How I See Things

I am unaware of anything that I can point to in 2019 that would indicate a sense that oil and gas producers realized they were in an existential crisis. Some may think it’s a pretty good deal that they’ve so eroded the expectations that they perform. That when their performance is this abysmal, they can resume the “do nothing” operating procedure that has led them into all of these difficulties. When you’ve done nothing for this long very little will be expected of you. Although the stock market has a different perspective of the industry it does reflect general trends. We have noted the market capitalization of our sample of 23 producers at the end of each quarter for the past number of years. Starting in the third quarter of 2016 these producers had a market cap of $523 billion. Since that time they have remained in a range of $419 billion in the second quarter of 2017 and $559 billion in the second quarter of 2018. Now I understand in the last quarter of 2018 there was substantial tax loss selling throughout the indexes. More than likely as a result of all the profits that were being made in other industries. Therefore investors were actively selling oil and gas in order to reduce their tax burden. The market capitalization of our 23 producers as of December 31, 2018 recorded a lowly $379 billion. A loss of $171 billion, or about one third, for the three month period. There has been a small recovery in the price of each of the producers since. However the amount of the recovery is not material in determining any direction that the market believes oil and gas is headed.

Expectations that some action coming out of the producers in response to what even they describe is a crisis situation should be imminent. Commodity prices do not look as rosy as they did before the end of last year. Natural gas has resumed its pricing model, subject to a snow storm or two. And oil is undecided as to which direction it will be headed until it obtains a better grasp on the inventory, consumption and production numbers now that there is a new OPEC+ agreement in place. It does not appear that the prices necessary to provide truly profitable operations are going to be provided when we review the estimates of either the IEA or the EIA for the next few years. That is far too long for the secondary and tertiary industries to continue the cannibalization of their businesses for their survival. It has been a very difficult three years on top of a difficult decade. They are all but expended and any further attrition will lead to permanent damages to the capabilities of these industries. Maybe the media should go into these areas and do some of their ra ra ra reporting and see how that goes.

I’m certain that Santa brought each of the bureaucrats the cash that their producer firms needed in order to function and rectify all of the difficulties they face. We’ll see when they report the fourth quarter of 2018. I’m expecting a further deterioration of the cash and working capital of the industry. I have no doubt that the consumption of cash in the process of production continues everywhere and always. So distorted is the accounting, so perverted is the culture of the industry that has developed around these distortions that the seepage of cash will continue. After all it’s a feature, not a bug. The issue as far as the bureaucrats are concerned is the unwillingness of investors and bankers to resume their traditional role of reloading the spending machine. But make sure that no one asks the questions that no one has the answers for. Those questions being that unconventional / shale oil and gas has been around in material volumes for a decade now. How is the business doing? What’s the plan? Or, just exactly what is it that you’re doing, or think you’re doing?

The Preliminary Specification provides a means to mitigate all of the pain and suffering that we’re all experiencing. Providing the industry and its sub-industries with the resources necessary to prosper. With a plan on how the industry will face the next 25 years in what can only be described as its most difficult operational period to date. A time when the bureaucrats feel that their approach is “ok” and quite obviously not at issue. One in which the support of investors and bankers have been suspended. One in which the cash and working capital of the industry evaporates daily with further production. One in which the capabilities necessary to undertake those operations hits the critical point where they begin to atrophy. One in which the goodwill of the industry has been eroded by a pious, self indulgent bureaucracy that whines they have no support and just want to be loved. My favorite quotation from 2018 has to be the following. It provides me with a sense that I’ve actually accomplished something, that I’ve built some value. It summarizes the point that we’re at today and provides us with an understanding of how things will develop from here. But then again, maybe just muddling along a while longer is all that the producers really need to do.

Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.

― Milton Friedman

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.

An Accelerating Frustration Level

The strategic considerations in oil and gas are very broad and highly diverse. They consist of the traditional muddle through and do nothing approach to the business. For Canadian oil and gas producers the strategy is to extend this strategic vision beyond the 2019 fiscal year and into the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years. That way pipeline capacity might be built and the continuation of normal operations, whatever that means, will resume. This is so exciting. And I’m certain that everyone else who is concerned about the health and welfare of the industry is as excited as I am. I don’t know why anyone would continue to support this, what would be the purpose? The level of comfort being expressed by the bureaucrats in these strategic positions shows they are not concerned about their bureaucratic empires in any way. They feel they’re as safe and secure as they could possibly be. With the higher oil prices that were provided by the efforts of the OPEC+ production sharing agreement, the North American producers promised that 2018 was going to be the year in which shale would be proven to be a viable business.

What we do know is at the end of the third quarter of 2018 the oil price was $73.56 which supported higher valuations of reserves on their big, beautiful balance sheets. Therefore, their reserves being more valuable, the amount of depletion that needed to be recorded would be far less than what was recorded at the end of the third quarter of 2017 when the price of oil was $51.67. Which is possibly why the third quarter of 2018’s recorded depletion of our sample of 23 producers was $39.1 billion vs. $52.3 billion for the same period in 2017. So yes there is no question that based on these lower depletion numbers in 2018 the higher profitability necessary to ensure the commercialization of shale was achieved. My frustration with this situation is the source of my sarcasm.

Throughout 2018 many producers were able to sell properties in order to raise some much needed cash. There almost seems to be a cash crisis raging in the industry. A majority of those properties ended up selling well below what they were recorded at on their big, beautiful balance sheets of the seller. Therefore creating large losses on these transactions. My question would be should this prompt the public accountants to begin a serious discussion of reducing the asset values of the producers to the traditional accounting requirement of the lower of cost or market value? After all how is it that all these producers, who are in a self proclaimed crisis, with assets ballooned to the stratosphere, justifying these numbers? Keeping with the theme of the obscenely high values of property, plant and equipment on the producers balance sheets, or as we like to call them at People, Ideas & Objects, the unrecognized capital costs of past production. With the decline in prices to $45.81 at the end of 2018, which is $15 below the price that was realized at December 31, 2017, the amount of depletion for 2018 is going to have to catch up and far exceed that which was recorded in 2017. To summarize for the public accountants then, even though the industry is in crisis producers big, beautiful balance sheets stick out like a sore thumb. The amount of sales of properties sold at values that are well below what the recorded cost are, seems to indicate that maybe they’ve been chronically and systemically recorded at too high of value. Or, you could keep this bloated asset value deception humming until the year 2021, 2022 fiscal period when the producers decide to change their strategic vision to that of muddling along and doing nothing. I certainly don’t want to tell them how to manage their business however it does appear that the overreporting of assets, earnings and cash flow has destroyed the credibility of the oil and gas producers in the eyes of the investors. The last time this happened was on a limited basis which saw Enron and WorldCom destroyed by a lack of faith. But then I guess there was also Arthur Anderson that was vaporized in that situation.

As an alternative People, Ideas & Objects recommend the industry implement the Preliminary Specification. With its decentralized production model’s price maker strategy producers will use profitability as the determinant as to whether a property produces or not. This ensures the highest level of profitability attainable by their organization when no losses on operations dilute their profitable operations, will hold their reserves for a time when they can be produced profitably, keeps their capital base lower when the monthly losses on unprofitable properties are not added to the amount of capital that the property needs to recover and ensures that the commodity markets find the marginal price. Once producers behavior is influenced in this way there will be no uncertainty in the commodity market as to the validity of that producers discipline in this production allocation methodology. There would be no incentive for any producer to break away from the profits only production allocation methodology in the Preliminary Specification. Any production of unprofitable properties only reduces their overall profitability. There will be no doubt in the market that the commodity prices will hold at the industries marginal costs and the investors can be assured of consistent returns throughout the business cycle, the commodity markets will know that the sources of oil and gas are more reliable, stable financially and politically when profitable North American producers are providing their supply and that is managed as an effective profitable business.

Producers are more interested in pushing out the period of time in which they’ll need to act or account for this mess. If action should ever be required. This is the manner in which the industry is operated. A constant, chronic malaise is just part of the scenery and should be expected by anyone who wants to be associated with the industry. It just doesn’t have to be that way. And it's time to make the change that the bureaucrats can’t, won’t and will not ever do on their own.

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.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

How This is Resolved

We can all generally agree that the economy is not what it should be. Whether the Preliminary Specifications definition of the issue and its resolution is correct is for others to determine. The funding for this project has to come from somewhere and that is beyond me as to where that’ll be. What we do know is that the Preliminary Research Report of May 2004 stated that organizations are defined and supported by the software that is in use by the organization. Therefore to make a change in an organization it is necessary to change its software first. This knowledge was subsequently used by the oil and gas bureaucrats to secure their position in the organization. Securing it by not making any change to the ERP software that they use. The result is that the bureaucrats compensation and control has continued as has the decline of the industries financial health and welfare. Today we need to make the change to the Preliminary Specification as part of the process of creative destruction. The trouble is that industries are no longer subject to what they’ve relied on in order to make these transitions before. Spontaneous order is constrained by the same principles as our current organizations. Without the software necessary to manage the new industry for today’s marketplace no changes can or will occur, the software needs to be built in order to define and support any organization to operate in this the 21st century. Until then there will be no changes made. What we are experiencing is a new phenomenon that eliminates the effect of spontaneous order in the process of renewal of industries. Unless the software vendor has deep pockets and large markets, the financial resources will be unknown and unknowable to provide for the software development. So how do we resolve this?

A quick tour through the history of the oil and gas industry we see the behaviour the producers have when it comes to two aspects of their industry. As they have control over the primary industry, they have control over the discretionary funding of the secondary and tertiary industries. Tell me if anyone who works in oil and gas has ever heard of this kind of behavior before. You have a product or service that is valuable to the oil and gas industry and the producers are interested. The next step is, as far as the oil and gas bureaucrats are concerned, is for the product or service provider to raise their own capital to develop the product or service, and then the producers will wash any Intellectual Property that is developed across the greater marketplace before they buy it. That way once you’ve built your proprietary product or service the producers will have any number of “me-too” competitors established, ready and willing to undercut your price. The ability to establish Intellectual Property in the secondary and tertiary industries doesn’t exist as far as the oil and gas bureaucrats are concerned. If you have any, they will not respect it and just pass it to on to your competitors. This has not in any way been detrimental to the producers for the past number of decades. Intellectual Property was not the key to value generation in the economy in the past. Though today it certainly is. Therefore the ability to establish your own competitive Intellectual Property is now your only real safeguard to having some longevity and value generation for your efforts. Otherwise you will enter the never ending price spiral at the hands of me-too competitors that are cheered on and supported by oil and gas bureaucrats. 

Expectations that funding this project will be done by outsiders who are unknown and unknowable to People, Ideas & Objects is the height of insanity. There is nothing that I can provide outside investors in terms of return due to the small market of producers. The phenomenon that I noted above about the elimination of spontaneous order is beyond me and the current resources that I have. There are more people than I who are affected by the difficulties in oil and gas with the power to resolve this. Who they are and what their location’s are is unknown to me. I am faced with a multitude of difficulties in trying to bring a resolution to the issues that I see. I’m simply calling out for the help that is needed to deal with a situation that I don’t think has been faced before. Disintermediation has been exercised in other industries. There is always something that those who are conducting the disintermediation are bringing about for their own benefit. Such as Apple’s reorganization of the music industry through iTunes. iTunes establishing a significant business for Apple. The persistence in the oil and gas industry to let trillions of their dollars evaporate and many hundreds of thousands of people suffer in the process of their inactivity is surprising to say the least. Almost as surprising as their propensity to resist and pound away at People, Ideas & Objects for daring to suggest a solution to their foolishness. This is not quite what I expected but the only thing I can offer any investors of mine. 

The one thing I am certain of is the solution to these oil and gas issues are going to involve user community developed software. We have been involved in developing People, Ideas & Objects user community since the publication of the Preliminary Specification in December 2013. Throughout the first quarter of 2014 we published our budget and the user community vision that are what are necessary to resolve this issue. It would appear to me that the Preliminary Specification is the right solution for the industry to undertake at this time. I believe we accurately estimated the scope and scale of the issue in our budget. No one in their right mind would approach a task such as this without full user involvement. It is the only method to ensure the validity and accuracy of the software that is developed. Our commitment to this is accurately represented in our user community vision that established People, Ideas & Objects user community with the power, control and tools necessary for them to achieve this ever so difficult task. As I mentioned in December of 2018 we have exhausted our resources now and will be conducting minimal operations until our budget is funded. The user communities development has also had to be put on hold. Hence for the first time since the beginning of working on this project in 1991 we are now at a standstill with no progress being made on any front. Frustration at the scope and scale of the loss of financial value within oil and gas and the number of people unnecessarily affected by all of this, can not be quantified. 

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.

Why's This Happening?

“This” being what appears to be an economic armageddon that we’re experiencing here in Calgary, a one industry town of 1.5 million people who are in tune with the health and welfare of the oil and gas industry. When everyone in leadership positions runs around saying things are in crisis the effect has been remarkable. I have never seen or heard of anything economically remotely similar to this in my working life. So why is this happening? “This” also being the chronic and systemic overproduction that has continued to be experienced in oil and gas throughout North America. When I first noticed this overproduction phenomenon in 1986 the price of oil had collapsed to $10. My thinking was since no one was making any money, why not just scale back the producers production and the price would respond positively to the point that the remaining production would attract profitable commodity prices. Thinking through the problem at that time leads one to the same conclusions that are present in today’s marketplace. It’s impossible for producers to do so in their current configuration. Therefore I set out in 1991 to see what changes would be needed in order to make it possible for the industry to be more dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable. I finished this work with the final edited version of the Preliminary Specification in December 2013.

The chronic and systemic overproduction is a result of overinvestment of capital in the productive capabilities of the industry. Too much capital has been invested and therefore too much capacity has been developed. The reason that there has been too much investment is that everyone, but most certainly the investors and bankers, were duped by specious accounting that showed high levels of profitability in the industry. When profits are reported, they then attract the attention of investors to invest more. But the profits were never there. The industry wide accounting has never allocated an appropriate amount of the capital costs of oil and gas exploration and production to that which was produced. Today each of the producers pride and joy in terms of their financial accounting statements is the balance sheets they’ve “built” over the past decades. Who builds balance sheets? And what exactly does building a balance sheet involve? Spending money to have it show up as an asset on the balance sheet for up to 27 years is uncompetitive and unrealistic in terms of competing for capital. It also reflects a performance of that firm that is more oriented to deception than anything that would be considered commercial. Spending money like drunken sailors for decades does not make an industry prosperous. It is high time for producers to rectify this fraud by moving their “assets” that are recorded in property, plant and equipment to depletion in order to accurately reflect the poor nature of their performance these past decades. These are no longer assets and are unquestionably the unrealized capital costs of past production. This deceptive accounting made the profitability look spectacular leading to a rush of investors over the past decades, leading to chronic and systemic overproduction.

Outside of the raging competition to build the biggest balance sheet, why can’t producers make some changes to their production profile to shut-in the properties that are losing money as a result of low commodity prices? That would be the common sense, business oriented thing to do. When inventories swell in any business they stop production of their product to ensure they don’t erode the pricing power that they have. Even Ford with their hugely popular F-150 line of trucks occasionally shuts down their plants. It’s common sense business not to continue to lose money or dilute your profitable operations with unprofitable ones. There are three key reasons that the current producers have not been capable of doing this simple common sense task. The only solution producers do apply is what I call the dull, blunt instrument of reducing capital expenditures. In the shale era we see the ineffectiveness of this method of dealing with overproduction.

The first reason is the quality of the accounting is too poor. Not to say this is the accountants fault overall, it is however an accounting related issue. I worked as an accountant for almost ten years in oil and gas, then almost ten years in audit so I understand the issue and the difficulties in making the necessary changes. The accounting information at the property level is incomplete. It details the capital costs and operating costs with great integrity and accuracy. However not one property in the industry knows its real costs or the resulting profitability. To do so they would need to know the specific overhead incurred at that property. Some might suggest that overhead can be as little as 1% of a producers revenues! That’s after allocating the majority of the costs to capital. Actual overhead of the producers can be estimated by looking at the downtown cores of all those “oil” towns and imagining the numbers of people, office space, lighting and other costs that are incurred to make the industry run. I estimate the costs to be approximately $10 to $12 per barrel of oil. And within those ranges you would see a variance that is wildly different. Natural gas is far more difficult to administer and account for. Some properties are relatively simple to operate, others are monsters. Some producers are non-operators and others operate on behalf of others. Therefore the variance in overhead costs would really be quite large. All of these overhead costs are currently charged directly to the corporate entity that incurs these costs. And then at the end of the quarter or year end, an allocation of a certain percentage of these overhead costs will go to property, plant and equipment on the balance sheet. The remainder will show up as G&A on the income statement. In the Preliminary Specification we use our service providers who bill directly for their administrative or accounting service to the specific Joint Operating Committee. That way producers will know the precise amount of overhead that is incurred at each and every property. And therefore be able to accurately determine the profitability / unprofitability of the property leading to the decision to shut-in or maintain operations.

The second reason is the high throughput production model that is used throughout the oil and gas industry. It is described by Professor Richard Langlois as follows:

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

With this current high throughput production model the more production that is achieved the more overhead that’s offset. And therefore the race to offset as much overhead as possible is the focus of the producer. This is the indirect motivation that puts all of the production everywhere on the market always. In the Preliminary Specification we use the decentralized production model which turns all of the producers costs variable. Therefore any property that is shut-in will incur a null operation, no profit, but also no loss.

The third reason that the overproduction continues and is unaddressed by the producers is that at any point in time each producer can point to their financial statements and show that they recorded a profit through their specious accounting methods of recording everything as an asset. Declaring therefore that it’s not their fault, their production is profitable.

The key to the Preliminary Specifications ability to make this change is the reorganization of the industries administrative and accounting resources. Turning all of the producers costs to variable costs based on production. Taking these resources from the individual producers where their capabilities are not shared or shareable, yet replicated within each producer firm. And establishing an industry based, variable, administrative and accounting capability. A capability that is variable based on production. The costs of each producer maintaining their own administrative and accounting capability, which is precisely the same as each of the other producers administrative and accounting capability, is another one of the reasons for the lack of real profitability in the industry.

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.

An Account of the Damages

Most of the discussion in the market revolves around the lack of takeaway capacity as the key issue facing the industry. Whether it is natural gas in the Marcellus or oil in the Permian, New Mexico has the situation where natural gas has at times traded hands for no value. And lets not forget the leadership that Canada’s oil and gas producers have provided on limiting takeaway capacity. Everywhere in North America there are pipeline constraints when compared to the level of production the producers could achieve. If you produce 4 mmboe / day and you have pipeline capacity for 3 or 3.5 mmboe / day you will experience high differentials on your commodity prices. The industry should ask itself, how is this an issue? If you had the incremental pipelines capable of handling your productive capacity what would happen then? Would these regional price differentials in the Marcellus region be released as incremental price pressure into the larger North American market and bring down the continental price? Of course it would. Having more pipeline capacity is not the issue today as much as it’s the chronic, systemic and unprofitable overproduction. Blaming others for not getting the pipelines built doesn’t get the job done.

The solution is to begin to focus on more than just drilling wells. Leaving the rest of the business to sort itself out on behalf of the producers hasn’t worked. Pipeline companies are mostly common carriers which subjects them to regulated businesses. They’re profitable no matter what they do. If they had any entrepreneurial spirit in their firm it would have been extinguished decades ago. Expecting the service industry and the general economy to leap off the floor in a single bound is not going to happen when you consider the discussion from yesterday. They’ve been shut-off from their normal course business as a result of the austerity imposed on them by the producers. All the while producers expect someone to come to the aid of their party and don’t understand why no one gives them any support. An issue they can’t seem to resolve in their own minds as they cash another check for the oil and gas sales made this past month. For more than two decades the focus of the producer firms has been on drilling. More and more. And when that was done get some more money and do it all again. It’s not that bad behavior catches up with everyone, it just caught up to the oil and gas producers.

Reading the Preliminary Specification will provide these producers with the software that will define and support the reorganization of the industry necessary to make the necessary changes. Since it has been chosen by them not to address the Preliminary Specification then the forces of creative destruction are in full force and will make the changes for them. Unsustainable is the only word that defines the situation the producers are in. The only issue that has slowed the progress of their demise is the cash flow from prior investments, in a capital intensive business, are adequate to keep the self interested bureaucracy compensated and the lights on. Their key competitive advantage throughout the last number of decades has been cost control which has clearly not generated any value, and with the shale era upon us, seems a futile exercise to me. With oil and gas technologies we know a number of things. Discoveries will continue, their decline curves will be steeper and the costs of those discoveries will be higher. Therefore it will be necessary to have a precise accounting of all of the costs in order to remain a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable industry. Deferring recognition of the capital costs in a capital intensive industry for as much as 27 years can’t compete in today’s capital markets. The competition for capital will only grow more complex throughout the 21st century. Without the Preliminary Specification how will producers deal with these issues?

Dare I ask how much natural gas has been sold in the last decade on an unprofitable basis. At the same time how much oil has been sold unprofitably. It has been 28 of the past 33 years that the industry has been in price related difficulties. How much money would there have been available if the industry had produced that oil and gas responsibly and profitably? Lets just round it out and say it’s in the many trillions of dollars. If that money was available and managed appropriately where would we be today? Would the service industry be healthy and prosperous and ready to fulfill the needs of the industry for the next 25 years? How much capital will the service industry need to reach that level now? Where will those resources come from? No investors or bankers are interested. The same for the general economy. How much capital is needed to offset the goodwill that was damaged when the industry proved once again not to be a reliable employer. If anyone was to make either of these capital investments they would be fools. There would be no return for that investment other than the oil and gas producers whose bureaucrats would pocket the benefits by more easily conducting their operations. Looking at those big, beautiful balance sheets of the producers we see no cash or working capital to deal with the needs in the service industry and general economy. Where would the money come from to reestablish the producers working capital needs? Asking this question in general sends the investors and bankers running for the hills never to return. If an industry can’t even manage its cash why would you invest to shore up its cash? All of these investments will be necessary and will only rehabilitate the industry to where it should be for normal operations. The producers also claim they need $20 to $40 trillion in incremental capital to deal with their future demands. Where will those resources come from? The Preliminary Specification states the only source for these funds is the consumer of the oil and gas.

Listening to the producers, and the media who write about them, we are on the verge of greatness in the industry. There is a blindness and inability to see the situation as it stands within the industry. The level of groupthink regarding the future is reaching epic proportions. There is no critical thinking. No discussion of the difficulties and certainly nothing about any solutions. As I’ve mentioned if it takes a decade of difficulties for the producers to only confuse and consume themselves, they have no hope. If the producers were to address these issues and recognize the scope and scale of the damage and financial costs they’ve dumped on everyone they would choose to do other distracting actions to ensure their denial was valid. Included in the denial would be the budget of People, Ideas & Objects. If they were to pay $6 billion for ERP software that somewhat imputes an issue. They’re also known for cost control and would never pay that kind of money. Meanwhile the chronic and systemic losses and destruction of value continue.

The $4 billion U.S. of People, Ideas & Objects budget that is attributable to me in the form of Intellectual Property royalties and earnings have been earned. Once the budget is raised and we proceed, those funds will be transferred to me as one of the first things that we do. I’ve earned that money by providing the producers with the solution to their problem. My value is determined on the value that industry generates as a result of the use of the Preliminary Specification. I will build it, but they will have some skin in the game. It will not be successful because they gave me enough money to build the system and they could then sit back and wait for it to be built. They will have to be the ones that are responsible for making this a success. I am one individual in an industry wide initiative. What I do from this point will not be enough to determine the success or failure if the producers are just sitting back waiting to pay me for delivery. It’s their problem they’ll have to fix it. I have the solution, they’ll need to put the money up and the effort in to solve it too. This denotes hard work on behalf of the producers which is a propensity they’ve not displayed. Therefore who provides these resources is unknown at this time. We have the alternative of the ICO to provide us with the funds, however we estimate that to be in excess of five years away. Which if you think about it, is a lot of money to be lost by all concerned before we even get started.

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.

A Greater Responsibility

I noted yesterday that Alberta’s economy appeared to have stopped as a result of the leadership in oil and gas and the Alberta Premier stating the industry was in “crisis.” The effect that oil and gas has on the greater economy is well known by most people and the statement that the “oil and gas industry contributes to the overall economy” is valid. It is therefore also valid that the overall economy contributes to the oil and gas industry. This is the point that seems to have been lost on those bureaucrats in the producer firms. They, as a primary industry, receive 100% of the proceeds of oil and gas extraction. This is done as a result of the efforts of the entire economies contribution not just the bureaucrats who cash the checks. Sitting back and beeking off about how “greedy” and “lazy” the service industry was during the “good times” also reflected this “what’s mine is mine” attitude. The point that I make in the Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace and Research & Capabilities modules is that the industry has a responsibility as the primary industry to ensure that those that are responsible for achieving the producers revenues are also maintained in a healthy and prosperous manner. Cutting everything off except the bureaucrats excessive compensation during the “bad” times doesn’t do anyone any good. And most particularly the oil and gas producers when they ramp up their activity to find that there is no one there to rely on except an emaciated, exhausted and financially desolate service industry and general overall economies that are too immature to support their needs. To call it a responsibility is the classification that I would place it in today, most people would see this as just good business sense.

It doesn’t take much imagine or understanding to see why oil and gas needs to be profitable. Profitable everywhere and always. There is more than just the bureaucrats compensation to be concerned about. As a primary industry oil and gas has a responsibility to those that it depends upon in the secondary and tertiary industries to ensure they are healthy and prosperous. When activity levels do return how much will they have to pay to have those “greedy and lazy” people that are currently moving away from the oil and gas regions to return. Those people knowing that sure, the money’s good today, but they need to look beyond the next six months in order to plan a career and family. This bureaucratic thinking of the producers shows a level of pious and irresponsibility which leads the industry to the boom and bust cycles that are prevalent, and expected in the oil and gas industry in this the 21st century. I can’t think of another industry that has these types of violent waves of economic activity such as oil and gas. The two Preliminary Specifications modules noted above deal specifically with the issues mentioned here and remedy the situation by having the industry more involved in the secondary and tertiary industries development. In order to ensure that producers needs are met at the time where and when they’re needed. A profitable oil and gas industry would have the resources necessary to make these investments in the general economy to ensure that people can depend on oil and gas as much as oil and gas depends on them.

The economy would then have an economic engine driving things forward. Not only will there be no doubt in the market that the commodity prices will hold and be stable, the investors can be assured of consistent returns throughout the business cycle, the commodity markets would know that the sources of oil and gas are more stable financially and politically when profitable North American producers are providing their supply and that is managed as an effective profitable business. People would be able to pursue careers in engineering and geology and know that they would never have to face unemployment or worse with a small family and mortgage underway. They would be able to focus and commit totally to the industry and the industry would be the benefactor. The secondary and tertiary industries would be able to plan and execute their businesses over the long term as well. And not be faced with the slashing of their revenues to as little as 12.5% of last years with their accounts receivable to the producers extending out into years. And generally people would have the benefit of living in a clean, prosperous city that was moving forward with quality of life issues that made their living that much better. Not have to hunker down in the trenches and have their lives step irretrievably backwards.

In an interesting article by Stanford Professor John Taylor who notes George Schultz’s comments regarding his review of the 2008 financial crisis and its causes.

George Shultz then noted, more basically, that the crisis was the result of violating “three fundamental principles that need to be kept in mind. One is accountability. From the ground up, there was no accountability. Number two is the sense of competence. Are the people competent running things? That was violated. Number three: trust. You have to have trust that the people doing things know what they’re doing, and that was violated. So, I think the net of all this was a very bad episode, and we still pay the price for it…” The view is quite different from recent revisits that focus in the clean-up operation rather than on these basic problems.

We seem to be “paying a price for it” don’t we. Therefore the three fundamental principles must have been violated in oil and gas. Lets see his first principle is accountability, through specious accounting the producers have deceived the investors and bankers to believe they were worth spectacular amounts on their big, bloated balance sheets driven by their spectacular earnings. These as we now know were nothing more than the result of unrecognized capital costs of past production sitting on the balance sheets as property, plant and equipment for a period of time just short of eternity. And there is a lack of accountability for the general economy affected by the decline in oil and gas prices due to the chronic, systemic and unnecessary overproduction by the producers. Check that first principle of accountability in a crisis has been violently violated. Second principle is competence which kind of speaks for itself. Who would allow the state of affairs in their business to fall into such disrepair with no discussion, feigning no recognition and worst of all, no action. I’ve been screaming at them about these issues since 2005. But then for them to have suggested, as they recently did, that they receive “no support” from anyone is the height of incompetence, self-absorption and downright stupidity. A statement that I think is more out of touch then Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.” Check the violation of the second principle of competence as well. Trust being the third principle that has indeed been violated here shows that the situation has become untenable. How do we put Humpty Dumpty back together again. If we need to convince all of these people I’ve noted that this time is different, what is it that they’ll trust and believe? New investors could always be duped, recent high school dropouts will go for the money so there is always a ready source of labor. But can producers really trust the bottom feeders and dropouts to get the job done? Therefore in the definition of George Schultz and John Taylor, whose reputations are slightly better than the high school dropouts the bureaucrats will grow to depend upon and trust, we do indeed have a crisis.

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.

Start of a New Year

And we’re back. We’ve learned a number of things about the oil and gas industry from the government mandates imposed on Alberta production. What was a crisis in December 2018 has now given way to the traditional muddle along strategy and do nothing operating procedure of the past number of decades. Holding the attention of producers across two consecutive weeks of rising oil prices is a bit of an ask. If anyone wants to know why People, Ideas & Objects need our budget fully funded in its entirety before we begin any developments look no further than this phenomenon of the oil and gas producer. I refer to this as the attention span of a mosquito, there is no way we can approach the scope and scale of our development without the full funding secured before we begin. The opportunity for the industry to say it’s no longer needed after one months developments is highly probable and clearly evident in these actions. The question would then be asked is why were they spending these dollars on software development? Yet the issue People, Ideas & Objects resolves can be traced back consistently throughout the past thirty three years. Everything is quite obviously “ok” now and there’s no need to address any issues or opportunities in the business, as far as bureaucrats are concerned, just resume the comfortable positions on the couch. Past behavior is a great predicate of future behavior and we have nothing but consistency here in oil and gas. The next 25 years, if left in the hands of the bureaucrats, will be exactly like the last 25 years. That there is an issue in the business that is causing real “crisis” like difficulties in North America, that Information Technologies are remaking industries throughout the world and that the commercialization of shale is the concept that is never spoken of or considered. No, oil and gas producers will “resist” in making the necessary changes because they know better and are otherwise financially set and quite comfortable, thank you. Besides the Preliminary Specification would be hard work to build and implement.

Introducing government mandated production cuts has been a disaster and we’re only into the second week of their implementation. First having the Premier ringing the bell saying this is a “crisis” has petrified the rest of the economy in Alberta. It’s like someone hit a switch and turned off the economy. Watching for the past few years oil and gas go through their difficulties, other businesses were attuned to the effect oil and gas has on the greater economy. The word “crisis” was all they needed to hear to shut down any and all activity. The comparison to the environment that would be created in the Preliminary Specification could not be greater. With the decentralized production model any properties production that qualifies as profitable based on detailed accounting data would be produced. Therefore the most dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producers will be producers of their entire portfolio of properties and pushing as hard as they can to increase their production profile. Today in Alberta we have communism, no incentive for anyone anywhere to do anything. Lesson learned I guess, but I repeat the Preliminary Specification has been available to avoid these lessons since December 2013.

We have also stated repeatedly that if industry implement the Preliminary Specification. Markets for commodities of oil and gas, and the stocks of the producers themselves would be able to quickly recognize the impact in the long term. Markets would then adjust to this new information and provide the producers with some commodity price relief and stock performance. This is validated with the Alberta government mandates going into effect and almost immediately eliminating the differentials on oil in Alberta. January 11, 2019 synthetic differential was negative $0.85 showing the effect is in excess of the market’s price. Therefore nothing to be done here, everything is fine, cash flow’s will resume and we’ll soon be able to resume the full and excessive compensation of the bureaucrats.

As much as People, Ideas & Objects could or would want to engage with the producers they’re all over the map. Unable to focus or direct themselves in a manner necessary to identify the issues and their resolution. It has been more than ten years in which natural gas prices collapsed due to overproduction. Unlike the excuses for oil, natural gas is a continental commodity that is purely based on the supply and demand in North America. Only North American producers are therefore to blame. We see no discussion of this point anywhere. After more than ten years we can say that this is the future in the hands of the oil and gas bureaucrats. Shale exacerbates the destructive overproduction tendencies of the industry. Tendencies that have been on display since 1986. The politics of today enable the producers to conveniently blame others such as OPEC or the easter bunny for their overproduction. Pipeline companies, governments, just about anyone else is at fault. The fact that escapes these people is that it’s the producers revenues that are evaporating. “Oh, whoa is me,” or more recently we heard these bureaucrats didn’t “feel the support of others” as their cry for attention. It’s been through their inaction that they’ve validated the Preliminary Specifications business model and the demise of the industry under their administration. We are disengaging with the oil and gas producers and will be pursuing the development of our solution based on the principles of creative destruction. The level of change necessary to make the industry viable is too comprehensive for the current bunch to approach when they’ve taken ten years of self inflicted commodity price declines to only fundamentally confuse and consume themselves. Theirs is not a viable business under their administration, nor is their administration itself viable.

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.

The End of the Year

It seems to me the only people that are confused by the situation in the oil and gas marketplace are the bureaucrats themselves. Should they stay or should they go. What we are witnessing in the commodity markets is volatility. Volatility leads to change. Some may think that change is upwards I just can’t see that with the deliverability coming out of the U.S. It is wholly unconstrained and out of control from a business perspective. Even without the support of investors and bankers regulators are having to materially revise their last months production estimates upwards based on the performance of industry. How do you stop the most costly production in the world? It would appear that governments are reluctant to step in and allocate production. How can an industry that has no concept of business take on a discipline that has never been exercised or understood?

To consider the Preliminary Specification decentralized production model’s price maker strategy is asking these producers to collude as far as they’re concerned. Nothing could be further from the truth. If making independent business decisions based on actual detailed accounting facts of profitability or unprofitability is collusion then every other industry is colluding. News a few weeks ago that congress was considering legislation that would require OPEC to produce at full production at all times. That would be the beginning of the end of the authority of congress. Not only do they not have the authority but it doesn’t make any sense. Every business manages the inventory that exists in the market to ensure that they don’t overwhelm demand and create a drop in the price. Scaling back or shutting down production to manage their inventories is a common business practice that is used and taught in universities. It is not collusion, a specious argument, it's how you maintain a profitable operation. In a competitive free market economy if the price gets too high then competitors will form to provide a check and a balance on excessive price increases. That’s how it works. And that’s why government mandated production allocation is such a bad idea. It’s a very good idea for the bureaucrats when they can sit on their never ending government mandate to line their pockets for that much longer.

The bureaucratic business model employed in oil and gas today involves these long years of austerity where producers use their dull, blunt instrument of scaling back capital expenditures. This creates shortages in the long run that eventually and dramatically affect prices then the stampede of investment and drilling begins again until it becomes “uneconomical” once again. What they mean by “uneconomical” is unknown to me as they never make any real profits at any time their business model is in play. We can see that this business model has worked well in the industry when next year we’ll be experiencing our 28th “bad” or down year out of the past 33 years. When oil and gas prices were high earlier this century the only ones making excessive profits were the bureaucrats who had participated in creating new definitions of compensation and excessive. Expectations of the return of those good days have had to be put on hold as the development of shale seems to have interrupted the holiday portion of their business model. Nonetheless, that others who have participated and maybe lost in the industry as a result of these bureaucratic actions is not pertinent to the question of how bureaucrats do their job today. Bureaucrats just wish to be supported and loved in these times of difficulty.

How and when the Preliminary Specification is picked up and by who, or if ever, is of no concern to me. There is nothing more that I can do to solve this as it stands today. With 5,000 man years ahead of us anything I do is mighty futile. There are many plans and strategies in place. We have worked to reduce the time required for development as much as we can think of at this point. People within the industry have to decide if their in, or out. Investors have to decide if their in, or out. And either support the development of the Preliminary Specification, the rebuilding of the oil and gas industry on that vision, or let things get to the point where oil and gas prices spike for the mid-term. As I said yesterday I’m satisfied with the work that I’ve done. I think I’ve saved some material amount of years for the industry. During a time where trillions are at stake each and every year, and we face our most challenging future. I’ll continue writing and pointing out the flaws in the current system. It’s what I do. However, I have to spend material amounts of money on the user community and it's not that I don’t want to, it’s that I can’t. So for the first time in our 27 years we are now at a standstill. People, Ideas & Objects is not progressing forward without our budget in place and people making the active decision to be involved. And that is where we stand today.

Some may think this is a capitulation of my responsibilities in raising our budget. I disagree. With no resources I have no capability to raise any funds. I don’t even know who would provide them. Our coin offering has always been as much as five years away. It may be even further now. If industry wants to wait that long then fine. My issues are resolved quite simply, and none of those issues have anything to do with the price of oil or gas. Those that do have issue with the price of oil and gas have a lot at stake, not me, it’s time to act in order to resolve them. I offer the Preliminary Specification as a solution. I’m sure there will be more solutions arriving soon. These people will need to make their decisions and we’ll have to live with them. I feel that we’ll not be the first choice of whomever it is. Other attempts will be made at great cost that I believe will lead to failure. You have to do the research which took me ten years. They’ll also need something other than the Joint Operating Committee as the base of their solution. That’s taken. Until whoever it is that provides the resources for this initiative there is little that I can do. And therefore I choose to do nothing further. Mine is the rational choice after 27 years of insanity. The first thing I’ll be doing is taking some time to recover. I’ll be returning January 14, 2019 and everyone have a Merry Christmas.

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.

Yeah, But at Least I'm Satisfied

It’s obvious that the volume of water that has passed under our bridge is too high for People, Ideas & Objects and the bureaucrats to overcome and work together. I suggest the bureaucrats leave. I’m confident enough in this issue to have spent the past 27 years of my life knowing that the mess we’re in today would come to pass. I therefore know that it’s not going to be rectified here in the next six months, or ever under the current administration. The issue is the bureaucrats. They can’t, won’t and will not ever change. What the industry needs is comprehensive change in order to survive. Without the changes prescribed in the Preliminary Specification we will consistently have all that we have today. How many people believe that today is the time for action? I say better late than never. The time to act was decades ago when the party really began, when oil was at $100+ and natural gas was well into the teens. That would be how you effectively manage a business, but those that were at the party chose not to adopt any changes. Everything was fine thanks.

Today the mad dash for Information Technologies golden value-add is all the rage in oil and gas. It’ll be Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence that drives the industry forward onto a greater more prosperous future. Looking to the technologies for the solution is the wrong direction. It’s the business that’s failing. The Internet enables new business models and methods of organization that were not available before. The way that the producer is organized today is what’s needed to be changed. The way that the industry operates is what needs to be changed. The one basic fact that we know is that specialization and the division of labor are responsible for all of the economic value that has been generated since the late 1700’s. Presenting us with a fantastic opportunity today, through the Internet, to organize ourselves in ways that are impossible otherwise. These organizational methods provide rich value for everyone involved in these disintermediated businesses. All of those except the bureaucrats and their archaic, costly and redundant ways. The time for change in oil and gas is now.

My argument has been with those that have proven resilient, in a bad way, to hang on to their self-interested and destructive ways. We can see the possibilities through the reorganization that the Preliminary Specification provides, why would I concern myself with getting along, or doing anything associated with the people who’ve brought the industry to the brink of collapse. Political niceties aside I have difficulty understanding how they deserve the benefit. Spending investors money with no accountability whatsoever. When asked about the capital costs incurred two years ago, I always received the response that those were sunk costs and irrelevant. The culture has grown so out of sync with the reality of businesses performance that no one was talking about anything rational. Investors believed what they were told when the financial statements showed profits galore and the discussion only involved the number of wells to drill next year. As long as the hamster kept running at full speed everything was ok.

In business there’s always the eventual misstep or trip up that causes problems. Overproduction overwhelmed the marketplace from 1986 to the early part of this century and then resumed in both gas and oil as a result of shale. When we enter 2019 we’ll be able to count only 5 good years in oil and gas out of the past 33. A stellar performance. If you read the media today it’s the Saudi’s and others who are overproducing and it's they who are the high cost producers. This is incorrect and anyone can see that the costs that are included in their calculations are what the Saudi Kingdom costs. North American oil and gas costs do not incur the costs of the entire Federal government so why would the Saudi’s include them in their oil costs? The high cost producer is the swing producer. A role the North American producers are unwilling to accept they’re responsible for. Swing producers alter their production volumes based on the price they recieve. If the price is profitable for them they’ll produce. If not they shut-in the unprofitable production. They therefore dictate the price of the commodities. The North American producers unwillingness to adopt the swing producer role has the global petroleum sector dealing with an unaccountable and unprofitable tyrant that is happy filling their pockets at everyone else's expense.

People, Ideas & Objects have always argued that the financial losses would lead to other difficulties. Now more than ever we see the validity of that argument. The financial, operational and political frameworks of the industry are held by others who are not participants in the industry. The only thing left to destroy are the capacities and capabilities of the industry. If we keep moving forward on this basis we’ll be unable to pick up where we’ve left off. These capacity and capability losses will be the most damaging for all concerned. They will also be the last to be remedied after we build back the financial, operational and political frameworks. You can see we have some work to do. Bureaucrats say that their systems are more sophisticated than the Preliminary Specification. And that is true, it will be a while before our user community brings ours up to full speed. What the current producer systems don’t provide however is a viable business operation. We don’t have to build just the Preliminary Specification but also the financial, operational and political frameworks, then focus on expanding the capacities and capabilities that have been lost. That is of both the producers and industry. I read the other day that the Permian was profitable at $30. I’ve also heard that President Trump has significant influence over the Saudis and hence the price of oil. Which oil and gas producer is going to tell him that they lied about what their performance was. For that matter which individual bureaucrat is going to get up and say that they’ve been lying about what they’ve been doing these past decades. Anyone?

Producers can whip out their AI, Machine Learning and Big Data solutions here in the next few quarters. I think it’s just more of the same. Bullshit baffles brains. Anyone hear anything this past year from the producers that came to be? I can’t think of anything either. How much more of this do we have to endure is exactly equal to the time that we cease to function as an industry. I don’t know why we have to go there. It seems to me that we already have a significant amount of work ahead of us. If we got started today that would be best. I will tell you that I am pleased that I disrupted my life for the past 27 years in order to do this work. That the issue is still here and unresolved seems a bit like a failure but the fact that we have the solution is not. I got it done and in my opinion I’ve been able to give the industry at least a ten year head start on solving this problem. That’s because it takes so long for this kind of work to be done and it can’t be rushed. So good luck bureaucrats. I hope your house is in order.

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.