That's What You Said Two Years Ago

I’m finding that people’s memories have been etched with the chronic behaviors of the producers. The endless cycle of better times by this time next year, only to be replaced by the same promise the following year. Has created a cynical attitude in the public towards the producers. Most people understand, somewhat intuitively, that if you stopped overproducing then higher commodity prices would provide for a healthier industry. This apparently seems difficult to comprehend when drilling wells is the full scope of the business. Maybe the bureaucrats have it right and we’re being the fools as no one is expecting anything from them. They can just carry on in obscurity with no one the wiser or caring much what happens. The question that people should ask is why are we short changing our future by producing unprofitable oil and gas today? Producers expand their reserves, because that’s where the value is, except they’re never able to produce them profitably. So although they discover a resource that has monetary value it does not provide for a commercial operation. Given an abundance of investment and banker dollars any fool will stumble across something of value, eventually. Making it a profitable venture is a fundamentally different exercise that requires effort and skill. This has not been the case for four decades, rehabilitation can only come about through implementation of the Preliminary Specification.

I’m seeing discussion regarding the phenomenal cost control being exercised in the industry. The overall innovation throughout the industry and specific application of Artificial Intelligence that’s leading the industry forward onto a new frontier! I didn’t believe it either. In addition to the chronic unprofitability that has plagued the industry for four decades. That until recently was backfilled by an investor and banker who now realize they were duped through highly questionable accounting. That situation triggering the investor and banker strike that has been ongoing for three years. Which has created the cash crisis that now exists in the industry. What you have now, as represented by our sample of 23 producers, are bloated balance sheets totalling $489 billion in property, plant and equipment and working capital consisting of $7 billion. It seems like one of those numbers is disproportionate to the other. But I checked they’re correct. Maybe the theory that a business needs cash is not valid anymore in the 21st century. When a company ran out of cash it was usually a disaster, but that won’t happen to the oil and gas producers, they’re special.

In terms of oil prices hope springs eternal. But the fly in the ointment has to be the Saudi’s again. Having rehabilitated the market as constructively as they did in the past few years. The purposes of which were twofold, to prepare for the IPO of Saudi Aramco which demanded higher prices and to educate North American producers regarding the economic principles of price makers. As we see with the critical low balance of working capital, obtained in an environment of $74 oil I might add. There is no educating these producers. Just check how long this blog has been consistently publishing. The key point here is that the Saudis have now somewhat permanently pulled the IPO of Saudi Aramco. What is it that they’ll do next? If you think that they will continue to support the price, you haven’t been paying attention, they’ve already cancelled their production sharing agreement and there are two ways to educate the North American producers. By increasing oil prices and decreasing oil prices. Maybe North American producers will learn their lessons through the bankruptcy process.

This not so rosy situation is in contrast to the potential good news in the natural gas side of the business. It's been a decade since the collapse of those prices. The opportunity is showing itself through the inability to refill the storage volumes. They have now broken through the five year average and are expected to be around 3.2 tcf as opposed to almost 4.0 tcf last year. Might I suggest that the natural gas inventories are now moot. When gas deliverability was constrained by conventional reserves, high levels of inventory were necessary to meet winter demand. The same situation exists today however the natural gas deliverability is constrained by pipelines that don’t currently exist. Not the reserves necessary to provide the market. A different and temporary situation. One I don’t think is going to make any difference in the natural gas market. Particularly when the natural gas producers were saying in late 2016 that shale gas was reaching its maximum deliverability at approximately 43 bcf / day. And indeed did decline over the next few months to as low as 41.5 bcf / day. Heralding a new market for natural gas prices. Except for the chronic drilling and overproduction that we all know and love from these bureaucrats who have now attained daily production of shale gas of just over 55 bcf.

The one fact that we can be certain of in natural gas is that none of the conventional or shale gas is produced profitably. And that’s based on the specious accounting that the bureaucrats have used for the past four decades to scam the investors. Using a constructive accounting methodology we also know that none of the oil that’s been produced has been profitable either. The fact is all oil and gas production in North America is consuming cash. I don’t see how that would qualify as profitable, but the bureaucrats have reported that our sample of 23 producers were profitable to the tune of $9.2 billion for the first half of 2018. I guess the good news for 2018 was those $9.2 billion in profits only consumed $11.5 billion in cash and $11.9 billion in working capital. With $7 billion in working capital as of June 30, 2018 how much time do you have?

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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 https://twitter.com/piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

A New Approach

Throughout our discussion of the user communities development there has been an overriding theme of compressing the time necessary from the start of our developments to commercial release. Now that we’ve achieved what we can and defined the process of how we’ll proceed, it’s time for me to admit that I have a serious problem. One that I’ve been working on since the publication of the Preliminary Specification, that I’ve not discussed here or with anyone. People, Ideas & Objects have always claimed to provide a software development capability to the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producers. This capability has been defined within our budget as approximately six hundred software developers. That is a lot of people to assemble in a short period of time. Then we’ll need to get them all signing from the same hymn sheets and lastly turn them into the high performing team that they always could be. The high performing team state of the art that they will have to be in order to accomplish the scope and scale of the Preliminary Specification. We don’t have a decade or more in terms of time to do that. If the issue is speed. And at $66 / barrel there doesn’t appear to be much of a sense of urgency today. However when we test the low $30 / barrel range once again, and we will, this issue we see with the North American oil and gas producers guarantees it. Speed will become the issue on everyone’s mind and no one will accept the time for People, Ideas & Objects require to ramp up their software development capabilities. If we could have started building these capabilities when the Preliminary Specification was first published we may have been able to get it done, but too much time has passed and too much damage has been incurred by the oil and gas industry.

Therefore we are configuring People, Ideas & Objects from a research and software development firm. Which is how we described ourselves up until today. To now be a user community and Intellectual Property firm. Specialization and the Division of Labor at its finest. This will allow us to focus on the detailed work necessary to ensure that oil and gas producers achieve the most profitable means of oil and gas operations everywhere and always. Ownership of the software code will be derivative from the work that we do. The only software or code operations that we will be conducting will be compiling and running our application off of GitLabs. The leadership team that had been defined for People, Ideas & Objects, and the leadership team that was defined for the user community will be consolidated. Other than that, and only that, nothing and I repeat nothing has or will change to the configuration of the user community in any way as a result of the new approach we’re taking. If anything we are and will be able to focus our energies on this our primary concern, our user community.

What we will be doing in terms of generating the software needed for this project is issuing contracts. All of the contracts that we will be issuing will be to Oracle Corporation to access their developers. Oracle has 7,000 developers who are in their consulting division conducting spec development of software. They have many more in the area of Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Fusion Applications, Java and Database. There isn’t an issue from a technical point of view that we could throw at them that they would not be able to solve, quickly. They have the team functioning now and in a manner that is state of the art. By doing this we can hit the ground running and have the software development capabilities that are necessary to deliver our software, but on a more timely basis than our previous approach. The speed of our developments are potentially hundreds of billions of dollars per year to the oil and gas producers at this time. We must and will do this. From Oracle’s point of view I think they should see this as an opportunity to showcase their technologies, their people and their capabilities. Oracle doesn’t have an oil and gas solution on Oracle ERP Cloud. As a result of this approach they will be a big part of the delivery of the solution that delivers real value to the oil and gas producers.

Our budget is blown, maybe. Shifting the development dollars that were committed internally to now being committed to Oracle may push us over our budget. At this time I’m willing to let People, Ideas & Objects absorb the overrun from our profitability. I see no reason to review our budget unless producers would like me to do so. And I am advising the producers right now they never want me to revise the budget. In terms of the costs paid to Oracle I will not be looking for any discount or special deals from them at any time. I want them to understand from the first day that there will be no excuse for failure. We are paying the full freight for guaranteed success. Oracle will be on the hook for the success of delivering the software that our user community defines.

The reason that I am willing to indemnify the producers on any cost overruns on the change to Oracle based software developments is that there have been some efficiencies and developments in IT, and in the software development methodologies since we first published our budget. We are willing to proceed with this process with the belief that the higher costs associated with using Oracle will be offset by these efficiencies. I am satisfied that given the industries financial resources the Preliminary Specification will provide industry with the upside as defined in our value proposition. That being $25.7 to $45.7 trillion over the next 25 years. And therefore that is the basis and determination of my compensation. I’m not working for an hourly fee.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

Unquestionably, The Largest Issue Ever

I am at a loss to think of a time when the oil and gas industry faced a larger issue than what it faces today. The energy crisis of the early 1970’s comes to most people’s minds however I would suggest that it was a consumer related issue that was brought about by political means. Looking just at the business issues that the industry has faced I believe there has never been a time in which the business issues have been greater. My perspective is that industry has carried on with specious accounting for over four decades. An accounting prescribed by the SEC that inflates assets and profits magnificently. Outside of the issues of reporting profitability that never existed, which created overinvestment and overproduction. The value that is held in the industry today is worthless as it demands significant capital investments just to maintain operations. It is a drain on the economy and society in general. Without a willing and naive investor and banker group maintaining a long term annual infusion of cash the industry is unsustainable. This becomes more evident each day as the investors and bankers, realizing that they’re the mark, have ceased participation in the industry. The aggravating aspect of this issue is that it is systemic throughout North America and is unrecognized and unappreciated. It is the culture of the industry to spend other people’s money as the means to (bureaucratic) wealth generation. This culture knows of no other method in which to manage the industry and refuses to accept any other input.

As much as bureaucrats believe that $74 oil for a couple of months is all that is required. People, Ideas & Objects know different. The only thing $74 oil for a couple of months will provide is the return of a more robust skimming of cash flow by said bureaucrats. What we believe is necessary are prices in the region of $150 for oil and equivalent for gas for at least three years to deal with the damage that has been done through this issue. Nothing short of this will be able to provide the scope and scale of cash necessary to remediate the industry. It will need to be the consumer who pays for this as they are the benefactors of this current issue. The values held in property, plant and equipment can be seen as an accurate accounting of the amount of the discount provided to the energy consumer. These values being the amount of unrecognized capital costs of past production.

It was early this century when I began pounding the pavement regarding the lack of profitability in the oil and gas industry. I was told then that it was about cash flow, profits didn’t matter. I was laughed at repeatedly as a result of the position that I had taken on the profitability of the industry. It’s only in the last decade have producers begun to see the light in terms of profitability. Profitability of the producers is such a foreign concept that none of the producers know with any certainty or accuracy which of their properties are earning or losing money. The overhead necessary to operate those properties is mostly capitalized to property, plant and equipment of the producer firm. Therefore the cost to operate a specific property, for this and many other reasons, is unknown and unknowable. Therefore everything is thrown in the pot to see if it’s a functioning organization at the end of the quarter. That is the state of the quality and effectiveness of the accounting information that exists in the producer firms of the oil and gas industry. The objective is to produce everything always and don’t ask questions that can’t be answered. The CEO needs to strut down the street with the largest balance of property, plant and equipment that is conceivable. That is the measure of value and of performance in oil and gas today.

We need to fully understand the implications and reasons why we would ever produce oil and gas unprofitably. Is doing so reasonable or necessary? I believe this only robs future generations of their use of oil and gas. We owe it to ourselves to use oil and gas responsibly. That implies that we don’t waste it which means we should produce it profitability. Profitable on the basis of a reasonable and accurate accounting. Today we have producers and an industry that are effectively worthless. An abundance of producers have extinguished all of the capital that was ever provided to them. Yet still carry large balances of property, plant and equipment. People, Ideas & Objects believe that all of the producers balances of property, plant and equipment are overstated and 60 - 70% as a minimum of these balances should be depleted in the current period in order to capture a pro-forma understanding of the management's performance. This takes the bureaucrats perspective of accounting as a reflection of value, which it is never meant to be, and places the proper perspective on accounting, one of performance. These pro-forma financial statement will then accurately capture the situation that I feel exists in the industry today. A financial armageddon.

When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have affected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes it's jarring gong -- these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

That is a quote from May 2, 1935 from Winston Churchill regarding the buildup of military power in Germany. I’ve been arguing for a while now that the loss of cash in the industry was the issue that would bring about the necessary changes in the industry. I guess as long as the bureaucrats were able to continue to skim off the top whatever cash flow there was then there would be no critical issue to motivate them to action. “They were fine, thank you.” I do however believe that I now see the triggering mechanism, or jarring gong, that will precipitate the downfall of the industry. What's worse than the cash evaporating out of the industry? The entrance of the lawyers and the lawsuits against these bureaucrats for their poor performance. That is the one thing that they will all seek to avoid by escaping out the back door in mass.

We’ve seen a number of revised business strategies being published by producers these past few days. Establishing committees within the board of directors to evaluate options, selling themselves off bit by bit or cutting staff. These are not strategies, business models or what anyone signed on for. They are not productive and do not address the issue. Producers need to evaluate and implement the Preliminary Specification in order to adopt a plan and strategy that will provide for the profitability of oil and gas exploration and production everywhere and always. Other than the capitulations that are defined earlier in this paragraph, ours is the only plan and strategy that is available. The adoption and implementation of the Preliminary Specification may possibly enable their investors and bankers to reevaluate the outlook of the industry and producer based on a profitable future. And who knows maybe even forward some investment dollars to help producers bide their time.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

Commodity Price Dynamics

The bigger the commodities price differential, the more valuable the producer firm! That’s correct isn’t it? Well it seems to be the logic that the Canadian producers have adopted. Therefore it must be correct, the objective of the bureaucrat at the Canadian producers is to achieve the highest price differential possible! For what other purpose would you be in business for? My friends the bureaucrats have therefore attained significant value within their organizations. Here’s why, although natural gas prices remain positive, there is still the possibility that they will once again pay the consumer to take the gas from them. The differential on Aeco Spot natural gas is now $2.86 CDN. Leaving the natural gas price at $0.99 CDN. The real achievement though is in the oil price. Western Canada Select prices are $53.58 CDN making the differential $35.49 CDN. Which is a pretty healthy differential, more than double the previous record, yet still provides much incentive for the bureaucrats to move the differential much higher. Clearly my education in oil and gas remains incomplete.

What these differentials should reflect to each and every producer everywhere is the same lesson that the Saudi’s have been attempting to teach the producers over the past few years. This is also the manner in which the Preliminary Specification handles the oil and gas commodities. They are subject to the economic principles of price makers. If the market is overwhelmed with production then the price of a product that is subject to price maker characteristics will reflect that overproduction in price declines. Or in this case higher differentials due to Canada being somewhat of a constrained and unique market onto itself. (Maybe Canadians should think about building some pipelines!) The Preliminary Specification deals with the overproduction that is chronic in the industry through our decentralized production models price maker strategy. If the property based on the actual accounting did not attain a profit, as a result of high differentials in this case, then it would be shut-in to remove that marginal production from the commodity markets. Achieving a financial null operation, no profit but also no loss. Enabling the markets to find the marginal price within the industry. The properties reserves would be held for the time in which they would be produced profitably, and those reserves would not have to carry the incremental cost of each months loss as an additional cost to be recovered from those reserves. Lastly the producers would be more profitable as a result of removing their unprofitable production from their production profile which would no longer dilute their profitable production.

Once again my education gets in the way when the bureaucrats consider that the act of using reasonable and accurate accounting information from the Preliminary Specification in order to independently decide that a property is unprofitable and should therefore be shut-in, is clearly collusion as the bureaucrats consistently tell me. And I’ve now written these two oil and gas business attributes on my office wall in big letters. “Differentials are good, the bigger the better.” And “Making sound business decisions based on actual facts is collusion.” I’ll continue to work on these and one day I’m sure I’ll begin to see the light of how the industry operates.

It was about this time last year that I suggested that oil prices might begin to mimic what occurred in the natural gas marketplace. What happened there is that shale so completely overwhelmed the market that the commodity price collapsed. But then it continued in a significant way and since it was a continental based price overproduction further eroded the price until such time as it fundamentally broke down. Prices for gas in Japan and Europe remained robust which brought about the Liquified Natural Gas mini-boom of a few years ago. That mini-boom has now flooded the global market for natural gas and prices everywhere are depressed. It will take many years of deliberate rehabilitation of the natural gas market before anyone can profitably produce natural gas again. My suggestion was that a fundamental collapse of oil was not a given, but if it did happen it would be different due to the global nature of the commodity. We’ve now heard as of late last week that five year oil futures prices are beginning to be affected by the volume of producers selling, mostly shale, into that market. Might this be the beginning of the fundamental breakdown that we saw in natural gas prices? I suggest we keep overproducing and find out. Which is proof that I am trying as hard as I can to educate myself in the logic of the oil and gas industry.

It is believed that share prices are evaluated based on the three year outcome of the firm. If the five year oil price is breaking down, then that would also be good for the oil and gas industry? Bureaucrats may need to help educate me here on this one. I would see this as detrimental as the stock price of the producers having held up fairly well throughout the decline in oil prices. These share prices haven’t been stellar performers but they also haven’t been subject to the massive annual dilution that they were going through each and every year for the past few decades. I’m sure all of the bureaucrats would render a non opinion on this point. It maybe hits too close to home if they agree their performance may be lacking and also found to be dumping more of those options they’ve accumulated over the decades. It’s not that they’re conflicted, that requires emotion, it’s just that they want to keep their exits from the scene quiet for now. Bureaucrats may not like my discussion of their performance. What else is there that I could provide them that would reflect the job that they’ve done. I ran out of participation ribbons many decades ago.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

Investment in the Future Oil and Gas Industry

There are two fundamental changes made in the Preliminary Specification that create an interesting dynamic in terms of investing in oil and gas. The first is that we shift to fully recognize and support the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. We shift the compliance and governance frameworks from the corporate model into alignment with the Joint Operating Committees legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, strategic and innovation frameworks. The alignment of these nine frameworks provide oil and gas producers with a speed, innovativeness and profitability that we seek in the oil and gas industry. The second change that we make is the creation of the service providers who are reallocating the accounting and administrative resources of the producers. The service providers will then provide the administrative and accounting process management on behalf of the Joint Operating Committees that are producing during any specific production month. If the property is profitable it will produce and the service providers will render an invoice for their services to each Joint Operating Committee within the industry that produced that month.

The key attributes of these changes are that the producer is relieved of the difficulties of administering and accounting for their properties, but most particularly ensuring that they are building the appropriate capabilities and capacities necessary to function as a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. I am not aware of any producer that makes the claim that administration and accounting are any part of their competitive advantages, and I’m not aware of what benefit there would be for any producer to claim to have administrative and accounting competitive advantages. However with our current friends the bureaucrats I’m not counting out anything. What we’ve designed with the user community and service providers is a capability and capacity that enables all producers to focus on their key competitive advantages of their earth science and engineering capabilities, and their land and asset base. The accounting and administrative conducted by the service providers is prepared in an objective manner that ensures that compliance today and compliance for tomorrow will be achieved and ensured. This is the advantage that is obtained by the configuration of these resources. The focus of each service providers specialization on the one process they manage enables them to be aware of all of the requirements that are demanded of that process. And it will be the service providers through their user community participation that will have the power and tools necessary to make the effective changes to their process to maintain the producers compliance.

Our service provider sub-industry will be made available to the oil and gas producer / investor for the cost of a monthly fee. The fee for the processes management may be pennies for the service provider to provide, however they service the entire industry and are able to as they say “make it up on volume.” What this does therefore is open the investment in oil and gas to far more than just the common stockholdings of the existing producers. Investors would be able to participate directly within a Joint Operating Committee and even if they only owned an interest in one small property they would not need to carry the multi-million dollar annual overhead burden to manage that investment. They would be able to own and operate their interest through the People, Ideas & Objects software and the service providers would prepare their accounting and administration for them. The overhead incurred for that small oil and gas property investment would be commensurate with the size of the revenues and properties configuration. The service providers being “cloud” based services requiring only the payment of a monthly fee to each service provider. I’m sure that there are bureaucrats who believe this might be a career opportunity for them as a result of each producer / investor writing checks to the service providers for each one of the properties that they own. However this is 2018 and the payment processing to the approximate 3,000 service providers each month will not be a burden to anyone other than the computers. As far as bureaucrats are concerned People, Ideas & Objects et al glow radioactive making us incompatible for any future working relationship. Therefore we consistently turn to computers to replace the bureaucrats.

People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers therefore open oil and gas to a broader set of funding alternatives to raise the required capital. We also opens up a number of opportunities for the investor to participate in the industry. Opportunities like securitization could be pursued where the oil and gas asset is actively traded. Probably a good role for the oil sands projects where the ownership interest could be converted into a securitized investments that is actively traded.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

What the Plan, Where's the Strategy?

It’s one thing to be critical of the oil and gas producers, a skill and talent that I apply faithfully. To do so without offering an alternative would be futile and counter productive. My argument is only against the bureaucrats who are everybody’s favorite people and the group of individuals who are particularly responsible for the demise of the oil and gas industry. They’re also the ones that are moving rapidly towards extinction as a result of Information Technology, and are the odd man out in businesses everywhere. Maybe they’ll find some use in their next life. The ability for bureaucrats to self identify and take responsibility for their actions would be to much to ask. They’re always attempting to hide in plain sight and have defined characteristics that are obvious to those that are familiar with their breed and are able to identify them quickly. Their days are limited no matter what happens with People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers. They were placed on the endangered species list many decades ago. And don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way attempting to solicit support or sympathy for them. They deserve everything they’re about to experience.

There was an article from World Oil the other day that caught my attention. “Large Investment Groups Throw Weight Behind Oil Rally.” Makes me think I might be wrong about the difficulties in the industry and the investors withholding their investment dollars. However reading through the article provides some clarity.

Duquesne also added shares in companies including Marathon Petroleum and Devon Energy last quarter.

The stake in the VanEck exchange-traded fund was valued at $44.1 million, while the Marathon Petroleum shares, its fourth-largest addition, were worth $34.8 million, according to the filing. The biggest acquisition last quarter for the family office was Facebook and Gilead Sciences.

Soros Fund Management’s biggest addition in the energy sector is Devon Energy, valued at $30.8 million. The hedge fund also bought stakes in Andeavor, RSP Permian Inc. and Kinder Morgan.

Based on these and contrary to what I’ve been saying all along about the industry heading for a very difficult time. It is relatively easy to suggest at this point that we’ve arrived. The media are putting a spin on this disaster, for whatever reason, but the facts are facts and they point to a comatose patient with no heartbeat.

So how is it that the industry can come up with a plan to deal with the situation. A plan and not an excuse to defer any and all action to some quarter in 2022. They don’t have until the end of 2018. The first thing the industry needs to do is to buy time. That requires either bank or investor money. Which demands a plan and strategy to deal with the issues and future. There’s no time to start to think about this. It should have been started many years ago, or maybe even a decade ago. It took me a long time, 10 full years of research, in order to prepare the Preliminary Specification. Producers can’t throw more people at this either. These usually have to come from one mind. Which is part of the reason that it takes a decade or more. Does anyone know of anyone who would have been fool enough to prepare a plan and strategy that deals with the issues and opportunities in oil and gas and can be implemented today? Anyone?

My sarcasm is ripe today. The producers could collectively adopt the Preliminary Specification and proceed with that plan and strategy simply by funding our budget. Always a catch 22. That way the investors and bankers would be able to see the future of the industry and how it would be returned to a profitable industry. By implementing the decentralized production models price maker strategy the days of flooding the market everytime the oil or natural gas price rallies for two consecutive days would be at an end. That any of the investors or bankers money they did put into the industry would be returned with both the capital and earnings being competitive against other industries performance. And that performance would be based on a reasonable accounting that they could understand and trust.

I am aware that People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification is not the only plan and strategy that is available in the oil and gas marketplace. There are others. Take for instance the publication of Crescent Points revised strategy yesterday. Their newly installed CEO will be cutting staff by 17% and selling assets. Which is a business model that exists in certain industries. Think of pawn brokers or scrap metal recyclers. There’s also Strategic Oil and Gas who recently published their second quarter report that looked towards a future where investor and banker support was critical to their strategic interests. Only to declare a few weeks later that a special committee of the board of directors was formed to evaluate strategic alternatives. Or in other words, they’ve all but given up. My point is that there are many plans and strategies, ours seems to be the only productive and profitable one.

In somewhat related news, the probability that we’ll be able to launch a successful ICO diminishes each month. We’re still working towards one for September 2019 however it becomes progressively more difficult as the market remains relatively immature. The ICO method of funding will be with us for the rest of the century. And it will be a significant method to fund IT related projects. The diminishing capacity that I see is that to have our funding capability from that market in September 2019 may be premature. It may be as much as five years from now before the capability and capacities will be available, which would bring our ICO into the category of a less than highly probable event. The question the producers need to ask is, does this alternative appeal in terms of timing? Even with that delay though, that’s still twice as quick as the producers coming up with their own workable plans and strategy over the next decade.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

User Community Developments, Part XXX

Since the publication of the Preliminary Specification we have worked on the development of the user community as our first priority. This continues today and I’m happy to say that it will always be our first priority. High quality software begins with the user and that is where we are, the beginning. Building something today with the scope and scale of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification without an empowered user community would be futile and wasteful. The issues and opportunities in the oil and gas marketplace at this time are too critical to be wasting time on approaches that we know will never work. It is the user community that will provide the speed of development and quality of software that are necessary at this time to deliver the software product and services the producers and industry require.

During this series discussion we have taken the time to highlight the competitive advantages that the user community and their associated service provider organizations will be providing the oil and gas producer and industry. They are significant and substantial. To simply list them is the most effective way to capture their level of competitiveness in the industry. These advantages include;

• The quality of the software and services they build. Cost is not a competitive differentiator when producers are losing so much and are facing an existential crisis.
• Specialization and the Division of Labor being applied consistently in the areas of administration and accounting. All economic value has been, and will always be generated by these two tools.
• Automation of business process. The capabilities and capacities of the user community and service providers to effect the change required within the industry. To expand oil and gas profitability and reduce costs through automation is a competitive advantage.
• Innovation based on the users accounting and administrative expertise. The Preliminary Specification lays the foundation for an innovative oil and gas industry, they will have an innovative accounting and administrative capability as well.
• Application of the new technologies as they become commercial and are proven to generate value or reduce costs. New technologies such as;
• The application of Artificial Intelligence.
• 5/G or the Internet of Things.
• Focusing the efforts on what computers do well. Storage and processing. Leaving the things to the user community that humans do well. Such as leadership, issue resolution, decision making, creativity, collaboration, research, ideas, design, planning, thinking, negotiating, compromising, innovating, sensing emotions and financing. To name a few.
• Integration of our software and services within the oil and gas, and support industries. 
• Leadership. More on this below. 

Members of the user community will hold an active and dynamic position within oil and gas and will be driven to ensure that producers achieve the most profitable means of oil and gas operations everywhere and always. Only they have control of the decentralized production models price maker strategies Intellectual Property through their user community license. Only they can solve what ails the industry today.

We see the user community is configured differently with competitive advantages and tools like the Intellectual Property that make it capable of undertaking the tasks ahead. As I’ve described, the work that will be done on behalf of the oil and gas industry will be different than anything else the user community member may have approached before. It will be a dynamic and exciting role in a very difficult period for the industry. The key attribute of the user community member will be their leadership capabilities. Dispatching 3,000 leaders to solve the many areas at issue is the only way this will be done. Leadership has been defined as simply as the readiness, willingness and ability. Joseph Schumpeter said of leadership “Fixers and troubleshooters rather than production man.” Four specific behaviours are responsible for 89% of the effectiveness of leaders. These four are 1) being supportive, 2) operating with a strong results orientation, 3) seek different perspectives, 4) solve problems effectively. If you find this work as I’ve described in this series interesting the industry needs you. The issues don’t seem to be going away on their own do they.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

User Community Developments, Part XIX

As a user community member you may already know and understand that People, Ideas & Objects will be using Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications as the base of the ERP system we will be providing to the oil and gas producers. These Oracle products have now been conveniently repackaged within a new offering called Oracle ERP Cloud. It will be this base of functionality that Oracle provides in which we will build the Preliminary Specification modules off of. Everyone being clearly aware of these applications and are good at seeing what the Preliminary Specification vision is as it is expressed today will be able to imagine in their own minds what it is they’re building. I’m being facetious of course. Nothing of the sort is expected, it would be a fundamental failure from the word go. What the user community must have from the first day of their development is a useable demonstration of the People, Ideas & Objects software in its initial development stage of being only the Oracle ERP Cloud. And each and every iteration of the development of the software. Then they can see the areas that they can use to bring about their ideas and weave their needs into the Oracle ERP Cloud and Preliminary Specification through our software developers. A constant, iterative approach.

As I mentioned this demonstration facility will be provided on the first day of development and be available to all of the users within the user community 7/24. Users will be able to generate generic data that can be used and reused to test the features that are being developed while the user is working to get the software right. As mentioned earlier, the use of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) will allow user interaction with the software developer, review of the code, the ability to implement changes and run the code. Choosing an IDE is more of a personal preference. Google “Integrated Development Environment” and you’ll be provided with a wealth of information, videos and offerings. As an enterprise builder we would be somewhat limited to the Netbeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ and Oracle JDeveloper offerings.

Software development has changed from what most people understand. There will be times when a user community member may experience changes to the software their working with on a daily basis or even more frequently. Software is no longer released once a year based on a long list of changes that are opaque to the users. Small changes done incrementally over time is the superior method of building software today. When the user is driving those changes and is able to check the results of those changes against a working demo of the application there are few bugs that see the light of day in a commercial release of software. When we are discussing the development of the Preliminary Specifications on top of Oracle ERP Cloud we are discussing a well defined application scope and scale with an overall vision that is understood by each and every user member. There is no reason for People, Ideas & Objects to be releasing a buggy, poorly defined and slapped together hodge podge of an oil and gas application. We will have the resources, tools and methods to overcome the niggling details that the devil puts in our way.

Since People, Ideas & Objects will be a cloud provider of its software. And Oracle is providing their software on the cloud today. Members of our user community during our initial software developments will be able to access the work they’re doing and have done on most devices. Therefore demonstrating the work that they’ve done will be able to be presented to the producers as soon as the first week of our developments. The producers would then be able to participate through the user community member and have their specific needs and desires met in that way. Although it would be logistically difficult to have 3,000 user community members participating in this way, with 200 or so producers, more efficient ways of doing the same will be able to be discovered.

I’ve mentioned this next point a few times before and it’s just as valid today as it was then. I can’t necessarily peg the work that we’re doing here at People, Ideas & Objects as exclusively software development. That is our role and that is what we are focusing on. My point is that the cross between a software development / custom Integration will be hard to discern at times. Particularly for the user community member who will be undertaking the integration of the software through their service provider offering at some point in time. This is a result of the high levels of participation of the user community, possibly the producers tagging along too, and the developers all working to solve the issues the oil and gas industry is facing. To say that one day we will move from a decidedly software development phase to an integration phase in my mind will never happen. Integration should be one of the key issues that the user community member should be considering at all times and asking themselves, how can I speed up the implementation / integration of this feature within industry? Which raises the question when is it that the user community member begins the development of their service provider offering? Even without an assigned service provider process is there work that can and should be done by the producers in anticipation of the integration.

It’s within this post that we see the dynamic and critical role that is undertaken by the user community member. Without them nothing is going to happen, and nothing will happen unless its an idea or thought of the users first. Such is the interesting nature of this work and this time we find ourselves in. It should be clear that this is not your grandfather's user community.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. 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.

Labor Day

Third Friday