A continuation of the section entitled
Overinvestment Leads to Overproduction
The technical economic classifications of price makers and price takers are as follows. From Investopedia.
What Is a
Price Maker?
A price maker is an entity, such as a firm, with a monopoly that gives it the power to influence the price it charges as the good it produces does not have perfect substitutes. A price maker within monopolistic competition produces goods that are differentiated in some way from its competitors' products. The price maker is also a profit-maximizer because it will increase output only as long as its marginal revenue is greater than its marginal cost. In other words, as long as it is producing a profit.
What substitutes are there for oil and natural gas? Can hydro power lubricate your engine? Will nuclear power provide the chemicals that oil and gas can? What size jerry-can can you use to carry electricity from wind or solar? Clearly there are no substitutes to oil and natural gas. And although in the hands of the bureaucrats oil and gas has not been a profit maximizer, that does not mean that it can’t be, or shouldn’t be. The
Preliminary Specifications decentralized production models price maker strategy enables producers to produce only
profitable production, everywhere and always. Another characteristic of price makers is that small changes in production volumes lead to large changes in price. We’ve seen this with the actions of OPEC+ and the Alberta government’s implementation of mandatory production cuts. If oil and gas aren’t price makers then they would be price takers as the producers assume. So what are the characteristics of a price taker? Again from Investopedia.
What Is a
Price-Taker?
A price-taker is an individual or company that must accept prevailing prices in a market, lacking the market share to influence market price on its own. All economic participants are considered to be price-takers in a market of perfect competition or one in which all companies sell an identical product, there are no barriers to entry or exit, every company has a relatively small market share, and all buyers have full information of the market. This holds true for producers and consumers of goods and services and for buyers and sellers in debt and equity markets.
The example that could be used here is the bottled water market. If you were to compete in that market what price would you set for the bottled water that you produced? Whatever the market provided because the choice between providers is immaterial to the consumer. Therefore cost control becomes the factor where profitability is earned. This may sound like the oil and gas commodities, but is it? It certainly is how the current producers bureaucrats perceive the business to be. The question that needs to be answered therefore is what would happen if the supply of bottled water were halved? I believe the price would remain the same as there would be alternatives such as the tap, juice or soft drinks that provide the consumer with their needs.
Although I’m sure I’ll be provided with continued disagreement from the producers bureaucrats, People, Ideas & Objects believes we’ve proven that oil and natural gas are price makers. Therefore the solution is to solve overproduction in the North American continent from a global, continental and regional point of view. So that producers are able to attain the prices that are necessary to
profitably cover the full capital, operating, royalty and overhead costs of oil and gas exploration and production, based on a reasonable accounting. That there is an argument between myself and the industry on essentially this point, since at least 2005, in this 21st century, with the high cost of shale, with shales inherent rapid production decline rates and with the state of collapse that the industry is in. Is truly surreal to me.
What we are therefore discussing is instilling some form of production discipline in all of the producers involved in North American based production. The various forms of production discipline that have been recently implemented are the voluntary production cutbacks in OPEC+, and the mandatory production cuts in Alberta. Neither of these are suitable for the purposes of a long term industry solution. As soon as the mandatory production cuts were implemented, companies such as Canadian Natural, who were strong advocates for, and were one of the producers that requested the government implement the policy. Soon became dissatisfied with the allocation that they had to carry in comparison to other producers. This is the issue with mandatory or voluntary cutbacks. They are effective in the short term however discipline can be short lived when cheating and dissatisfaction with the policy creeps in.
People, Ideas & Objects have chosen profitability as the determinant to allocate production. If a producer can produce the property profitably, assuming a reasonable accounting, then there is no reason they shouldn’t produce. If it is unprofitable then the motivation to shut-in the property is instilled in the producer to maximize their profits. Having properties that are not profitable produce will only dilute their profitable properties and the overall corporate profits will suffer. If the property is unprofitable then the producer has every motivation to evaluate the property to ensure that all of their earth science and engineering capabilities can be applied to it to return it to profitable production as soon as possible. This is the structure, configuration and organizational template that is inherent in the
Preliminary Specification for both the dynamic, innovative, accountable and
profitable oil and gas producer but also the industry. Producers need to choose what methodology they should implement to solve the overproduction that is in evidence since 1986, wholly attributable to their current business model, and aggravated by shale in today’s environment. We believe that profitability is the only fair and reasonable method for a producer operating in a capitalist society such as North America. And therefore have adopted that for the Preliminary Specification.
There is an implied variance in the methodology of accounting conducted in the industry. Which is true in the current business model. What if the Preliminary Specifications software, in conjunction with the
service providers were providing a standardized accounting methodology across the industry? This is what is possible with the implementation of the Preliminary Specification. Each property would be subject to the same accounting treatment by the wholly independent service providers who have the entire industry as their client base. In almost all instances the data and information they’ll be working with will be limited to the process they have under management. These data volumes will be significantly large, yet limited in their number of variables. To know what an individual properties situation is, or to influence the accounting for one individual producer would be difficult for them to undertake. The service providers accounting processing would be standard and as such the results would be the determination of profitability throughout the industry would be a reliable measure of performance that is consistent.
If a producer understands that their property is unprofitable and needs to be shut-in they’ll know they’ve received the same accounting treatment as everyone else in the industry. That the profitabilities determination will be standardized at the property level. There will be many instances where some of the participants in the property remain profitable while others are not. This would be a relatively frequent occurrence that would require that the determination of profitability be assessed at the whole property level. Shutting-in properties is not the detrimental action that the producers bureaucrats believe it is today. This should be seen by the producers as an opportunity to enhance the performance of the property, return it to profitable operations and increase their overall corporate profitability.
We should also note this brings about a new dynamic with respect to the age of the producing properties. If the producer has had the properties in excess of the two and one half years that we recommend that they retire their capital costs. Then those older properties will not have to carry any capital costs and as such these properties will be
profitable at all times. This brings about the need for a new capital discipline in terms of new projects for the producers. A discipline that asks if the new wells being drilled will be able to achieve profitable production and therefore produce? Creating a higher threshold, we believe, in order to attain project approval. At the same time the acquisition of properties from other producers will not have the associated reserves times current commodity price valuation that they generally do today. The properties acquisition price will need to be on a present value of the future profitability of the property. Therefore we would see much less of the Occidental acquisition of Anadarko for an enterprise value of $69 billion. Assets that have achieved a total of $695 million in lifetime earnings.
The differences noted here are the evaluation of a property based on its financial performance vs. its evaluation based on the reserve report. Currently the industry uses the reserve report to provide an understanding of the properties performance. These reports are not based on actual accounting of the producers but on field estimates of the costs to conduct an operation today. This is the way in which producers are able to state that their costs have been innovatively reduced from $60 / bbl to $20 / bbl in a capital intensive industry and are therefore continuing to produce profitably in a declining commodity price environment. Alternatively, they may be the financial accounting numbers that have somehow, and in miraculous fashion, disposed of the historical aspect of historical accounting.
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
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