Saturday, July 19, 2008

Deja vu, all over again.

A number of years ago I did some analysis on Petro Canada that remains some of the most popular content on this blog. I thought since they did not make any material changes as a result of the analysis. I would just link the posts in this one entry.

Petro Canada Q2 Earnings
Petro Canada Piles it on Again
Petro Canada's accountability framework
Oil and Gas Reserves of Petro Canada
Top 10 Management Excuses from Petro Canada
Petro Canada Garage Sale continues
Petro Canada's First Quartile
Petro Canada Definitions
Maturation of Petro Canada
Petro Canada Options
Petro Canada news management
Petro Canada is more disturbingPetro Canada Series
Petro Canada Executive
Petro Canada
Petro Canada Definition of Value
Anti-Petro Canada
Petro Canada Some Clarifications
Petro Canada's Conflicting Statements
Petro Canada's Reserve Report
Petro Canada Earnings
Petro Canada Believes 


Enjoy!

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Friday, July 18, 2008

15 TCF of Natural Gas

That was the volume of gas that Shell bought from Duvernay Oil Corp. The purpose of this entry is to provide a little more about the understanding of reserves.

Way back when the geological survey determined that Canada would potentially produce 150 TCF of natural gas. Updates to the survey show that Canada has produced a little over two thirds of what they once had.

Now Duvernay comes along and discovers 15TCF of gas? The question is, is this 10% of the 150 TCF or is it an addition to total 165 TCF. The answer is "I don't care". Reserves have taken on a distorted meaning in the Peak Oil crowd. They are meaningless in determining what the future potential of an entrepreneur can do if they truly understand the business. While the Peak Oil crowd and Cambridge Energy Research Associates were reviewing reserves, Duvernay got down to the business at hand. Getting down to the business at hand is available to everyone, everyone who is not so glazed over by the value of their stock options.

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Nexen reports it's losing its mind.

Reading Nexen's second quarter financial results press release; leaves one with the feeling all is well "Nexen reports solid second quarter financial results". Yet Bloomberg reports a rather poor performance, and the stock is down over 10%. How's this? Bloomberg in their opening paragraph.

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Nexen Inc., the Canadian producer that gets most of its output from oil fields, said second- quarter profit rose 3.3 percent as stock-based compensation costs blunted higher crude prices.
Makes it very clear that the management were celebrating the latest round of stock based compensation. Another $300 million for the piggies, and $380 million for the shareholders. That seems fair doesn't it? If these little piggies can't boost their profits by more then 3.3 percent at a time when oil prices are up, then they never will. All the upside from the increase in oil prices is clearly deemed as the valuation of further stock based compensation. I suggest the shareholders show them the door.

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NOC's Don't Explore.

First of all, a quick comment, price volatility is not a welcome trend. The price of oil in the world is moving up and down in a rather violent manner the last few weeks. This is a precursor to some major upswing in the price, so hang on this might get really rough.

I find it amusing that the companies are not even listed in the call to action by the former Secretaries of Defense, State, Commerce and Energy. The companies have cruised to the point where even the politicians are not expecting anything from them!

Back to the key topic of this post. One of the key complaints of the oil and gas companies is that they are being kicked out of the countries that manage their energy assets through "National Oil Companies" (NOC's). Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. To expect an exploration mindset from either Saudi Arabia or Venezuela is wrong headed. They're only interested in the efficient and effective management of their countries energy resources. Because of this the oil and gas companies should not have any competition from NOC's. (Wasn't that in the movie "Apocaplypse Now" "NOC's don't explore"). Sitting in the corner and crying is not a proper posture for these oil and gas companies. Or do pigs squeal in the corner.

If as I had suggested in my review of the book "Profit from the Peak", these companies don't know how to explore, can't explore and are not able to organize themselves to explore. I say sure they have exploration departments; but the people there are only picking up their companies leadership position in having their retirement homes bathrooms wallpapered with stock certificates. If they are doing nothing but squealing and lining their pockets why don't we send them to the slaughter house?

Is an exploration mindset necessary? Would it provide the discovery of new oil and gas fields? You be the Judge. In Calgary, Duvernay was purchased this week by Shell for $5.9 billion. Never heard of Duvernay Oil Corp? I can assure you not many have. They started in 2001 from nothing and this is their story:

Duvernay Oil Corp. is an aggressive Alberta based oil and gas company with an aggressive activity plan for future growth. The company is engaged in exploration and development of natural gas and crude oil emphasis on the deeper, western portion of the western Canadian sedimentary basin in Alberta and Northeastern British Columbia.
Reading their annual report for 2007 will reflect that exploration is their core focus. If you download the report, look at the awesome pictures on page 2. Aggressive innovation is Duvernay's middle name. And the map on page 13. That little map contains the work of probably a few genius level geologists life-time of work.

Therefore a start-up focused on Alberta and BC can earn $1 billion per year? That's what exploration is about. I'm tired of the noise and smell of the oil and gas companies that I have highlighted as pigs. Lets get rid of them. Join me here.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

And this little piggy...

Up next in the shocking level of stock option compensation, is Nexen. Their 2007 based compensation was $175 million "in the money" and $465 million "in the money" stock options issued and outstanding. For a total "in the money" compensation of $640 million. The total of the four oil and gas companies is now $3.36 billion. You tell me if you think its excessive.


Company Stock-OptionsMarket Cap
Canadian Natural Resources$1.53 billion$50.6 billion
Petro-Canada$492 million$24.5 billion
Encana$698.2 million$62.8 billion
Nexen$640.0 million$19.3 billion
Total Producers$3.36 billion$157.2 billion
Apple$873 million$151.9 billion

I have stated here that these companies had the opportunity to address these problems almost five years ago. What has happened since then is an inability of these firms to make their targets in terms of production volumes. This has occurred on an almost systemic basis with each company reporting that there are material cost overruns and scheduling problems. More or less these companies can't keep up to the demand for energy. Can't keep up because they are too bureaucratic.

But there's more. Over the course of time we have seen the problem escalate in the world. That wasn't of any concern of these companies. Indeed we have seen the slackening of their pace and a deadening of their sense of urgency. Confident in their abilities to control their environment from any serious criticism of their performance. They became bold in their actions and believed they were entitled to these stock options. Stock options that became valuable from increases in earnings from higher prices. High prices that masked the declines in reserves and production. After all it was working. They are now that much closer to their retirement, a retirement that will be far more comfortable. This was their special reward for gracing the oil and gas industry with their presence. Don't do anything and be richly rewarded.

The consequence of their greed is reflected in this article from ASPO USA:

The CIA reports that there are 266 “nations, dependent areas, and other entities” on the world today. During the last few weeks at least 90 of these are reported to be having continuing serious or very serious energy shortages. The number of countries with energy problems may be much higher as the CIA also reports that 94 of the world’s nations are islands many of which are so small they are rarely heard from but are almost certain to be suffering from $140 oil.
When I proposed this idea in September 2003 and subsequently published the research results in May 2004. These two dates were not the only times I marketed to these companies. I have contacted those within the industry, and particularly the four pigs I've already mentioned, (Petro Canada, Encana, Canadian Natural Resources, and Nexen) on an annual and semi-annual basis. The last time being December 11, 2007. I always received the same response of "not at this time". Well of course not, they hadn't retired, and who wants to work hard?

Well the time has now past by any reasonable measure. And the management have proven that they are not capable of acting in any constructive way, other then for themselves. Therefore I appeal to the investor class to take action and fund these software developments. Create the necessary alternative organization for you, the investors, to able to manage your assets.

Do we have to wait until their are riots in Europe, Canada and the U.S. before someone dispatches these people to the pig sty? Is $4 gas enough? I don't think so, we have a lot of pain heading our way due to these selfish people. What more do we need to realize that the same old muddling along just isn't going to work. Join me here.

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Apple, my favorite tech company.

Apple is a company that has risen from the ashes in 1997 to a stellar performer and one of the top four technology companies. Only Google, IBM and Microsoft are larger in terms of market capitalization. Apple had a market cap of approximately $700 million in 1997. Today it is $153.3 billion.

Here is a firm that has taken the world by storm in one of the highest profile industries, and in ten years turned itself into a juggernaut. I'll bet their stock based compensation must be stratospheric. Not really Apple recognized $242 million in stock based compensation for 2007 and $631 million in unrecognized compensation for a total of $873 million.

So here we have what has to be the greatest story of a company rising from the ashes and building 219 times their 1997 values. Apple is 2.4 times the size of Encana (the largest oil and gas company that I have highlighted in this stock option review). Only Apple is capable of approaching the values of the stock option feeding frenzy of these producers. We know that Apple's management generated $152 billion in shareholder value to earn their stock options, what have these oil and gas companies done to deserve theirs?

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Monday, July 14, 2008

The last 2 Draft Specifications!

Draft Specification - Performance Evaluation
Draft Specification - Analytics & Statistics

Two plus nine equal's eleven. These specifications are now the communities to take and build upon. The draft specifications are in a way a codification of my vision of what could be, and the research that I have conducted on the organizationally constrained producer companies.

I can not tell you how good it feels to have completed these.

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User friendly development tools.

The other day I wrote about how the Users involved in this community could get an understanding of how the modern development tools operate. Although new and innovative development tools is a major part of the ways and means that our work is changing. I now think that the perspective that I had, community of users looking at the development tools, is putting the cart before the horse.

In many ways it is the development communities responsibility to show their tools and help the Users understand what is being done. New interfaces, applications and perspectives that are designed to help the user to communicate with the developer what it is they are thinking.

These IDE's (Integrated Development Environments) have come a long way in the past few years. You can develop code faster and better then one could imagine only a few years ago. But what is being developed? Is the limit of these IDE tools somewhat constrained to where the developer understands the problem? A developer who is able to communicate and deal with other developers who share that point of view, and hence create a consensus on what action to take.

User based developed applications, such as this People, Ideas & Objects application, are generally larger, more complicated, and technically feasible. But, unproven mostly as a result of their size. Are these tools able to support the user? A user who knows what their job consists of and is able to communicate what it is they want or need. What if the developer is unable to understand why business users are demanding some of the things that they ask. Developers understand the science and engineering of systems. However, do they stumble on some of the more advanced business concepts used in today's companies?

I left a comment on Geertjan's blog on this topic. He is involved in the community that deals with the direction of where NetBeans is heading. And is one of the people that runs the NetBeans podcast. If this community of like minded business users could meet with his community of NetBeans developers. Would the users be able to improve not only applications but tools as well?

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

Matthew Simmons calls to stop the witch hunt.

I have to credit Mr. Simmons with the fact that he is the individual that turned my thinking towards solving this problem. He is the leader of the Peak Oil theorists and his recent CNBC video reflects his sense of urgency. He states lets stop the witch hunt and get on with it.

I would tend to agree with him however, the bureaucracies that are endowing themselves in the trough today are the same people and companies that have ostracized me from the oil and gas industry. I feel fair is fair. I was certainly on topic when I wrote the following in my May 2004 report to them.

It is suggested in this research that the speed that a bureaucracy can adapt and change is inadequate for the operational demands of a future oil and gas operation. Innovation within the oil and gas industry will be required in order to keep up with the natural and increasing rate of decline in production. Where the sciences of geology and applied sciences of engineering, which cover a broad range, will need to progress substantially in the next 10 years in order to achieve the demand requirements of the North American energy consumers. p. 71
It is these same bureaucracies that now point to the accelerated depletion as the reason for their loss of production. Again this is not something that they are becoming familiar with today. If I wrote about it May 2004 I can assure you that it was common knowledge at the CEO, CFO and COO level throughout the industry.

Secondly, who does the energy consumer turn too. I say we follow the money. These companies have 100% of the revenues from oil and gas sales. It is they that could have, AND SHOULD HAVE, done something. In their attempt to steal this idea from me, after I made my September 2003 proposal to them, is evidence that this idea had legs in their minds. That is the point in time in which they should have realized their ILLEGAL ways and done something positive. Nonetheless, and irrespective of the past, if they have known about this for almost 5 years, why have they done nothing?

The fact of the matter is the companies know the investor class has no alternative but to turn to them. In this day and age doing any change in the organization requires the software to be developed first. I know they know this because I was the one that told them. In my May 2004 preliminary research report it was stated in the review of Dr. Anthony Giddens and Dr. Wanda Orlikowski.

Dr. Orlikowski’s structurational model of technology proposes two key aspects: the duality of technology and the interpretative flexibility of technology.

"The duality of technology means that technology is the product of human action and assumes structural properties: it is physically constructed in a given context and socially constructed through different meanings."
"The interpretative flexibility of technology suggests that technology is continuously constructed in social and physical ways, that there is a time space discontinuity (development is separated from use in both context and time) in traditional models, and that individual and social factors influence users working with and shaping technology."
I say let the witch hunt begin! These companies have done nothing since 2004 to earn the benefit of the doubt. They knew the problem, they tried to take this idea and manage it themselves, and they know the investor class can only turn to the management. And they have known all these things for the past 5 years.

So lets toss another log on the fire. Encana Corporation paid "in the money" stock options worth $490.7 million and has options remaining that are "in the money" by $207.5 million. Now remember, I only distributed the research proposal and preliminary report to firms with head offices in Calgary.

These three (Petro-Canada, Canadian Natural Resources and Encana) have endowed their managements with a total of $2.7 billion in stock based compensation.

Join me here, and lets cast these pigs from the trough to the mud pits.

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

More Pigs at the Trough.

Stock options again. This coming from the company Mr. Murray Edwards started, Canadian Natural Resources. Recall he was one of the most vocal about the royalty increases by the Alberta government. I posted that comment "Like a Bully in the School Yard".

Anyway this management scores on the higher end of options based compensation. I've calculated their total "in the money" stock options as $1,338 million as of the end of 2007. They also provided $193 million "in the money" for stock options tendered in 2007. For a whopping $1.53 billion in stock based compensation as at today's stock price. All for a decline in annual production of 8,200 barrel? Imagine what it could be like if they increased production. I'm still calling on the investor class to fund this software development project. In turn the investor would have an alternative organizational structure to break up this noisy feast.

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