of the oil & gas producer firm and industry. These can be identified by several major processes of innovation within the Preliminary Specification. One of these ensures that failed innovations and experiments, and their underlying processes are not repeated in separate and distinct areas of the organization each year. Using the same failed “ideas” repeatedly is not innovation. Another major process of innovation is to enhance the scientific basis of producer firms and the industry as a whole. Moving forward on the basis that an idea that generates a dollar today will only produce ten cents tomorrow. We therefore must increase the volume of ideas generated and incorporated into our work processes to continue increasing our value. Various other innovation processes have been incorporated throughout the Preliminary Specification based on primary research conducted by Professors Giovanni Dosi and Richard N. Langlois. Enabling producers to earn the unquantifiable value that needs to occur throughout each producer firm and all tiers of the oil & gas industry in the decades to come. Value that will need to fund the innovation for tomorrow.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Continuing our discussion regarding the recent Oracle CloudWorld 2022 & 2023 conferences. Producers can generate incremental and continuing value from enhanced innovation through the development and implementation of the Preliminary Specification. Oracle’s products are the premier technologies in database systems development and their ERP systems are the base of the Preliminary Specification. Oracle is now partnering with service providers to enhance their products with a variety of services in order to bring about the innovation-based benefits we have discussed throughout the Preliminary Specification. Theirs will be in the domain of generic business processes such as banking etc, or the non-oil & gas specific processes that we handle through the 14 modules of the Preliminary Specification. 

Our proposed combination of Oracle Cloud ERP, People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations are designed to deliver the foundation in which the producers, the oil & gas industry and all the tertiary industries can succeed in the 21st century. Without these facilities and capabilities the question we would ask is how will the industry “muddle through” so many of these issues and opportunities otherwise?

Since Oracle’s beginning they have pioneered the development of their technologies to be the premier tier 1 provider in all categories of their offerings. Oracle has been a critical and essential innovator in each of their products and markets. They continue today with products such as Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure that continue that heritage. Recently with the Oracle CloudWorld 2022 conference we saw an innovative direction beginning with their development of service providers to augment their products. These enhanced products and services bring tremendous incremental value to oil & gas users. And are consistent with the work People, Ideas & Objects has undertaken on behalf of North American producers. 

Innovation throughout the business and industry specific process management, built upon the premier tier 1 Oracle products. This augments the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable nature of what is demanded of North American oil & gas producers. This is not a static environment. It will be through our user community and their service providers that producers will be able to interact with all aspects of business and industry specific process management. To make changes, innovate and develop these further which is an inherent part of People, Ideas & Objects and our user communities permanent software development capability. But there’s more.

A production configuration oriented toward this innovation Organizational Construct. With the Joint Operating Committee, that Organizational Construct holds innovation as one of its seven frameworks. Not only oil & gas producers, but the entire oil & gas industry and its tertiary industries and supporting institutions will be culturally aligned and oriented through Oracle Cloud ERP and People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification towards innovation in the earth science and engineering disciplines. Providing the means to rebuild the industry in this configuration with software that defines and supports these objectives. Where the industry's approach to its next 25 years can be the most dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable in its history. A future that is the most demanding, challenging and exciting in its history.

Our Value Proposition: Markets

 Three modules of the Preliminary Specification are “market” modules, including the Resource, Petroleum Lease, and Financial Marketplace modules. Each establishes a marketplace where producers can engage in the markets they need.The marketplace modules mimic the three markets producers participate in. They are designed to deal with the day-to-day activities of each producer, service industry member and others. Supporting them with the contractual, transaction processing and other capabilities of Oracle Cloud ERP and People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. We also support our user community and their service providers in our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. Enabling producers to apply their competitive advantages and strategies in the greater oil & gas economy. 

North America has advanced its overall quality of life through markets and price discovery. The Preliminary Specification will act as a part of the structures that define and support the oil & gas industry. Our decentralized production model price maker strategy relies on the principle of oil & gas commodities being priced based on the price maker principle. Producers need to produce only profitable production, after full consideration of all their actual costs on a timely and accurate basis. This is how they’ll operate with Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. Using all of the information contained within the commodities market price (production, inventory, consumption, reserves) to determine profitability and ultimately what will and will not be produced. It is these same mechanisms that are involved in every transaction of a free market. 

From the Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace module we quote from a paper written by Professors Richard N. Langlois and Nicholas J. Foss entitled “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization.” they note.

The organizational question is whether new capabilities are best acquired through the market, through internal learning, or through some hybrid organizational form. And the answer will depend on (A) the already existing structure of capabilities and (B) the nature of the economic change involved. p. 20.

And

If by contrast, the old configuration of capabilities lies within large vertically integrated organizations, creative destruction may well take the form of markets superseding firms. History offers many examples of both. p. 20.

And

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.

In terms of the Resource Marketplace module we first need to discuss two components of how operations are conducted in oil & gas. Field service industry providers extend producers' capabilities and capacities into their regions of interest. If producers owned and operated their field infrastructure it would otherwise be an impossible impediment and constraint towards progress. The second component is the history of abuse and disrespect producers have displayed and presented to the service industry over forty years. And particularly since 2015 when producers recognized their financial difficulties were amplifying. 

The status quo long ago accepted the assumption that oil & gas is a boom / bust industry. All other industries sought to work these issues out of their businesses and industries many years ago. It is this continuing acceptance by producers that has left us with a legacy of maybe six good years out of the past thirty six. Officers and directors don’t understand this argument as they’ve experienced thirty six years of superior executive compensation. Producers assumed the service industry would adjust to the boom / bust trend in lock step with them. There is an implied assumption that the service industry, like the oil & gas industry itself, enjoys revenues as a primary industry. Therefore, it continues business as usual during bust cycles. The diversity of the service industry offerings, and their coverage across the various regions of their operations throughout North America spread them thin operationally. As secondary industry participants they are not as resilient as producers believe. Scaling back from 1,900 active drilling rigs during 2015 to 400, forcing 50% price reductions on the drilling operator or they would use another vendor, the producers induced a collapse of their revenue streams into the low and below teens in terms of percentages of prior levels, which has been devastating on the financial health and viability of the entire service industry.

Now in 2024 the repercussions of this downturn have decimated much of the service industries capacities and capabilities that were once available to producers. The largest service industry providers have left the continent due to this abusive treatment. Therefore for producers to work out the boom / bust cycle through our price maker strategy will contribute to rectifying this issue in the long run. Through profitability everywhere and always, the oil and gas industry will build a stable infrastructure. Providing a stable environment, or a constant level of demand for which the service industry would be able to budget, plan and prosper. 

After this and similar treatment over the past four decades investors in the service industry are unwilling to participate in the rebuilding of their much needed field operations. They invested in good faith and were abused by the producer firms. They’ve witnessed the equipment they invested in being cut up for scrap metal to pay the light bill and taxes on the shop or horsepower sold off to other industries. This was due to the producers determining they could get away with leveraging additional field activity by not paying their bills for 18 months after the jobs were completed. Producers should have alerted the service industry representatives to these plans beforehand. The dilemma today is who’s willing to provide the financial resources for the service industry to recapitalize itself. The funds that would enable it to reestablish the capacities and capabilities necessary for a self-sufficient and profitable oil & gas industry? The service industry believes that producers broke it, they can fix it. Maybe when they have some skin in the game they won't be so abusive.

This is what’s known and understood in the market today. It's not news. Producers expect the service industry to resume normal operations, yet fail to consider the consequences of their prior actions. A similar example is the history of oil & gas ERP providers over the past thirty years. I can report there’s still no consideration of a second chance these first tier ERP providers will ride to the rescue of the producer firms. Why? They feel the industry is too complex, too costly and there are not enough producers to negotiate sales prices fairly. SAP is a custom implementation for each sale. The last two ERP providers left in 2000 and 2005, as documented on page 17 of our White Paper. This was due to producer officers and directors' inability to pay for software development in advance. The only method by which these vendors would approach the industry. 

Producers have had ten years to invest in the Preliminary Specification to make their organizations profitable and accountable. They also had the opportunity to avoid this inevitable, predictable and fatal outcome but didn’t do so. Not a penny has been spent on People, Ideas & Objects at any point. The need for skin in the game was the apt approach when so many oil & gas ERP investors and vendors were betrayed three decades ago. This has now been done to the service industry. People, Ideas & Objects are instilling market principles in the producer firms, however, this does not imply that those who support them have the inherent trust in producers as a result of their prior actions to rely on market mechanisms at this time. Industry culture will need to have been proven to be changed. We’ve heard the promises before. 

Producers sit on primary industry revenues. They will show a thumbs down to this idea as if People, Ideas & Objects is the only vendor they’ll be faced with who has this ludicrous prepayment idea. Officers and directors' actions have consequences that are wholly detrimental to everyone else in the industry. Officers and directors will argue this does not remind them of what markets and price discovery should look like. Correct, it's what’s necessary after their destruction of markets. 

These facts on the ground are what officers and directors refuse to consider or admit. Until they do the industry will be beset with problems of the scale and magnitude of trillions of dollars. These issues need to be dealt with and I am unaware of another solution. The need to rebuild the industry brick by brick and stick by stick must be financed by the only means now available. The primary industry revenues of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas industry. It is facilitated through the Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace module and the price-maker strategy in the decentralized production model. Granted there will be those within the service industry that will continue to scrounge for the pennies falling from the officers and directors' pockets. However, that does not create the dynamic, innovative, accountable, profitable and energy independent oil & gas industry that we need. 

The Financial and Petroleum Lease Marketplace will also implement market organizational structures in the Preliminary Specification. This will provide the organized interface necessary to access and interact with these markets. Modules in which the full transactional power of the Preliminary Specifications ERP system supports these markets. We’ll also discuss the Marketplace Interface we're building. I believe COVID provides the opportunity to adjust one's opinion to this feature. I have suffered the slings and arrows, the ridicule for it in the past. There is little that disagrees with what I haven't heard. In my opinion it is revolutionary and needs to be seen in the context of the changes that occurred in 2020 - 2022 covid era. At a minimum it adds an element of serendipity to working from home. One point I may not have been clear about is that the Marketplace Interface is a virtual representation. Users will be able to access it through any screen on any of their devices. The person does not wear a headset.

The Petroleum Lease Marketplace module is exactly what you could imagine. An opportunity to post, bid, purchase, and sell mineral rights and producing properties in the marketplace that exists and is replicated virtually within the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module. Everything from the opportunity to participate in a joint venture to establishing surface rights payments is fully supported by the ERP system of the Preliminary Specification. Our product sits on top of Oracle ERP Cloud which includes their tier 1, Oracle Fusion Applications which Gartner rates as the highest quality offering. Oil & gas markets include Federal, State, Provincial, Freehold and offshore leases. An opportunity for industry to consolidate on a dynamic platform which uses proven tier 1 technologies with the constant support of service providers. This platform maintains transaction administration and accounting in a standard and objective manner. (Note: People, Ideas & Objects maintain the policy, and it is written into our user community and service provider licenses.) 

We will keep arm’s length distance from all royalty administrations. We operate in the long-term interests of the oil & gas industry. To ensure that they are provided with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations. There will be no compromise on this anywhere within this community.) This will be enhanced with the constant iterative design and development being undertaken by the People, Ideas & Objects user community and developers on a permanent basis. Whereas if a jurisdiction reviewed and changed their royalty rates at some point, in terms of either the rate or method calculated, producers would not need to concern themselves with the administrative or accounting aspects of those changes. The user community, developers and service providers would handle them and ensure that the software and services are updated on time. Producers would only need to deal with any issues regarding revised royalty costs. 

Producer firms do not have competitive advantages in administration and accounting. Thankfully that is one of the statements we have no pushback on. However, these areas shouldn't be slapped together in a haphazard manner. There’s no reason why the industry doesn't have access to state of the art ERP systems within their firms. That producers haven’t, has led to many questioning not only the integrity of accounting but also the systems used by the industry. This questioning should never have been necessary and implementation of Tier 1 ERP systems is now an explicit demand of the investment community. Oracle Cloud ERP is the premier Tier 1 ERP system on the market. 

And why is it that the issue of overproduction, or as we define it as unprofitable production, can be documented to have existed in the North American marketplace as far back as July 26, 1986? The solution we propose to the overproduction issue, in addition to aligning all seven Organizational Constructs, has been available since August 2012. In terms of markets, it is estimated that there is double the amount of oil needed by 2050. This capacity overhang forces North American high cost producers to assume the swing producer role and produce only profitable production. During the next 27 years, Saudi Arabia will be able to produce profitably at any price with its production costs of $3.00 and probable $0.00 in capital costs. They could use the money, and the markets in 2050 are too far away and unpredictable for them to sit back and wait for. 

The third marketplace module is the Financial Marketplace module. With the Preliminary Specification, the Joint Operating Committee becomes the key Organizational Construct of a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producer. In the Joint Operating Committee section we noted that the movement of knowledge, which includes the detailed actual, factual accounting information for that specific property, to where the decision rights are held, which is the Joint Operating Committee, enhances accountability. 

It's here that the Financial Marketplace enhances accountability through the board of directors' interaction with their current and prospective shareholders and bankers. A review of the Financial Marketplace module specification would be the most comprehensive source of information to capture an overall understanding of the module. With the standard and objective nature of the accounting conducted throughout the Preliminary Specification and the service providers. Would that satisfy some of the issues investors and bankers have raised regarding their investments and loans in the industry? Where everything being produced is profitable and producers seek to maximize profits by shutting-in unprofitable production? Would People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers help producers satisfy their shareholders and bankers to the point where they’d invest in the industry again?