Unanswered Investor Questions

As we prepare to say so long to the producers that we feel have a limited and difficult existence. People, Ideas & Objects have a few more housekeeping duties to clear up before we move to our new plans to deliver our products and services to the industry. I am disappointed that the existing producers have no capacity to accept new ideas or new thinking. Sitting around waiting for market rebalancing is very foolish and wasteful. When alternatives are offered to solve the issues that are costing the industry as much as the depressed commodity prices are, you would think there would be action. I think the CFO’s of the producers, who should clearly understand our point of view, should be embarrassed. Investors and bankers have been looking for answers to two questions. How the producers will deal with the “accounting” that they’ve conducted and how shale becomes commercial? Two questions that we’ve answered in the Preliminary Specification. The oil and gas investors have received no response or discussion from the producers on these topics. The tenacity and persistence of the oil and gas bureaucrat is remarkable.

There is an optimism that is creeping back into the market that the good days will be back soon. OPEC is meeting to maybe extend and deepen their production cuts, many groups are suggesting that growth in the demand for energy may see the end of low oil prices. To me it feels just like deja vu, all over again. This optimism will last for a while and will drive the similar cycle that we’ve seen before where shale producers rush in to fill the alleged void. Only to find ourselves back in the same situation that we’ve been in for the better part of ten years. Until there is production discipline within the North American industry this will be the cycle of optimism and reality that will play out for eternity. The only way in which to achieve production discipline is by implementing the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model’s price maker strategy.

Only when each producer is motivated to maximize their “real” profits from operations will production discipline be achieved. The production of losing properties along with profitable properties has to end so that the producers profits are no longer diluted by the losses on their poorly performing properties. Shutting in those unprofitable properties until such time as the commodity prices rise, innovations drive down the costs or expand the reserves. Then they can return to profitable operations. Only when producers across the industry begin to maximize their profit in this way will the commodity prices find their marginal costs, the reserves can then be saved for a time when they can be produced profitably, and the additional losses that otherwise would have been incurred won’t have to be made up by the remaining existing reserves. Running the industry like a business.

Adopting this in the shale era is critically important for two reasons. First the high costs of drilling and completion are substantially higher than conventional operations. Secondly the steep decline curves leave large balances of undepleted capital costs to be recovered over decades due to the lower production volumes. The industry needs to turn its capital investments over during much shorter periods of time than they had in the past. The dependence on investor money year after year has been unique to oil and gas and uncharacteristic of a commercial enterprise. Diluting your investors year after year and providing them with no end in which the organization is “building” is for fools. Performance needs to be adopted as the culture in everything that the producer does and that starts at the very beginning. Only a culture of spending exists in the producers today. They have not performed at any point over the last number of decades and have fooled themselves into believing otherwise.

Bureaucrats love to shriek at the idea of our price maker strategy. They believe it's either collusion or going to put oil and gas at a competitive disadvantage to renewables. Reflecting the level of business understanding that exists in the industry. If our price maker strategy is collusion then every other profitable business in the world is colluding when they only sell their products for a profit. It’s considered a business to earn a profit, that’s the point. And if renewables become more affordable than hydrocarbons then we can pave the planet with windmills and solar panels. Other than that it’s a question that is beyond the scope of what a profitable producer can involve themselves in.

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. 

Permanent, Terminal Damage

It may be difficult to understand my point of view regarding the damage that producers have sustained. The question comes about as a result of taking money from investors each and every year, spending that money and never accounting for it in a reasonable manner. Capitalizing all your spending makes everyone look good. Big assets and no costs to recognize on the income statement. Profits are reported by everyone despite the quality of the operation. The genius oil and gas men are indiscernible from those with the size two hat. If you conducted yourself on this basis for a year or two it would be overlooked. The industry has been doing this for over four decades now and there is a culture that has been developed within the industry that spending is the business. And anything that the producer spends money on is a capital asset. Which has become a science in terms of its justification to include every conceivable cost that the producer incurs.

To not consider this an issue in the industry today will be the downfall of the current producers. The structure of the financial statements are heavily balanced towards bloated values of property, plant and equipment. These are the costs of past production that were not recognized in prior periods. These also define, therefore, the outsized balances of debt and equity value of the producer. The equity values are therefore bloated as a result of the annual shareholder fundraising that has occurred and repeated annual accounting profits. Are these debt balances something that the producer can sustain in a normal operation or are they too heavily indebted as a result? The prospective investors look at the capital structure of the producer, looking to invest $100 million, which earns them .01% of the total share distribution. Very exciting! Banks look at the revenues and cash flow and are concerned that their model of oil and gas borrowing may have been too liberal. No one is putting any money into the producers.

The reason for the annual share issuance was of course to fund the next year's capital expenditures. The dependence on the investors to replenish the cash balances each year was an inherent part of the oil and gas producers business model. Over the past four decades it has been instilled as the industry's culture. Good producers were those that had a good reputation with the investment community and could access more funding. The producer's reputation driven purely by their ability to grow at the speed of the investment communities demands. This is not a business. There is no element of the North American producer that can be called a commercial enterprise. It doesn’t generate adequate cash to fund itself, and never has. It doesn’t produce any real profits and hasn’t for many decades. It is a game of accessing cash and spending it. Report that this activity is profitable and do it again. To assume that there were never any expectations of performance on the spending that the producers were making was the wrong assumption they were operating under.

For all I know the merry-go-round may start up again, however someone will need to account for the multi-trillion dollar sinkhole that is the oil and gas industry. Without outside financial support it is in a death spiral that is clearly evident to everyone, particularly the banks and investors. What change will make the difference in the industry? The Preliminary Specification is designed to resolve this issue. Every opportunity has been given to the producers to act to correct the issue. Nothing to date has happened. And we have established September 25, 2017 as the point in time in which we believe we will be unable to assist the industry in this issue anymore. That we will pursue an alternative course of action to rebuild the industry brick by brick, and stick by stick. An alternative course that does not include the producers as we believe this unique situation is terminal to each and every producer in the marketplace today. The timing of the producer's demise is the only thing that the healthier producers will be able to extend.

The only way to remediate these issues is through the long term rebuilding of the value that has been lost. No one is going to recapitalize the industry, there isn’t that much money and throwing good money after bad is a bad idea. Producers need the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model’s price maker strategy to establish the commodity prices for profitable operations, deplete the costs that sit in property, plant and equipment and use that cash that will be generated from the organization to provide the shareholders and bankers with a return on their money and reestablish the industry as viable. With all of that cash waiting to be generated out of property, plant and equipment why would you do anything else? If the producers really want cash for their operations then they only need to look to property, plant and equipment to turn those balances into cash through profitable operations. There is nothing else that will be done. Long, tedious, hard work is what will get the producers out of this situation and the bureaucrats are not oriented to that.

For the past few years in which the oil price has been depressed. Producers have had the limited and only capability of progressively calculating their costs lower and lower as the commodity prices dropped. These alleged “innovations” were based on extending the period in which their property, plant and equipment accounts were depleted. Such innovations are all that they’ve conducted and accomplished in the time that these oil prices have declined. The same could be said for the decline in natural gas prices over the past decade. I would have to say outside of the price declines producers have had a favourable business environment in which to operate. No other external crisis has stricken the industry. I would put that down to good luck. Their ability to sit and do nothing in the face of this ongoing crisis and have continued good luck will only last so long. They need to act before September 25, 2017, but that is asking too much.

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. 

"Can't Shut-in Production" Part II

In this second quotation of the World Oil article that I began quoting yesterday. We find some other interesting nuggets of twisted logic operational in the oil and gas industry. The quote in particular is.

While Canadian gas will almost always trade for less than U.S. gas -- due mostly to the cost of moving the fuel to markets in Texas and the American Midwest -- the discount recently widened to the most since 2005. The culprits are prolific new wells that are hard to shut off, along with outages on a network of pipelines that move gas around Alberta.

But with the pipeline repairs that caused those disruptions mostly completed and producers like Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s Canadian unit dialing back on output in British Columbia, the glut of Canadian gas may ease. Higher prices would be a boon for Canadian producers that have been forced to cut costs and seek new outlets in the face of escalating competition from the U.S. shale gas boom.

First someone should alert the Alberta Regulators that some producers have “prolific new wells that are hard to shut off.” If producers are out of control on these wells someone should maybe know about this. These ridiculous excuses and statements, and this one of not being able to shut-in production because of its “prolific” nature, should be added to the other lame excuses we discussed yesterday.

Today’s second point is that the totality of these two paragraphs implies that natural gas is inherently subject to the economic principles of, wait for it, price makers. Exactly what the Preliminary Specification is structured to provide the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. In this article we see the producer's behavior is that no matter what the rest of the world does, they will continue to produce at full production no matter what the financial consequences to the short, mid or long term nature of their firm. The producer lives in their own little world and is immune from any kind of actions from others. It’s full production always, no matter what. This is not a business. This is the kind of activity that is conducted in day care in order to occupy little minds. After the complete destruction of the industry maybe someone should have a look at this as one of the key reasons for the producers downfall. The other capability of these producers is there capacity to spend money. Any idiot can spend money, it doesn’t require talent or skill. Just two suggestions that might help.

My frustration is that these are all lies. No producer is directly standing up and saying these things. They’re putting the ideas into some analyst head at Raymond James. So they won’t even stand behind their own untruths. Primarily because they know their false. They need the Raymond James cover story in order to do nothing. The business is in a terrible state and this is what occupies their time and energy. It’s consistent with what I’ve found in my discussions with the industry. That or a denial based on an absolute fear that things are as bad as I’m stating.

Next Monday will see the passing of our September 25, 2017 deadline. I am unaware of anything to the contrary. It’ll be on that basis that we gave the producers every opportunity that they could have possibly needed. They are persistent in their denial and misrepresentation of the facts. Next Tuesday we will be unable to do anything specifically for them. We will be jumping ship and swimming as far away from the producers as we can. Not to get taken down with them as they sink. Everything was within the producers domain to act to save themselves, the Preliminary Specification was published December 2013. We’ve been screaming for a while, we have no obligation to go down with the ship.

We will be turning to other sources to fund our developments and revising our Revenue Model. Issuing Permission Rights through the blockchain and smart contract technologies. Unfortunately that pushes us back in terms of time that we’ll be able to deliver our product to the marketplace. I’m thinking we’ll be losing about a year in this transition. Not that a loss of a year is any difficulty to us, we have enough work to do, it's the oil and gas industry I’m worried about and the people that work there.

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. 

"Can't Shut-in Production" Part I

We have what I would call a response to our Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model’s price maker strategy. It is in the form of an article from World Oil that speaks directly to the capability of producers to shut-in production and the resulting impact that would have on commodity prices. There are a couple of quotes in this article that are very revealing, the first is;

For some, the cost of shutting down and reactivating fields would have been more burdensome than taking a short-term hit. For other wells, a complex ownership structure and varying types of contracts with pipeline companies kept them producing even if one partner would have preferred to stop. It’s not as easy as hitting the stop switch in an office,” McCrea said. “That puts some extra pressure on the system.”

The first sentence is evidence of what I’ve been saying here for a while. “Would have been more burdensome” is an interesting statement. It is more work to shut-in production than to sit on your duff? No question. It is this desire to do nothing by these bureaucrats that we have also found regarding the development of the Preliminary Specification. We should all strive to reduce the burden of the bureaucrats first and foremost. Secondly what is this “taking a short-term hit.” coming from? Clearly it says to me it’s easier to take a “short-term hit” than it is to burden the bureaucrats? The physical act of shutting in a well is as “easy” as closing a few valves on the well head and killing the power on the pump jack. With telemetry, no one even has to be exposed to the elements. I do not doubt that the procedures to shut-in production are not currently in place, that does not mean they can’t be developed.

To discuss “taking a short-term hit” further, when you employ People, Ideas & Objects price maker strategy you shut-in the unprofitable production. Then your profits are no longer diluted by any losses on those shut-in unprofitable properties. 1) higher profits. And, in general, the prices of the commodities realized on the rest of the producers production will be higher as the marginal production has been removed from the commodity markets. Yielding higher overall revenues from lower production volumes. 2) higher overall revenues on all production. Where exactly is this “short term hit?”

In the second sentence noting the complex ownership structure causing difficulties in shutting in properties. Here the author has a valid point in the current environment. In the Preliminary Specification there is no argument. The Preliminary Specification uses the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producers. The Joint Operating Committee is the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic framework of the industry. We move the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy into alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee to enable the speed, innovativeness and accountability today’s producers need. Included in this ability is the capacity to agree between the partnership for reasons such as 1) and 2) above.

The sense of permanence of the status quo in the mind of the author of the article is fixed. Nothing such as the basis of the business can be changed. Agreements and contracts can be revised to accommodate the changes necessary to shut-in production and the decision making process. When we use the Joint Operating Committee in a dynamic environment such as the Preliminary Specification it provides for the opportunity to have these contract changes accommodated. Secondly, we change the basis of accounting to include the direct overhead charges to the Joint Operating Committee. Eliminating the overhead allowances that exist today. Therefore the capital, operations and overhead costs of the participants in the Joint Operating Committee will be consistent from operators and non-operators. Although that is not any change from today, it is a different configuration of the overhead costs of the property, and the operator will no longer be undertaking the additional overhead burden that is currently incurred on behalf of the Joint Operating Committees that they operate. These costs have shifted to the service providers where they are charged directly to the Joint Operating Committee. Costs such as production, revenue and royalty accountants, land administrators, production administrators will work for the Joint Operating Committees in the Preliminary Specification as opposed to one specific producer.

What is the motivation in not wanting to make these changes, in making these comments at this time to World Oil, what is the motivation in not wanting to shut-in production? The first issue I see is that no one knows which property is profitable. The quality of accounting at the property level is unable to determine what the properties actual profitability would be. It can be determined what the gross margin is but that’s all. On that basis everything would be produced and is the justification to produce everything today, leading to the issue at hand. Building the Preliminary Specification, developing the procedures to shut-in production and shutting-in production all require effort. There are small remnants of value in the business that the bureaucrats haven’t destroyed that can be used before they’ll put any effort in. And there we have our answer.

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. 

Animated Emojis and Accounting Policies

As much as the new Apple iPhone X is impressive, it would be all the more impressive when the oil and gas industry has the software development capabilities of People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers. Not to belittle Apple’s efforts but animated emojis aren’t what I think will push the productivity curve outward. This is a general concern of mine in that everything is currently happening with technology. The Internet, devices, databases and programming languages are all developing marvelous capabilities. Yet no one appears to me to be using them. Much of this technology that we currently enjoy is being applied in ways that are basic to what they could be doing for society. The deficiency is the software development capabilities that should be accessible by people in oil and gas to have the things that they want and need provided for them.

And this maybe the point, who benefits as a result of these technologies being held back? The status quo. We know the oil and gas bureaucrats will not have a single thing to do with us. After decades of promoting these ideas it is reasonable to assume that a) I’m either crazy, or b) that they feel threatened in their position. Although I’ve always said that you don’t have to be crazy to do this work, I find it to be a distinct competitive advantage. Effective September 26 we’ll know that the time and effort to convince the bureaucrats to act to save themselves have been exhausted. No one could conclude that People, Ideas & Objects did not do everything they could to help the existing producers from what I think will be their demise. I think that our constructive approach to solving the trillion dollar issues the producers face scared too many bureaucrats.

We will likewise then be free to pursue the other plans we discussed last week. The Permission Rights holders will be the ones that we turn too to fund our budget. Producers could still participate through that medium. The fact of the matter is we will get the Preliminary Specification built, the user community developed and service providers established one way or the other. It’s easy for the producers to suggest that the Preliminary Specification is unnecessary and that market rebalancing will be here in the next quarter, for the sixtieth time. Bureaucrats are easily distracted and this current issue that they’re faced with and we’re discussing here, is not well understood or appreciated by many. It’s not one that is discussed over the dinner table or at the Starbucks. It’s a somewhat academic discussion among the accounting elite about the dynamic nature of differing accounting policies. A discussion that is clearly understood and appreciated by the investment and banking community.

Engineers and geologies consider accounting to be the effective and efficient payment of bills. They long ago stopped listening to accounting when anything they did was proven profitable. Participation in our arguments about capitalization policies, overinvestment, overproduction, price maker and other issues makes them glaze over thinking it’s all academic and doesn’t apply to them. Myths such as market rebalancing are what you need to believe. That you can continue to overproduce generating little to no cash and the market will “rebalance” itself. Arguing with them that markets do only one thing in the form of assessing supply and demand and then issue a price. If you can produce profitably at that price, then you produce, which is called “business” is beyond their comprehension. Maybe if I were kind to everyone I could garner more support. When you’re at war you use what’s available to fight the enemy. The bureaucrats can accuse me of being unkind and that is why they let their business be destroyed so fundamentally. I’ll take the heat for that.

I would rather do this work than anything else. Having what I believe is the solution to a multi-trillion dollar oil and gas issue gets you out of bed in the morning. If you were to join the user community or the Permission Rights holders you would understand what I mean. These are the opportunities that are open to everyone in the industry through People, Ideas & Objects. A time in which we can take the future of the industry and make it all that it can be. Or we can fiddle with the animated emojis with the oil and gas bureaucrats.

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. 

Well, How Bad Is It?

With our September 25, 2017 deadline about to pass without producer participation. It is fair to assume that nothing will be done by them in the next year. If they haven’t found anything compelling in our offering at this time, it may take them many more years to realize their need. I don’t think they have that much time. We know they have no plans currently, and why would they be planning, they don’t recognize that they have a problem. I’m not of the opinion that anyone will be able to help them then, as it is becoming more difficult for me to see how People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers can do anything for them now. We have several years of development work ahead of us, after we’ve fully developed the user community. Maybe the producers are correct to wait for the $50, 5 minute solution to their trillion dollar issue, it could be just around the corner.

In analyzing the financial health of the industry based on our sample of 23 producers. Preparation of pro-forma financial statements based on the second quarter 2017 reports. I fail to share what appears to me to be the producers optimism. They’re losing money at a very rapid rate, and have limited cash. No one seems to be able to fund current capital expenditures from any investors or bankers. There is some interest from the investment community to support the producers asset purchases. And those that are selling assets are doing so to realize some much needed cash. If you go back to the producers that managed to sell some assets in the early part of 2017, that cash has vaporized and the producer is in a generally worse cash position than when the property was sold. Truthfully I don’t understand the purpose behind the producer inaction in dealing with this issue.

People, Ideas & Objects recommend the following process when you analyze a producer. Move ¾ of property, plant and equipment to the income statement. The resulting catastrophic losses accurately reflect the state of affairs in any of the oil and gas producers or the industry. Capitalizing everything attempts to emulate the value of the producer, which is counter to what accounting is about. Accounting is about performance, not about assessing value. The resulting performance reflected in our pro-forma financial statements show how bad the industry has been managed for decades. The management have sold products for far below cost for many decades. The resulting cash shortfall had traditionally been made up by the annual top up by new investors. Investors have become wise to their role in the industry and have stopped that flow of cash. Now without that cash from new investors the industry has been in a cash crisis that appears terminal to me. Without remedial action and soon, the industry will degrade in terms of its capabilities. Remedial action that the industry is unwilling to take. Would you be interested in purchasing the shares in a company with this performance? Would you be interested in that management?

Well how bad is it? If we make the above changes to the producers financial statements the situation becomes clear. For our sample of 23 producers their property, plant and equipment is revised down from $479.2 billion to $119.8 billion. Retained earnings as a result are restated from $71.3 billion to ($288.1). Instead of the debt levels being 60.1% of property, plant and equipment, they balloon to 240%. And total shareholders equity is adjusted from $269.7 billion to ($88.3). The only valuable thing that you can state about these pro-forma financial statements is that they would belong to producers who are accurately recording the cost of production.

Of course this can all be corrected once the industry determines what is the $50 and 5 minute solution to their trillion dollar issue. Financial statements, real ones like those in our pro-forma example provide a legacy that continues for, in this case, a life time. It took decades to come to this point. It won’t be resolved through some innovative accounting trickery. That’s all over with and the accounting game is well known by all, particularly the investment community. What has to happen now is the hard work of earning money for the investors that these producers took money from these past number of decades. The only way that is going to happen is from operations and the only way that profits will be made is with higher commodity prices. Now these producers need to do something real, constructive and honest. September 25 will be past in less than two weeks. It’ll be interesting to see their response.

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. 

Overhead in a Nutshell

Oil and gas producers use the high throughput production model to configure their organizations. It seeks to cover the high cost of the firm's overhead through full production. Allocating as little overhead to each unit of production by ensuring full production. This model has the overhead costs of the producer firm being incurred whether there is production or not, and as a result, makes their operation a high cost operation even at full production. At lower production volumes it skews their earnings and overhead costs appear out of place. Alternatively the Preliminary Specification uses the decentralized production model which matches the revenues with its costs. These definitions are provided below.

In a world of decentralized production, most costs are variable costs; so, when variations or interruptions in product flow interfere with output, costs decline more or less in line with revenues. But when high-throughput production is accomplished by means of high-fixed-cost machinery and organization, variations and interruptions leave significant overheads uncovered. p.58

People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specifications replacement of the high throughput production model with the decentralized production model provides many benefits. The benefits that are gained in terms of overhead of the producer and industry are substantial. We are moving from the fixed producer based administrative and accounting capability to an industry based administrative and accounting capability that is variable, based on production. This is done through the implementation of service providers who replace the administrative and accounting resources of the producer firms themselves. And reallocate the work across the service providers based on individual processes using the entire industry as the service providers client base. Then when the producer shut-in’s unprofitable production, administrative and accounting overhead costs are not incurred, billed or charged to that specific Joint Operating Committee and the property incurs a null operation, no profit, but also no loss. All of that properties costs are variable based on production. Enabling the producer to enhance their profits by not diluting their profitable properties by producing their unprofitable properties.

Another advantage is that the use of the service providers standardizes the processes across the industry. Making these resources shared and shareable. Today each producer is having to replicate the administrative and accounting capabilities necessary to operate within the oil and gas industry. These are redundant silos that are unshared and unshareable between producers. Each producer is competing to build these capabilities that replicate the same capabilities found in each and every producer. These redundant overhead costs are one of the reasons that the industry is not profitable. The high throughput model is employed where full production is necessary to offset these high overheads. Some may argue that overhead is not high in oil and gas, however, that is not the case. It is very high at the current prices. Most of the overhead is capitalized and is therefore transparent to the average investor.

There has been no innovation that I am aware of in the administration and accounting in oil and gas since the time that I started working in 1977. The Preliminary Specifications changes to the methodology of administrative and accounting in the industry is revolutionary. Using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer which changes everything. Moving away from the corporate models primary concern of accounting, tax and regulation and in turn focusing on the property. Structuring the industry to enable the detailed accounting of each property so that determination of the actual profitability can be made. Preparing financial statements for each property with the direct overhead charges incurred by the service providers.

Lastly we will be providing a standardization of the accounting and administrative processes across the industry. The service providers will be using a number of tools to enhance their competitive advantages and continue to deliver quality and affordable services to their producer clients. These tools include specialization and the division of labor. Each service provider will be focused on one process and will be able to enhance it through their innovativeness and the software development capabilities of People, Ideas & Objects.

Many would argue that overhead in oil and gas is not the issue. I would beg to differ and the difference between the high throughput production and decentralized production models will enable enhanced profitability in oil and gas. The innovations brought about just in the overhead area from People, Ideas & Objects of variability, shared and shareability, division of labor and specialization and standardization are the beginning of what can be done through our development process. Setting a new vision of what and how the industry can be operated over the next 25 years. What is the alternative vision that is being presented by the status quo? What are they suggesting will be the case in 25 years? It really is a shame when these ideas are proposed to solve critical industry issues and the response from the industry is to violently oppose these changes that are capable of saving them from their ultimate demise.

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. 

That Vision Thing

Now that we have an understanding of the direction that People, Ideas & Objects, our user community, service providers and Permission Rights holders will be moving. We’ll begin planning and executing that vision in the later part of 2017 should the producers decide not to support the vision that we’ve provided. The oil and gas industry is in desperate condition. The accounting has created a false representation of the performance and health of the industry. And continues to do so. These producers will be beyond the point in which I think anyone will be able to help them. The financial damage they’ve sustained is terminal and the status quo belief that all is well is nothing more than deluded thinking. We’ll need more from the oil and gas industry such as the profits, jobs, taxes, dividends and the prosperity that we’re entitled to. We can no longer accept this level of performance and destruction, all for the sake of bureaucratic inaction

We’ll begin in the next quarter to redefine the vision of what the oil and gas industry will be. What Information Technologies will be used and how they’ll be used to deal with the issue and opportunities that will exist in the next 25 years. What will happen if we leave things to chance? What will happen if we choose to do nothing? Will the future turn out as we expect or hoped it too? Are we here just for the ride or is someone actually driving the bus? I think leaving things to chance from this point forward is too dangerous and leaves society in jeopardy and at risk unnecessarily. I believe we need to take control of the situation within the oil and gas industry and ensure that it provides us with our needs and that Information Technology fulfills its promise. Two things that are being left to chance in the current bureaucratic administration.

Leaving the producers to cobble together their ERP system from the disparate offerings of the software vendor marketplace isn’t working. Producers are having to spend their budgets on putting these systems together in a coherent manner to have them operational in their organizations. Stitching them together with their own software code to deal with the gaps. None of these skills or activities are shared or shareable between producers leading to further industry overhead costs. It is this extensive scope and scale of a producer's operation that People, Ideas & Objects are accused of being unable to undertake on behalf of the industry. Yet producers are able to do so with their comparatively limited budgets. It is these standard, generic administrative, accounting and Information Technology processes that are consuming the producers profits in today’s industry. Using People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers makes all of these tasks shared and shareable, reducing the overall industry overhead burden.

It is also what makes us able to approach the bigger picture and solve the issues of the day. In today’s instance the price maker strategy is able to resolve the low commodity prices by ensuring that only profitable production is produced. In today’s hodgepodge of ERP vendors these larger issues are lost and are unresolvable. Who can you go to today to ensure that only profitable production is produced? With People, Ideas & Objects producers will know which properties are truly profitable and will be motivated to shut-in unprofitable properties in order to enhance their overall profitability. Losses will no longer dilute their profitable properties with our price maker strategy. And what will tomorrow’s issues be. How will they be resolved? With the defined software development capability that is being developed by People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and the service providers the industry will have the permanent software development capability to make the changes to the software enabling the industry to deal with those future issues and opportunities. That is the vision that we’re delivering to the oil and gas industry. We expect that new producers will be developed to take the producing assets away from the existing, non performing, financially constrained producers. It will be these new producers that will prosper with the use of our software and the opportunities that will be forthcoming from the demise of the existing producers.

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. 

Permission Rights, Part IV

It truly is the wild west in terms of the fund raising that is occurring through blockchain technology. Also known as Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s), ICO’s are attracting attention for all the wrong reasons. China recently outlawed them as a means to participate in their economy. Regulators in North America are beginning to look into the marketplace as both investors and companies are falling into higher levels of unnecessary risk. Here is a quote from Valerie Szczepanik, head of the SEC’s Distributed Ledger Technology Working Group

We don’t regulate technology, we regulate conduct and the implementation of technologies that involve securities, ICOs present novel forms of capital formation and investor interfaces, and along with that you have new risks. There is legitimate activity going on, but anything that is in the news or that is generating hype is fodder for fraudsters. We are focusing on areas where there may be the risk of investor harm.

One of the initial attractions of blockchain was that it was self-regulating. What is happening is the process of establishing the ICO is it’s being hacked and either investors are being diverted to invest at alternative sites and the companies themselves are losing money they were entitled to. Regulation of these ICO’s is favorable for that reason and the nature of the void that this funding mechanism fills. That funding mechanism for our purposes is the disruption of the oil and gas industry and enabling people to participate in the value that they create. The value being the fact that it’s not enough to own the oil and gas asset anymore. It’s also necessary to have access to the software that makes the oil and gas asset profitable. That software is the Preliminary Specification and the access is controlled by the Permission Rights holders who are participating through the blockchain that we will issue to raise the financial resources to build the Preliminary Specification.

There are a number of technical issues that also need to be resolved with the blockchain technology. The processing capabilities are limited in their application. Although they would be adequate for our purposes, the application of blockchain has a defined ceiling in terms of its capabilities. There is also a very large configuration of the underlying software that needs to be downloaded. Permission Rights holders will interact through wallets, the distributed database the system operates on however is vast. On Friday I asked what the oil and gas industry will look like in the next 25 years. How will the current producers who are constrained as they are, develop into the organizations that we need. We could also ask the same questions regarding the technologies that will be available in the next 25 years and what they will be used for. Will blockchain be able to fill the promise that many of its pundits suggest? Or will the flaws being exposed by today’s hackers cause the technology to ultimately fail. And what other technologies will the oil and gas industry use. Will the ERP marketplace continue to exist and will it continue to be a fragmented offering of software vendors where the producers themselves continue to patch together the systems they use from different vendors? Producers believe they may be able to solve their problems by the magic of “market rebalancing.” Or cobbling together a number of software solutions developed by different vendors. These are their $50.00 solutions to their trillion dollar issues. Issues that have plagued the producers for the past decade, and will continue to affect them until they’re addressed directly.

To approach these questions and our future one issue at a time can be done but I fail to see the point. We’ll always be out of step with what we need to be doing. We need to take control of the oil and gas industry, its future, its direction and these Information Technologies in order to ensure that oil and gas is operating in the best interests of society. As it stands today only the bureaucrats are prospering. And in terms of a future I don’t see one coming from the current bunch. If we’re just mindless fools that wander the surface of the planet then I have to give the bureaucrats credit for doing a pretty good job. I think we could be doing so much more, and our future demands that we do so much more, or I think we’ll fall backwards instead of forwards. In order to realize that future, where the oil and gas industry is prosperous, and the Information Technologies are applied by us, we need to start here today.

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. 

Permission Rights, Part III

People, Ideas & Objects Permission Rights holders will be participating in an Intellectual Property, oil and gas and Information Technology play when they purchase our Permission Rights. Blockchain is a new technology that not many people will be familiar with. It is the underlying technology associated with BitCoin. McKinsey have an informative video regarding some of the basics of blockchain. In this video you can see that our use of the technology is consistent with its purpose. Key to that purpose is the disruption of the oil and gas industry and enabling people to participate in the value that they create.

Should the current producers decide not to participate in the development of the Preliminary Specification and let the September 25, 2017 deadline pass. Then we will be issuing Permission Rights to raise our budget. These funds will represent the North American production profile and the value of the Permission Rights will vary depending on the amount of extrinsic value that the Preliminary Specification is able to capture above today’s base case.

The culture of the oil and gas industry is as if it were a utility. The assumption is that you will be granted a return on anything that you spend. That you have to compete in a competitive marketplace is an unknown factor that the producers don’t seem to understand. It's not that “market rebalancing” is what they believe, it's what they are, everything that they do, the culture, the strategy etc is dependent on every producer producing everything always. The accounting is not detailed enough at the property level to determine which property is profitable. All the evidence that is needed to show that producers will not act on September 25, 2017 to make the changes to the Preliminary Specification, to turn oil and gas into a commercial, competitive environment are on display today. There are trillions of dollars being wasted each and every year. Not just in terms of the extrinsic value that is lost. But also the investors money that was taken over the past decades. Taking money from investors and then never accounting for it has past as an era. Now producers have to account for that money and none of them wants to do that. Selling commodities for ⅓ of their costs is a good plan in which to eliminate all of the players within the industry.

If we look at the current state of affairs and compare and contrast that with the work that needs to be done by this industry in the next 25 years. What conclusions do we come to. Are these producers the ones that are going to be able to carry us through this time period in the state that they’re in? When evaluating any producer I feel it necessary to take three quarters of their property, plant and equipment account and restate it as depletion. That way the producer is reflecting the real state of their operation, capturing their unrecognized costs in one lump sum. In almost all cases the complete equity of the producer is eliminated. Their cash and working capital continues to erode quarter after quarter. They have no support from bankers or investors. Their cash flow may be positive however they need to fund their capital expenditures, dividends and debt repayments from that, and it's not enough. With all of this happening the only thing that they’ve done is they’ve doubled down by pushing their depletion schedules out as far as they possibly can in order to remain “profitable.” Claiming this as an innovation that has reduced their costs!

The Preliminary Specification changes these producers into dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas companies. One where only profitable production is produced, ever. Why are we producing any oil or gas unprofitably? The bureaucrats don’t care. And that will never change without the development of the Preliminary Specification in the marketplace. I’ve always said that I’d be the last to know and the most surprised if they did fund our first years development by September 25. I don’t think I’ll be surprised however. This path that People, Ideas & Objects are taking after our deadline is being discussed now so that the oil and gas producers understand what’s in their future and can make an informed decision regarding our deadline. And yes, we’re stripping the value out of the oil and gas industry that no one cares about, because it's there and we can.

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.