A Foolish Consistency
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”Ralph Waldo Emerson
That is what comes to mind when I read so many comments from oil and gas bureaucrats regarding how they perceive the decline in oil and gas commodity prices. Each of their responses are the same “that we are still making profits” and nothing has changed. My first argument concerning these comments is that the net proceeds from the field are not profits, they're margins. When you take the revenues less royalties, production and transportation costs that is the margin that the property is providing the producer. There are significant additional costs included in determining the profit of that property. Such as what it cost to drill the well which needs to be depreciated and the reserves depleted. Additional costs include an allocation of all of those thousands of people you employ in the head office. Then maybe you will begin to determine what “profit” really is.
As I have stated before it is detrimental to the industry to display that the bureaucrats have such a poor financial understanding. If they do not comprehend the business from a level in which they can articulate the situation to the financial community. In a way that is consistent with financial expectations then they should find someone who can or just be quiet. Right now all this talk of continuing to be profitable is setting up expectations that they are still profitable. And we all know that if the producers are operating on skinny margins in the oil sector, they are losing money after the deduction of the capital costs of current production and the associated overhead. Adding the losses on the oil side to the known losses on the natural gas side of the business and these bureaucrats will be reporting big losses in April and May of 2015 for the fiscal year of 2014. So why set yourself up for angry and disappointed investors that will believe you deceived them?
One producer was quoted in World Oil as stating...
“They're not shutting in because that’s all ‘sunk costs,’” he said of U.S. shale producers, “So you're not going to get a lot of producers stopping at 75 buck oil.”
This logic is a holdover from the 17th century. In the 21st century the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer will use People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Which will enable them to use the decentralized production model and agree among the Joint Operating Committee to shut-in their unprofitable properties. And by doing so they will be able to remove the excess production from the marketplace, increasing the price of the commodity. Save their reserves for the day when they can be produced profitably. And reduce the unprofitable property from their inventory of producer properties, therefore increasing their firms overall current profits. Again this would be a more constructive posture than applying confusing messages to the investment community and applying 17th century thinking to the current situation. However, I am on record as being on the outside of the industry due to the bureaucracies dislike of my ideas. Therefore I am liberated in my application of criticism of their performance, or lack of it.
Does anyone believe that these bureaucrats would, could, wanted to, are capable of, or are willing to change? I think the investors are beginning to see the extent of the little minds that are at play in the bureaucracy of the oil and gas industry. I see the commodity price issues as being a severe challenge to many of the oil and gas producers. There however seems to be an ongoing orchestrated discussion regarding climate change, carbon capture, carbon tax, carbon exchanges and the like by the CEO’s of the major producers. Why, it should be asked, would they discuss the potential losses they're incurring? This situation is fascinating to me. It will soon be time for the investors to act and direct their producer firms to fund People, Ideas & Objects and begin a new way of operations in the oil and gas industry.
The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and 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.