Battle Lines Being Drawn
Al-Falih, in a clear message to the U.S. industry, said it would be "wishful thinking" to expect that Saudi Arabia and OPEC "will underwrite the investments of others at our own expense" through production cuts.
Clearly, in the mind of the North American producer, OPEC exists to accommodate them. The precision planning undertaken by these producers to make OPEC do exactly what they wanted them to do is impressive. So what’s the plan now? Maybe they could exert this mind control over the Chinese and have their people consume twice as much energy. The sky's the limit really. People say I should cut these producers a break and maybe they’ll fund the project. If the producers only deal with people who kiss their feet we may have identified another critical issue in the industry. Kissing the bureaucrats feet only generates an industry full of blind sleepwalking agents of whomever would feed them. My aim is at the bureaucrats who in a self serving manner have destroyed the producers and the industry.
Oil prices fell on news of the renewed OPEC agreement. Primarily as a result of the phenomenon of “buy on the rumor, sell on the news” and the reduction of the OPEC production doesn’t deal with the real overproduction and oversupply issue, the North American shale producers. Of course with producers only mirroring the commodity prices, all of their stocks were down too. Leading one to ask if investors might be better off just trading in the commodity? It used to be the belief in management that managers added value in up and down markets. But these rules don’t apply to oil and gas bureaucrats.
The reason producers are able to survive in such a difficult financial environment is because oil and gas is a capital intensive industry. Where the return of capital from operations is being diverted to fuel the bureaucrats pocket book and keep the lights on. That may be the primary point that the investors are trying to express to the producers. That although they have capital discipline and judiciously spend the money that is raised through stock issuances and banking, the return of that capital from operations are directed towards lining the pockets of the bureaucrats. Now that the investors and bankers don’t support the industry with new capital, there is a critical cash crisis. Producers should ask themselves why in the world would this happen?
I used to believe that our appeal to the oil and gas investors would have them direct their oil and gas producer firms to develop the Preliminary Specification. I’ve changed my thinking on that. I now think that the oil and gas producers are going to have to deal with their problems constructively before they receive the focus and attention of their investors again. Their investors continue to own the producer firms, and as noted here earlier, with the diversion of cash flow to the bureaucrats, these producers are not going to go out of business, they are the walking dead. Therefore investors will continue to hold their financial interest and not invest any more cash into the industry. Putting more money in will only waste financial resources, dilute their current interests, and provide no one, other than bureaucrats, with any upside. Therefore it’s up to the producers to act to develop the Preliminary Specification in order to set the industry right before any investors show any interest.
Information Technology is disintermediating every industry on the planet. Oil and gas is not immune. The Preliminary Specification eliminates the bureaucracy from the scene and they chose in 2004 to begin our sessions with the baseball bats. Things were really good in the industry in 2004. When I began saying that we provided the most profitable means of oil and gas operations these bureaucrats laughed and said no one in the industry is concerned about profits, its cash flow. It would seem in 2017 that profits have become the issue. The producer's problem is that they may be profitable, but they’re fake profits as they don’t have any cash and their companies are consuming cash at phenomenal rates. So much for cash flow too. With investors on strike, the only source of cash is new production and they can’t get enough. Which of course leads to more of the overall problem.
People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers have chosen to do something about all of this. I find it great sport pointing out the deficiencies of the bureaucrats. However, if we’re sitting here complaining about the bureaucrats a year from now then we’re no better than them because we won’t have done anything either. We have a plan to solve this through the Preliminary Specification and a start date for our software developments of September 25, 2017. As we’ve noted above, the producers are going to continue as the walking dead and as a result the bureaucrats know that their franchise is safe for the next few decades. Therefore it will be interesting to see how this log jam gets broken. Someone needs to fund our first years development costs of $100 million. With follow on financing of our entire budget. I’ve drawn the battle lines, which side are you on?
The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for North America’s energy independence. 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.