A Cold Hard Assessment
Although I have never crossed a mother grizzly bear and her cubs, I don’t think she would have anything on the bureaucracy when you cross their domain. They are a nasty bunch. And they are not a fan of People, Ideas & Objects or the work that we are doing. As we mentioned yesterday we are looking to throw them in the river. They have a nice setup now and do not see the need to upset the makeup of their empire. As I have mentioned in the past, even the CEO’s don’t venture into our territory for fear of a mutiny.
I look at those as the good old days when things were relatively calm in the oil and gas market space. Today, that is since the 2008 financial crisis, things are not necessarily as they appear. The bureaucracy has been losing much of its hold on power in all areas of its domain. It’s in retreat and having to pick its fights. The investors have risen and are asserting their dominance in the corporate domain. So the CEO’s have to pick. Harmony with the bureaucracy or profits with the shareholders. And it looks more and more like the shareholders are winning the war. It’s still too early to pick a winner, but what industry can continue on without making any profits.
And what is so great about profits. Its just that in reality the oil and gas industry hasn’t produced any. The accounting treatment of valuation of assets and hence income can make anyone an oilman. The fact that there are ceiling test write downs in an environment with $100 dollar oil and $5.00 gas should make you laugh uncontrollably. Anything and everything that is spent is capitalized. And little is expensed in the current year. In good years this balloons income and inflates assets of everyone to the level of a super achieving oilman. On an accounting basis you can’t tell if the CEO is an idiot or a genius. That is until they declare bankruptcy.
So earnings have been a bit of a shell game for the past three decades. All your mistakes and skeletons stay in the closet as long as you keep drilling and the commodity prices eventually rise. The investors are now wise to this game and they want to earn some real money now. They have invested faithfully in the industry and have expected returns from the business. During the past decade there has been significant increases in commodity prices and the bureaucracy have not performed. The results are the same as when the prices were $20 per barrel. The bureaucracy feels this should be adequate and the investors need to check their expectations.
I have heard a few CEO’s talk about value instead of volumes. As a matter of fact it was the CEO of Encana in their fourth quarter conference call that brought up that as their new strategy. Well that will be a surprise if they actually pull it off. They could always call us if the mood strikes them. As we have a solution that is somewhat consistent with that idea.
We’ll see how long this flavor of the month strategy lasts. If it’s a trend precipitated by the investors, which I think it is, the bureaucracy should purchase some luggage. Maybe even a canoe. The point being that the time for the user community and People, Ideas & Objects gets closer each day, the risks are less, and the rewards for us as a community are more than worthwhile.
The question was asked at the beginning if we developed the user community would it be worthwhile. If we assume for a moment that the bureaucracy is in decline. And their ability to battle is waning. Then providing the oil and gas industry with an alternative means of organization will not only be a good thing from a profitability point of view, it will be a necessity. What will happen is that when the situation gets to be too untenable for the bureaucracy, they’ll quit. That is their history. They’ll either run out of paper or find opportunities in other locations and leave their skeletons in their closets for someone else to wrestle with. They are not fighters or builders, they’re bureaucrats. We need to have a replacement for them when they abandon ship just as much as we need to replace them to enhance the profitability of the oil and gas industry. And that is why we need to do what we need to do, build the alternative.
The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.
