Our Oil and Gas White Paper, Part XIII
What we set out to accomplish in the Resource Marketplace module is captured in this quotation from one of the primary sources of our research. Professor Richard N. Langlois and Professor Giovanni Dosi were both extensive resources for the research that was conducted in the development of the Preliminary Specification. In this quote from Professor Langlois we learn the direction that we are headed.
[I]t seems to me that we cannot hope to construct an adequate theory of industrial organization and in particular to answer our question about the division of labour between firm and market, unless the elements of organization, knowledge, experience and skills are brought back to the foreground of our vision (Richardson 1972, p. 888).
To deal effectively with the resource marketplace in oil and gas, the producer will need tools to effectively engage with the suppliers and others for the resources they need. The Resource Marketplace Module provides a window on the “Resource Marketplace” for Joint Operating Committees (JOC) and producers. Anything of value that is contracted between “actors” in the oil and gas, service, service provider, software and user community generated businesses will be found, contracted, managed, transacted and developed through this module. It's simply a virtual representation of these marketplaces. Therefore the negotiation, determination of available resources, determination of transaction costs, contract execution, effective software tools to monitor and verify compliance to the contract with the full support of the accounting system of an ERP system are all part of the Resource Marketplace module and its interfaces to other modules of the Preliminary Specification.
Similar interfaces will be provided for use by the service industries. Transactions have two parties, the efficiencies of the producers would inherently include the efficiencies to the service provider. Since we are an accounting system, then certainly offering similar services to the suppliers would only make sense. It is not just producers in the Resource Marketplace. Key to the efficiencies in the Resource Marketplace are the mitigation of transaction cost friction. Friction on both sides of the transaction, due to the fact that transaction costs in the Resource Marketplace are costs that will ultimately be borne initially by the Joint Operating Committee and eventually by the producer itself.
Contained within this virtual marketplace will be all of the producers and suppliers who will be able to define, create and conduct business in the actual marketplace that exists today. The scope and size of the Resource Marketplace will accommodate the needs of Exxonmobil and their $250 billion annual operating costs down to the single entrepreneur starting out in the oil and gas business. To preclude any group, profession, organization, or person from the Resource Marketplace would limit the value available to the industry. To call this just a Human Resource Marketplace would be incorrect because it would limit the participants in the market. Whatever service, product or solution is provided to the energy industry, from either individuals, those employed by producers or Joint Operating Committees, or companies providing services to the producers. This should include Schlumberger and anyone directly or indirectly employed in the energy industry. Therefore acquiring as Professor Langlois suggest’s “the elements of organization, knowledge, experience and skills.”
It is the use of the Joint Operating Committee and the “Marketplace Interface” by the Resource Marketplace that provides the value to the innovative oil and gas producer. Enabling the service industry to grow thick markets for their products and services. Where a diversity of offerings from new competitors, with new products or innovations on the products provided by existing suppliers. Producers have a role in defining and supporting a dynamic, competitive and healthy service industry. However, before that happens, the need for the software that is defined here in the Resource Marketplace has to be built for the producer, the Joint Operating Committee and the service sector to support these markets. From Professor Richard Langlois paper “Economic Institutions and the Boundaries of the Firm: The Case of Business Groups.”
The second hypothesis, which has resonances at least as far back as Gerschenkron’s famous “backwardness” thesis (Gerschenkron 1962), is that the way an economy responds to the problems of coordinating economic development depends not only on its own institutions and capabilities but also on institutions and capabilities elsewhere. It depends not only on an economy’s own history but on the history of other economies as well. The force of this observation is that an economy at the frontier of economic development (however we care to define that) is likely to respond to the coordination problem differently than an economy lagging behind that frontier. Specifically, an economy at the frontier is arguably more likely to rely on decentralized modes of coordination. This is so because uncertainty is greater at the frontier — uncertainty about technology, organizational form, market direction. p. 18
The division of labor and specialization play a large role in the Resource Marketplace as well. By outsourcing many of the administrative functions from the producer firm to specialized service providers who provide the People, Ideas & Objects software and process management to the producer firms. The producer firm is able to focus on those core competitive advantages of their land and asset base, and their earth science and engineering capabilities. Having the land, accounting, production and other administrative functions sourced through the Resource Marketplace by specialized service providers.
With this change in the administrative function of the producer firms we are able to transition from the “high throughput production” model to the “decentralized production” model where production and overhead costs more accurately match revenues. As a result we are able to initiate pricing related production decisions that better manage the producers oil and gas reserves, ensuring profitability everywhere and always. What this means is with the service providers focused on their process, such as production accounting, they will be engaged by the Joint Operating Committee not the producer. When the decision is made to temporarily suspend production, the associated costs of production accounting and other accounting, administrative and overhead costs will not be incurred. Moving from a reliance on the producers fixed administrative and accounting capabilities to the industries variable administrative and accounting capabilities. The Preliminary Specification turns all of the producers cost variable, based on production. Please see the Preamble for further definition of the decentralized production model. Lastly I would point out the Resource Marketplace module is an active participant, as is the Petroleum Lease and Financial Marketplace modules, in the “Marketplace Interface” which will be discussed further in the other Marketplace modules of the Preliminary Specification.
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 American 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.