How People, Ideas & Objects Will Achieve Success, Part V

 People can intuitively understand and appreciate the need for profitability in oil and gas. The lack of profits has had a devastating effect on producers, the quality of life of all of the people who work there and each of the many industries that are directly employed in the service of oil and gas. This difficulty may be somewhat hidden as a result of the initial and current virus related lockdowns. The need for profit is well understood through its absence. Therefore adopting profits as our purpose, which has been our focus from the beginning, by industry, its people, the producer firms, service industry, its investors and bankers is something that everyone can resonate with. We’re unable to survive without the profitability that we seek. The role of the investors is not to fund the bureaucrats insatiable addiction to spend money. Investors will never have that much money. Investors play a critical role in making decisions as to what happens, where, when and why. They’ve decided that the lack of profitability is unacceptable. The capital needs of producers is beyond what they’re capable and willing to provide. Particularly those trillions of dollars we’ve identified in the categories of rebuilding, refurbishing and reclamation costs. Costs that have no capacity to provide a return on investment. Investor action of withholding their financial support should have triggered the remedial actions necessary to avoid the protracted depression we’ve found ourselves in. However, bureaucrats are obstinate. And it would appear that the potential increases in oil and natural gas prices could lead to the success that bureaucrats have always found in the industry. It's just that no one else ever gets to share in their success. If we continue on in this destructive, bureaucratic direction for the next decade, who’ll be the biggest fool of them all?

An easily expressed purpose of profitability is relatively easy to define. You know when you see a profitable activity and what is not. Wholesale changes to the organization to pursue objectives in other industries such as clean energy with zero emissions targets will never create profitable operations in oil and gas. Why are bureaucrats doing it? Is it the opportunity to fleece an entire new class of “willing and enthusiastic” investors? If People, Ideas & Objects, the user community and service providers accounting are reporting that an oil and gas property is unprofitable that’s a drain on the organizations profitability. The need to cease the drainage of value should be seen as an immediate necessity with actions taken to figure out what to do with the specific unprofitable investment. What opportunities are available?  The Preliminary Specifications price maker strategy ensures that all production is produced profitably. It also establishes the necessary organizational infrastructure throughout the industry to enable and encourage innovation. Can costs be innovatively reduced or reserves expanded, deliverability may be enhanced or should the property be sold to a partner or adjoining facility? Innovation is used to ensure that the consumers are provided with the lowest costs. Sitting idly by while value is flushed from everywhere in oil and gas, stating that you're profitable, you just need more cash, isn’t working. Will the move to “clean energy and zero emissions” be 2021s viable scapegoat just as “waiting for a cold winter” was in 2010? Implying a new sophistication in the creation of excuses, blaming and viable scapegoats, after all it has been a decade, and bureaucrats must have developed and evolved in some aspect of their lives. Recently Shell announced (additional?) 9,000 layoffs for the next 2 years with no salary increases or bonuses for anyone. Their transition to clean energy is their focus and to be honest I never thought Shell would be one of the first to just give up. Another alternative route being offered is Chesapeakes who gloat they now have 85% less engineers and geologists post bankruptcy. Exciting times in oil and gas! 

Our White Paper was entitled “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale” for a reason. The bureaucrats have lost the script and don’t know what business they're in. Shale has disrupted the oil and gas business model. Changed the industry from scarcity to abundance and there has been no change in how the industry approaches the business. Investors believe that shale is not commercial and have seen no response or reaction from industry otherwise. Claiming profitability and earning profitability are two fundamentally different approaches and demands. Spelling out the future of the industry in the Shell or Chesapeake world only demands a high tolerance to pain. People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers invoke a vision throughout the industry where the future is established in a way that is secure for those that choose to pursue oil and gas. Those interested in clean energy can choose that field to move to. Our vision has a demand where everyone needs to concern themselves with the justification of what they’re doing is profitable. And if not, how to constructively remedy that. A dynamic world of thinking constantly about what you're doing and interacting with your environment to ensure that everyone remains moving forward, dare I say profitably building value. As we know with this objective and purpose in mind, if that isn’t evident to the individual today, it can be easily learned with the appropriate feedback that some call accounting, and a sense of profitably building value can replace the daily grind of daily attendance and participation in the bureaucratic malaise of “muddle through.” 

Speaking of accounting and real profitability. We need to separate the reporting of property, plant and equipment from its determination of the value of the firm. This has become the cultural means of what is done in oil and gas. Any cost that is incurred, except for royalties and operating expenses are capitalized to property, plant and equipment at high percentage values in order to attempt to replicate the value of the reserves on the balance sheet. The reserves can be detailed in the Management Discussion & Analysis of the Annual and Quarterly reports. They are a clear reflection of the value of the firm based on how the producer has conducted their operations and the success they’ve achieved, or not, in the form of oil and gas exploration and development. These are a subjective science and the methods used to report these numbers are by independent third parties who use the same criteria somewhat consistently across the industry. They are reconciled and updated on a biennial basis and provide worthwhile and valuable information. When the value of the firm is thousands of feet below the surface it’s the reasonable method of reflecting what the organization is worth. 

Accounting is no such animal. It has nothing to do with value or what the outcome of the management has been. That value is to be determined based on the reserves and the equity markets based on the investors perception of that value. Accounting doesn’t come into that part of the equation. Oil and gas needs to move away from the perception that accounting must reflect value. What accounting does is evaluate the management on the basis of how they performed from a financial perspective. Did they perform financially, were they profitable in a financial sense. Have they been accountable for the money they’ve spent etc. It is quite possible that the situation occurs on some basis of reasonableness that the producer built significant value in terms of the exploration and development of oil and gas reserves, but could never report a profit. What is the purpose or value of those reserves if they can’t be produced profitably? Conversely, a producer may be abysmal at exploration and development of their reserves base, yet are a wildly profitable producer, in the real sense of the word profit. What is the value of these two producers? How do any of the producers fall within the scale of both reserves value and financial performance? We don’t know and will never know due to the culture seeking to have the property, plant and equipment account achieve what their reserves value is. CEO’s running around town flashing their balance sheets off as to who “built” theirs bigger and better than the others and how much “cash they put in the ground” that year. These are what the industries objectives and culture have developed into and become. The industry does not have a commercial basis of its measurement in today’s environment. The homogenization of the producers financial statements shows they’re all in serious financial jeopardy, yet they all have spectacular property, plant and equipment balances. 

This discussion essentially seeks to balance the science reflected in the reserves value with the commercial environment that the industry must operate within. What the investors have been telling the producers for five years now. When accounting is seeking to replicate the same scientific outcome, increasing property, plant and equipment as quickly and as high as the reserves value, the commercial objective is lost. “Build balance sheets,” “put cash in the ground” become the guiding objectives that are pursued by the bureaucrats. The Preliminary Specification seeks to make the commercial assessment of the industry based upon each of the Joint Operating Committees. Where their accounting assessments will be done on an independent, standard, objective, variable cost and industry based capability delivered to the Joint Operating Committees by the service providers. Where producers will know and trust the outcome of those assessments and where their costs of capital, in a capital intensive industry, will be reflected in the cost of the commodity sold to the consumer. So the invested capital of the investors can be retrieved by the consumers' use of the commodity and that capital is used again repeatedly to maintain and expand the assets, pay down debt and send dividends back to the investors. What can we say about stuffing the ground with cash? I have to say producer bureaucrats were effective in deferring any early interest in the Preliminary Specification by claiming it was crazy. Turn around is fair play.

Recording of capital assets in oil and gas has been an issue since the SEC passed their regulations in 1978. The cultural distortions that have been generated as a result of those had become obscene, in my opinion, in the 1980s. Today they’ve destroyed the industry. It is not as a result of what the SEC published in 1978 that I would place the blame, it was how they were immediately interpreted throughout the industry. The difficulties grew from what I feel is a misinterpretation of these regulations and how they’ve formed the culture of the industry today. The quote that I find the most clarifying as to what is and should be, is the following from Investopedia.

According to the Securities Exchange and Commission (SEC), oil companies are required to report these reserves to investors through supplemental information to the financial statements.2 It is important to note oil still in the ground is not considered an asset until it is extracted and produced. Once the oil is produced, oil companies generally list what isn't sold as products and merchandise inventory.

I would suggest that bureaucrats may have also misinterpreted this statement when they say in absolute harmony. “We are in compliance with all the regulations.” And they’ll state this unequivocally due to the fact that they’re not claiming the “oil is still in the ground” it’s that “you have to put cash in the ground.” See they’re in compliance when they refer only to the cash! It’s not just the oil that’s slick. Here are the governing SEC regulations for your reading and sleeping enjoyment. 

Prior to the earnings season I suggested that the haunting message that may be coming from the producers audit firm may be the going concern opinion. This may have been some overreach or just prescience on my behalf. Of the few producers of our sample that have reported only two have reported their audited financial statements. The remainder will be issuing their audited statements in April and May as part of their Annual Reports. Of these two, both are Canadian companies, do not file 10Q or 10K reports and I can’t tell if it is exclusively a Canadian issue at this time. But in both audit instances, as with most of the companies in the industry, 2020 realized significant impairments to the property, plant and equipment account. And as a result one of the firms produced a Critical Audit Matter (CAM) and the other a Key Audit Matter (KAM) regarding these writedowns. In both instances the CAM and KAM did not render an audit opinion on the specifics of the issue, but were part of the overall audit opinion that the financial statements represented fairly the financial situation within the producer firms. KAM’s and CAM’s are assessed based on Cash Generating Units (CGU’s) ability to generate cash returns. How do these audit firms account for the change when prior years audits accepted these results? It is uncertain and unclear who triggered the CAM and KAM in these instances. Justifications that these writedowns were triggered due to the effects on the business by the virus or climate change are viable scapegoats as far as I’m concerned. If the cash generating units no longer support the assets recorded value in property, plant and equipment that is more than a virus. As I was apparently premature in raising the issue of over capitalization and its implied, inverse over reporting of profits, which is obviously not a CAM or KAM as reported by the auditors in prior years, maybe I’m just premature in my comment regarding the audit opinion including the dreaded going concern kiss of death. I always asserted that overreporting of assets and profits are what ultimately led to the demise of Bernie Madoff, Bernie Ebbers and Jeffrey Skilling. That is because it’s outright fraud and each was sentenced in excess of 20 years of prison, 150 years for Bernie Madoff. Let’s see how 2021 play’s out.

Understanding that during the summer of 2020 we documented that the overproduction issue has been present in the industry since at least July 1986. The Preliminary Specification has been available since December 2013. The identification of these points in time motivated the only known action from the oil and gas bureaucrats in the past ten years. That action consisted of having the producer firms increasing the coverage of officers and directors insurance. I asserted at that time the actions of these bureaucrats in increasing the insurance coverage implied guilt and culpability. However as we sit here in early 2021 with no resolution, we still see no evident conscience. Could I apply the same logic and assert a guilt and culpability to the audit firms in documenting their Critical Audit Matter and Key Audit Matter of 2020? Especially when they know the timing and accuracy of recording capital assets is a key issue and primary purpose in Accounting? 

What we should all be asking the bureaucrats when they stand up in their Annual General Meetings this spring are the following questions. Why is it that only the personal compensation and risk to the officers and directors motivate any action? Explain to your shareholders why it is that you're not concerned with producers' real profitability for these past 35 years? Why is reorganizing to ensure profitability everywhere and always considered crazy and too radical, yet transitioning to clean energy and zero emissions is not? Why is it that just punching a clock day after day is acceptable? Where is the requisite focus necessary for success within the producer firms beyond “building balance sheets,” “putting cash in the ground” and why has the industry become such a drain on society during their watch? Will this continuous display of weakness by these bureaucrats continue the decades long losing streak that the industry is experiencing? I’d ask what the plan is, but I think any direct admission of guilt by them in a public forum would be contrary to the bureaucrats best interest. The last question would have to go along the lines of; if now is not the time for change and action, when would be?

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

How Will People, Ideas & Objects Achieve Success, Part IV

Environmental scientists have yet to determine the cause of the approximate 1.5 million Texans without power at 3:00 on Monday morning. Their commitment to return the planet to its pristine condition is unshaken even at the long term risk of people starving and freezing to death. It’s science! And yes they are blind to it. In related news Vladimir Putin has choked off gas deliverability into Europe as they experience similar “winter weather.” Sending natural gas prices in Europe to >$20.00. For those bureaucrats who may still be listening this may be called collusion. Artificially and unjustifiably holding back deliverability will never be accepted, that is collusion and not the answer. Managing inventories of products based on profitability as provided by People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specifications price maker strategy, our user community and service providers is just good business. The fact that our good friends the bureaucrats are unable to discern the difference between the two is only evidence of their corruption, in my opinion. At least their prayers for a cold winter have been heard.

The discussion to this point has focused on the areas that we will have somewhat under our control. The success of this initiative, once our budget has been secured will be a difficult task and we are not belittling the scale of difficulty that needs to be undertaken by our user community and service providers. We however do not in any way question their motivation, skill or desire to succeed in doing so. What appears to motivate people the most is taking the industry away from the chronic boom / bust cycle that is assumed to be a “necessary” part of the industry and why they have to sacrifice so much to work in the industry. Not everyone maintains a tolerance for risk throughout their career and over time they learn that the bad times are what define your career and management philosophy. “Muddle through” begins to make sense and becomes accepted for survival. Unnecessary but you need to survive. How is a decades long, steep, downward trajectory ever acceptable? The vision of the Preliminary Specification and the opportunities for the user community and service providers allow people to see a different vision for the industry. One where “muddle through” is not necessary and a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable industry needs to be rebuilt from what exists today. The need to do so is evident due to the level of damage that has been experienced and the lack of any action bureaucrats have conducted over the past dozen years of accelerating decline. This new industry vision sees people being the critical resource in making things happen in order to ensure that real profitability is achieved everywhere and always, and it is they who’ll make the difference. A complete inverse of the industry's culture as it exists today. One in which people will be able to seek out a worthwhile career, family and mortgage without the inherent risk of bad management subjecting them to the chronic waste of “muddle through.”

My concern here falls in the area regarding the producer firms. Their behavior and participation in the development of the Preliminary Specification must change as much as the people who are moving to the user community, and those who will eventually move to their service provider organizations. We know as a fact that organizations do not change, people do. Therefore the people mentioned in the first paragraph will be successful and the unsuccessful producer organizations will? More than likely continue on with the same culture. Although we should be relying on disintermediation, creative destruction, serendipity, spontaneous order and other economic principles that have renewed and refreshed the North American economy when the old just isn’t doing it anymore. Our two key difficulties in seeing any of these take effect are the capital intensive nature of the oil and gas industry, and the bankruptcy process being adopted as key to the foundation of the “muddle through” business model of the North American producers. These two attributes of the bureaucrats' toolkit have enabled them to continue through the past decade with business as usual and have never forced a day of reckoning. The exit of the investment community is well past five years and there have been no remedial actions contemplated or conducted to deal with the producers issues. What issues, bureaucrats would ask? This has become an untenable situation for everyone in the oil and gas industry. However it is much worse than that. Oil and gas is a primary industry that depends on the secondary and tertiary industries who in turn are solely dependent upon it. It is those primary industry revenues that the bureaucrats have diverted, the cash flow from the previous high levels of capital investment, into their own pockets. Destroying everything else associated with oil and gas. As long as there will be enough cash to fund the personal desires of the C suite and board needs, that’s all that matters. The culture of the industry as a result of this “muddle through” is to do nothing. 

I could have just quoted the definition of “bureaucracy” and provided just as much information. My concern is this culture that has been evident to me since the mid 1980’s. That was when the capitalization of high levels of overhead had become accepted as the status quo. This was therefore applied to the horrendously high interest payments due to the high interest rates that were present in the marketplace as at that time. I began this adventure in 1991 due to the inappropriate culture of doing nothing and the inability of producers to shut-in production to deal with the overproduction in the market. Overproduction that we’ve documented began at least as early as July 1986. How does one deal with this culture? Moving the administrative and accounting people into their own service providers will be an effective means of change. However the culture in the organizations of the producers is otherwise fixed and I am unaware how that changes without other wholesale changes in the makeup of the industry. 

I’ve proposed the reason the way things are the way they are is also a result of the adoption of computers in the 1960s. When producers began acquiring them the question was asked what can be done. Accounting was one of the first constructive attributes, tax, compliance and process management came soon after. Eventually the corporate perspective became filing the right form at the right time to the right regulator on the right colored paper and the Joint Operating Committee which is the business of the business faded into the background. The Joint Operating Committee provides the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the industry. The Preliminary Specification moves the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy to be in alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee which provides the producer firm, or however we want to describe the working interest owners, into an alignment of all of its frameworks. Generating a speed, innovativeness and profitability that we seek in the industry.

The answer to the question of how we overcome the culture may come about as a result of the Preliminary Specifications change from the corporate focus, as I call it, to the direct support and definition of the Joint Operating Committee. What I’m getting at here is that we can now look in a comprehensive way at the oil and gas industry differently. That it now consists of a decentralized pool of working interest owners involved in the direct ownership of their interest in the Joint Operating Committee. Organized, managed and provided through their use of the Preliminary Specification. Where the approach within the industry is that a property is a property, is a property. Where the accounting and administration are handled in a standard, objective manner whose costs are included in the Joint Operating Committee that is either always profitable, or shut-in creating a null operation. Where their earth science and engineering capabilities, if they desire to build that competitive advantage, are pooled with the other Joint Operating Committees working interest owners to manage the properties technical production and future development. Where the Work Order system of the Preliminary Specification ensures that the costs of these earth science and engineering efforts are charged directly to the Joint Operating Committees, and therefore reduce their corporate overhead burden, or should be seen as a second source of revenue for the producer who provides these services to their working interest partners or to other Joint Operating Committees on a consulting basis. 

What People, Ideas & Objects have objectively done is written a letter to the producer bureaucrats that would have gone as follows. “Dear Mr. Bureaucrat, you are disintermediated and redundant.” And that is rightly how they’ve interpreted the 200,000 words of the Preliminary Specification. The reason that I’ve effectively sent that letter is they’re unable and incapable of dealing with the speed of business today. They are unable in a comprehensive fashion to deal with the issues they’ve created which is causing the terminal demise of their organization and the industry itself. Solving these issues is why the Preliminary Specification has earned the push back that we’ve experienced. 

Parsing the producer down to its properties is the natural process of destruction of the culturally constrained, bureaucratic producer. Decentralization of business is an element of disintermediation. Consolidation is an element of the bureaucrats' survival. With the Preliminary Specification we have decentralized the industry down to the Joint Operating Committee of which there certainly are many of. Many contain only one well. Some would say correctly that we’ve decentralized the industry down to the individual. Which I think is valid and concur. However bureaucrats argue that the level of sophistication and organization necessary to do what is suggested in the Preliminary Specification is beyond what can be achieved. Which in the context of a bureaucracy is true, however for software it’ll be its purpose. 

To consider there is nothing of value left to reclaim in the producer firms is not what People, Ideas & Objects are asserting. What we are saying is that we can rebuild it from here without the bureaucratic culture that exists today. These organizations are cleared of their value, incapable of recovery for the reasons I’ll point out next in this post, a drag on society and through the process of repeated bankruptcy, only continue to serve the bureaucrats who are directly responsible for the destruction. Facing a steep wall of escalating rebuilding, refurbishing and reclamation costs without a plan or understanding of the issues. We don’t need and we certainly do not want to constrain ourselves with the culture, bureaucracy or organizational constraints that exist today in the process of rebuilding the industry. There is a better way which fits appropriately within the successful manner we propose and are detailing here. Oil prices are rallying as a result of the vaccines and the efforts of OPEC+. I’d caution bureaucrats to not get too excited as there are 7 mm boe / day in surplus capacity that exists within the domain of OPEC+. They had actively declared a price war on North American producers at this time last year. Any over zealous drilling response by bureaucrats may provoke a similar declaration.

Looking critically at the financial statements of any producer we see a number of attributes that are systemic throughout the industry. The systemic nature of these are a result of the cultural influences that began in the late 1970s and took hold in the 1980s. We have bloated balance sheets of property, plant and equipment that achieved their lofty heights as a result of the desire to “build balance sheets” and “you have to put cash in the ground.” There was also an assumption that financial statements emulated the value of the firm. Therefore bloating began and has never diminished. These assets are contrasted to the lack of anything else on the asset side of the balance sheet. Working capital if it exists is minimal and on a downward trend that began when the investors and now bankers began withholding their support. The liability side of the balance sheet are riddled with two very negative attributes. The massive debts that are a result of excessive spending on capital assets, and the very low interest rate environment that has existed for the better part of the last two decades. People, Ideas & Objects have repeatedly suggested that property, plant and equipment should be seen predominantly as the unrecognized capital costs of past production. And therefore 65% of property, plant and equipment should be depleted in the current year to establish a more accurate pro-forma understanding of the leverage of these producers. The banks hold the title to all the properties of producers and have expressed shock and surprise at the methods of management they’ve been displaying recently. I would suggest that an end to the bankruptcy process begins with the banks just seizing the properties instead of continuing the merry go round of biennial bankruptcy proceedings. Once seized they could then sell the properties to new owners operating under the Preliminary Specification, user community and service providers. The other attribute on the right side of the balance sheet of course is the many billions of shares that have been issued across the industry. Producer bureaucrats have shown no real level of concern or accountability to those shareholders in the past five years, as none of the remedial actions that are necessary at times like this have been taken. Who will be the first to buy in to the next round of funding and provide a year's worth of excess drilling that will collapse the commodity price for .001% of the company? The point is what is there for anyone left in these companies. The value has been exhausted and the only thing left is those that have rightful claims that will stand miles in front of you in the bankruptcy process. Bankruptcy being a defacto part of the bureaucrats business model. But let's not discuss trajectory and momentum or the need to reverse these. I’m an ambitious man however I don’t find anyone encouraged by this vision other than bureaucrats who know they can reap their personal rewards.

Speaking of rightful claims. We’ve documented how the bureaucrats will be busy for the next number of years, or will it be decades, defending themselves from those bankers and shareholders litigation regarding their lack of fiduciary duty. And lets not forget that not all litigation is about money. There will be those that are entitled to their litigation for the sole purpose of ensuring that the bureaucrats finally earn some skin in the game. No one ever sues over an unsuccessful venture that's true. However, when the producer firms have upped their officers and directors liability insurance as they did last summer, less than a month after I identified their risks, people are now “finding gold in them thar hills.” That’s on top of the personal financial empires these officers and directors pledged to those they’ve betrayed. These have sometimes been known as Class Action lawsuits. In addition, subsequent to that event in the summer, I was able to document that the overproduction of oil was occurring as early as July 1986. That the Preliminary Specification that deals specifically with that issue was published in December 2013. And that absolutely no action has been taken while the bureaucrats cleaned out the safes and set the place on fire. Sounds to me like the bureaucrats feelings of guilt and culpability are rightly earned.

Changing the existing culture and performance of the industry is difficult for me to see. Then I’m biased. Sales of properties out of the banks and existing producers could be the means in which a new industry based on the Preliminary Specification comes about. Our budget for the development of the Preliminary Specification may seem like an issue in this scenario. However, I believe that the cozy retirement getaway that beckons the bureaucrats won’t come about if they don’t do their fiduciary duty. Which if they funded the budget of the Preliminary Specification they would mitigate the issue of overproduction, and implement the solution to what they’ve created and are responsible for. Therefore they can fund the budget and live happily ever after or risk their last few decades in hell. And as I’ve stated before, the “issue mitigated, nothing litigated” is catching on more and more these days.

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here.  

How Will People, Ideas & Objects Achieve Success, Part III

 People, Ideas & Objects key value proposition is that we ensure that all production is produced profitably, everywhere and always. We achieve this by way of the user community and its service provider organizations. The configuration of the industries accounting and administrative resources have been organized in this manner for a number of reasons which are. First, the application of higher levels of specialization and division of labor. Organizational changes designed around these economic principles are the only source of incremental value that have been experienced over the past number of centuries. The configuration of our user community and service providers specialization and division of labor are enhanced through the mechanisms in which we’ve endowed the user community vision. The capability to change is an inherent part of our offering with the user community having the power to change the Intellectual Property underlying the People, Ideas & Objects software and services that the oil and gas industry uses. This ensures a never ending application of further specialization and division of labor will continue as the profitable production deliverability in North America increases from the same resource base. People, Ideas & Objects feel the monetary value here is material and unquantifiable. It therefore hasn’t been included in our value proposition.

The second reason for establishing the user community and service providers is to enable the producer firm to focus on their key competitive advantages of earth science and engineering capabilities, and its land and asset base. Removing the administrative and accounting resources from each of the producer firms ensures that profits will be maximized when producers stop incurring costs that are replicated within each producer firm. Costs that are unshared and unshareable in their current configuration. As we’ve noted, it is the redundant building of these non-competitive capabilities within each producer firm that is exhausting much of the industry's profitability. Overhead costs are material in nature in oil and gas. It is due to the excessive amounts of overhead that producer bureaucrats expertly conceal in their aggressive capitalization of overhead that no one is aware of what these costs total. People, Ideas & Objects have consistently argued that overhead and interest were heavily capitalized by all producers. Since then we’ve seen a change in producers reporting to detail the amounts of capitalized interest, whose interest capitalization percentages have declined markedly over the past few years. Yet to date we’ve seen nothing in terms of enhanced reporting on overhead. I find this fascinating, and representative of the guilt and culpability that bureaucrats have so rightly earned for their obtuse reporting of literally every possible cost as capital.

Service Providers

The critical reason for this reorganization of the accounting and administrative resources of the producers is to achieve what is called in the Preliminary Specification our decentralized production model’s price maker strategy. Where the fundamental issue of overproduction has been documented to exist since 1986 in oil and 2009 in natural gas. These overproduction scenarios would eventually self correct as is the basis of the “muddle through” strategy of the current industry. However shale destroys the old business model of scarcity and introduces a new industry dynamic based on abundance that demands new business models such as the Preliminary Specification to address the unique characteristics of shale based reservoirs. Characteristics that include the exposure of massive reserves through long laterals and multi-fracing. Prolific initial production with steep decline rates. These are enhanced by spectacular drilling and completion costs with significant re-work costs being undertaken within months instead of years. Under the existing business model, assigning these high costs of drilling and completion to the many, many decades of reserves that were exposed allowed bureaucrats to claim they were “commercial.” When in reality the capital markets have now deemed shale to be uncommercial, yet bureaucrats conveniently ignore that message. The current “muddle through” business model does not contain any production discipline. Everything is always produced. What is needed now is for the production discipline that would be instilled within the industry from the Preliminary Specifications price maker strategy. It ensures that only profitable production is produced everywhere and always. And therefore producers are, or at least should be, motivated to ensure that their profitability is the highest that can be attained.

What our price maker strategy provides is the following. Due to the separation of the accounting and administrative resources from the producers into the service providers. And the ERP systems of People, Ideas & Objects being prepared by the user community members who are the principles within each of the service providers. Each service provider is managing one process of the many processes that a Joint Operating Committee conducts. These individual processes are therefore conducted on an objective basis across the industry where the service provider applies the same standard accounting and management to all of the producers. Therefore the accounting will be conducted on a standard and objective basis across the North American continent. Focused on each of the Joint Operating Committees, each producer will know that if a property has been reported to be unprofitable, they’ll know it received the same accounting treatment as all other Joint Operating Committees in North America. So in order to maximize that producer's profitability, they’ll decide with their working interest owners in the Joint Operating Committee to shut-in any and all unprofitable properties and move them to an inventory of shut-in production. Once there these properties will be subject to further innovations in order to return them to profitable production as soon as possible. The standard and objective accounting will provide them with the assurance that their property is either profitable or unprofitable and accept that finding. In addition, the same criteria can be applied to wells within a unit or similar grouping. If one or two wells are unprofitable, by shutting in those individual wells the properties profitability would be enhanced in addition to the producers. 

It is at this point the service provider's value to industry kicks into high gear and delivers the $5.7 trillion in incremental value from our value proposition over the next 25 years. What the Preliminary Specification does through these changes is move the producers fixed cost administrative and accounting capabilities into the industries variable cost administrative and accounting capabilities. When a property is shut-in there is no activity occurring and hence no operational data being produced that would be transmitted through People, Ideas & Objects task and transfer network to the service providers. Therefore none of the processes for production, revenue or royalty accounting etc, as examples, are conducted and hence no billing from the service providers will be produced or rendered to that Joint Operating Committee for the administrative or accounting costs during any of the time the property is shut-in. The property incurs a null operation, no profit, but also no loss. Enabling the producer to attain their highest level of profitability when unprofitable properties losses no longer dilute other profitable properties profits. Turning the producers overhead costs variable, and indirectly controllable. Motivating them to maintain their production discipline of only producing profitable production everywhere and always in order to realize the highest level of corporate profitability. Whether that is at 500 thousand boe / day or at 100 thousand boe / day. They would always be proportionally profitable. Keeping their oil and gas reserves for a time when they can be produced profitably. Not having those reserves having to carry the incremental losses as a result of continued unprofitable operations. Those reserves can be seen as stored volumes with no storage costs associated with them. And the most important point of all, removing the unprofitable production from the commodity markets allows these markets to find their marginal price. 

Bureaucrats have argued this is collusion and fail to understand that managing inventories is a necessary part of every business. On many occasions in natural gas, and in April of 2020 producers substantially overproduced and drew down commodity prices into negative price territory. Which proves three things, oil and gas commodities are subject to the economic laws of price makers, bureaucrats believe down to their bones that to employ People, Ideas & Objects price maker strategy would be collusion and they’re good at feigning this naivety. Making independent business decisions at each Joint Operating Committee to produce or not based on actual, factual, objective and standard accounting information that determines profitability does not in any way involve collusion. It’s good business sense. We are adopting the market price theory and using it. That is, all the information that is necessary for anyone to know about a market is contained within its price. If the price is adequate to earn a profit, producers will produce. Instead bureaucrats have invented extensive Rube Goldberg devices employing redundant individuals in each producer firm to analyze through satellite imagery, employing Artificial Intelligence to determine what the shadows on the oil storage tanks were and therefore imputing what level of storage was available in each area of the world. Yet continued to produce at 100% all of the time. This information was then compiled and analyzed extensively to the point where oil prices hit negative $40 in April 2020. The only question that should be asked of the bureaucrats is at what point did they know the price was going negative $40? Whereas I can look at the price of negative $40 for oil and say unequivocally, that not one producer earned a profit at that price. And I do not have a satellite dish.

People, Ideas & Objects have mentioned the user communities service provider organizations will not be competing on the basis of price. We find the use of price competition by the oil and gas bureaucrats these past decades has done more harm than good. The license that will be provided to the service providers will give them a monopoly on their assigned processes jurisdiction. (Please review the service providers definition for details on how that assignment is determined.) What we need to be conducting is profitable production everywhere and always in North America and commercializing shale. This is not going to be achieved when everyone is being attacked on their flank by competitors that use price as their sole competitive advantage. We need to be rebuilding the industry infrastructure, capacity and capabilities and only that is what we should be focused on. That includes everyone with their shoulder to the wheel. We have substantial work ahead of us in terms of what oil and gas needs to achieve in order to provide the consumers of our products over the next 25 years, at a minimum. Otherwise the state of affairs in the industry will not be there for them when it’s most expected of us. 

It is therefore all of these reasons that we have settled on the following criteria that the service providers will form as their competitive advantages. The first and probably most important of all criteria is leadership. These will all apply to both the user community and those within the service provider organizations who work for the user community member. Leadership has been defined in a number of ways, all poorly as it's a difficult topic to qualify. Readiness, Willingness and Ability. “Fixers and troubleshooters rather than production (wo)men.” Joseph Schumpeter. Four kinds of behavior account for 89% of leadership effectiveness. 1) Be supportive, 2) Operate with a strong results orientation, 3) Seek different perspectives, 4) Solve problems effectively. They must have forgotten about price competition. The other competitive advantages I mentioned in my previous post were automation, innovation and quality. What I would like to do is add to that list with what I feel will be some of the other competitive advantages of the user community members and their service provider organizations. And at the same time I would not want to define the list as definitive and absolute, they are subject to change within that community at their discretion. Issue identification, creativity, collaboration, research, ideas, design, planning, thinking, negotiating, compromising, financing and resolving issues. These with whatever are added are what stand in stark contrast to what price competition provides, in my opinion. We can also contrast these to what computers are capable of, which amounts to storage and processing, which is little of the tools we need for where we need to be headed. 

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here.

How Will People, Ideas & Objects Achieve Success, Part II

 Once we’ve secured our budget, whenever that is, People, Ideas & Objects would be unconstrained in pursuing the objectives and plans that we’ve been discussing here for the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry through to its successful conclusion. The next critical aspect to our success, once that budget is secured, is the work of our user community and its role in providing the most profitable means of oil and gas operations, everywhere and always. Undertaking the development of any quality software today demands an enhanced role of the user front and centre. People, Ideas & Objects competitive advantages are its Intellectual Property, research and user community. It is these attributes and the methods we’ve used to establish the user community that we can ensure the oil and gas industry will achieve a speed, innovativeness, profitability for it to be successful for the short, mid and long term. 

Our User Community

The configuration of our user community is unique. Consisting of 3,000 individuals who are available on a part-time basis. They will have the accounting, administrative and related understanding of the oil and gas industry and how their role with the Preliminary Specification provides value. The initial step in People, Ideas & Objects development will be the formation of the user community. Its formation will be critical to the success of our initiative in its initial commercial release and the subsequent 25 years. Focusing on this initial requirement will pay dividends throughout the projects development, implementation and life cycle. This is why we established the development of the user community as our primary focus beginning January 2014, soon after the Preliminary Specification was published. With the publication of the user community vision we began promoting these developments and soliciting user community participation consistently. Although user community development is traditionally a long process that is difficult to focus on and easy to skip through when the pressure to perform exists, we didn’t start yesterday and are fully committed to user based software developments. 

Until our budget is secured we will continue to protect user community members from the bureaucrats' vindictive ways of punishing those that would think otherwise. Power is an interesting topic when it comes to the dynamics of disintermediation, software development and change. Push back comes from all corners and from the most unexpected people. Until one is financially secure in their position it is best to be absolutely quiet. GameStop is an excellent example of this, and only the most recent instance. Upsetting the apple cart and creating a lot of damage to those that have not been playing fair is the first implication of all disintermediation. Until our user community can be assured of the completion of their efforts from a financial standpoint, there is no point in risking their careers. After the budget is secured the only jeopardy they’ll experience is the potential of the overall project's failure. Something that I feel falls within their domain of control.

I began this most recent approach with People, Ideas & Objects of developing ERP software for oil and gas with a different perspective as a result of some difficult lessons I learned in the different approaches that I made in the 1990s. The key lesson was that Intellectual Property is now the only asset worth anything, in the sense of building value in this new world. Unlike the 1990s where your ideas would easily become their ideas in what I now call the wild west of IP management. Today, IP is respected at the highest level of the law. Except now its management has absolutely nothing to do with the law and is wholly political. Once established with a strong history of its development and origin of its beginnings it is irrefutable. The Preliminary Specification is based on an idea that arose when I was doing my graduate research, which then formed the basis of my master’s thesis. This was subsequently published commercially in the form of the Preliminary Research Report. It suggests that the use of the Joint Operating Committee is the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. The Joint Operating Committee is the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic framework of the industry. By moving the compliance and governance of the hierarchy into alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee we would achieve a speed, innovativeness and profitability that we seek in the industry. This was published as a research proposal to industry in August 2003 with the Preliminary Research Report published in May 2004. It was 100% funded by myself personally and therefore I earned the Intellectual Property. This “idea” had the potential of removing significant conflict that exists in the industry and bring about a framework where any and all financial, administrative and operational issues can be mitigated efficiently and effectively.

The research I then undertook was to define what the industry and producer would need to look like and how would it function if we did change to the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct? What software would be required and how would it need to organize the industry and producers? This research was completed in December 2013 in the form of the Preliminary Specification. Once again all of this was funded 100% by myself and therefore became my Intellectual Property. Therefore I have the ability through contract to control the deployment of this IP and that is what I’ve chosen to do by licensing the user community. Therefore the IP necessary to conduct the work that is needed to be done to ensure the industry attains and maintains the most profitable means of oil and gas production, everywhere and always is in the hands of the user community. The three critical components of the user community's founding were provided in the March 2014 user community vision.

• Only the user community is licensed to make changes to any of the underlying Intellectual Property of the Preliminary Specification and its derivative works.
• People, Ideas & Objects licensed developers will only look to the user community. We are deaf, dumb and blind to all others. 
• The user community has their own budget. ($1.37 billion.) They are independent business people. Not “blind sleep walking agents of whomever will feed them.”

Within People, Ideas & Objects user community vision, through a licensing contract, the user community are the sole authorized individuals capable of creating derivative works from the Preliminary Specification. If any user needs a change in the People, Ideas & Objects ERP software it will be the appropriate user community participant that will research the change, verify it and implement it within the software through our developers. This will be through a structured and well defined change management process. Only the user community participants are capable of making changes to the IP and therefore providing the solution to industries needs. Our developers will be deaf, dumb and blind to everyone and anyone other than the user community for their input. Developers are authorized to take direction from no one other than from licensed users. Therefore anyone in the industry, including but most particularly the producers, only have to talk to the user community participant who has chosen to specialize in the one specific area of the producer's concern to have their needs met. That user community member will also be the principle behind one or possibly several of the approximately 3,000 service provider organizations that will be established by each of the user community participants. These service providers will be the organizations that are providing People, Ideas & Objects software and their organizations services to the oil and gas producers. Services that include the initial systems implementation through to all aspects of the producers accounting and administrative needs for the long term. Service providers deliver the implicit knowledge that they’ve captured through their development in the software, and their tacit knowledge as a service in a comprehensive solution to the producers. 

Competition within the user community and service providers is different as a result. We have discussed repeatedly that we see no value in having the service providers being subjected to unnecessary price competition. Each of the service providers will be provided with an exclusive license for the domain in which they operate. Therefore never having to watch their flank for any unauthorized service organization interfering with their solutions delivery. Focusing on providing the quality service the producers need to ensure that all production is produced profitably. Price competition has been the favorite game of producer bureaucrats to wash the IP of their service industry representatives and other vendors with that of their direct competition. Therefore sponsoring indirectly the competition that will then compete based on price. This is the focus of the bureaucrats preferred method, which has its advantages as we can all see the oil and gas industry circle the drain. The service providers are the direct replacement to the administrative and accounting resources that are currently deployed within the oil and gas producers. These people are reorganized into the service providers for reasons of the decentralized production models price maker strategy, specialization and the division of labor and more. We will be discussing these further in our next posts. 

Each service provider will focus on one specific process of the industry's needs. Let’s assume it's the payment of surface lease rentals. They would therefore be responsible for the surface lease rental process for the entire industry. Management of that one process would seem rather boring and a regression from where we are today. That would be a misunderstanding of where we’re at. The service providers would focus on providing a quality service based on their high level of specialization and division of labor. With their ready access to our developers for the next 25 years they would have the much touted “big data” to consider the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to apply to. Automation of the process would be at a high level and would never stop due to the fact that as the principle in their organization, the user community member is the one that can make changes to the system. They’ll innovate and provide leadership to the way the producers operate and will act in response with other service providers to the overall changes in the industry. Adapt to new technologies when they provide discrete advantages among the many other advantages of the service providers. Applying their knowledge, experience, skill and ideas to what they know and understand. The only question I have is who does one go to in order to have a change in their systems being used today? 

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

How Will People, Ideas & Objects Achieve Success, Part I

 A quick comment before we begin our post today. We see in the increasing commodity prices of this past week the commensurate increase in the value of producers shares. This is also the bureaucrats “muddle through” strategies' big payoff. Actually their only payoff. Their dividend is the reduction in any pressure to act to fix the underlying overproduction or other difficulties that should be addressed in the business. The only concern at this point, as far as the bureaucrats are concerned, is how to reclaim some of the lost executive compensation of this past decade. The traditional response has also been to chase more production by drilling as many new wells as they could. That may not be the case this time. The service industry has been degraded significantly in terms of its capacity and producers, based on their fourth quarter 2020 reports, have diminishing cash and much greater demands for that cash if and when it does show up. This boom / bust cycle has been playing out consistently over the past four decades which the bureaucrats have been able to generate their great personal compensation from. For most everyone else it became boring in the early 1990s. Therefore, strike up the band, it's time for the bureaucrats to chase that cash one more time, at least for the rest of this month. 

Alternatively how everyone can achieve success throughout the industry should be the number one question going through people’s minds as they contemplate the difficulties in oil and gas today, and the contrast People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers present with the Preliminary Specification. What we’re undertaking in the development of this industry wide ERP software as we’ve defined it to date. With the establishment of the user community and their service provider organizations is unique and hasn’t been done in any other industry anywhere before. Building a permanent ERP focused software development and user community based capability and capacity. My assessment of the Information Technologies we’ll be using is that their level of maturation is more than adequate to meet the demands of our architecture and the difficulties and complexities we’re throwing at it. Our impediment to this point has been bureaucratic resistance to change. Disintermediating oil and gas in the same style that’s been experienced in many other industries over the past few decades and what will be occurring eventually to all industries. Bureaucrats have effectively resisted the inevitable elimination of these new forms of organization. To the point where today they’ve fundamentally destroyed the industry in the process of defending their turf. 

A couple of catch phrases in there, added to the mystique and magic of IT, wrapped in an air of certainty and filled with the hope that only vaporware provides. This should stand as testament to the efforts of oil and gas bureaucrats in denying any challenge to their methods of operation. You only get what you pay for and they never supported what the industry needed, it conflicted with their personal compensation. If they looked critically in the mirror the only reasonable question they could ask themselves would be “how is it that we’re still alive.” I can honestly say that People, Ideas & Objects are ascendant to contrast their steep downward trajectory. In terms of options and opportunities to deal with their future, I am biased, and unaware of anything outside of our vaporware. That is I know that our vaporware is the only vaporware that exists. My persistence over these past thirty years is due to what has taken these issues to finally manifest themselves into the wholesale melting down of all aspects of the oil and gas industry. Specious accounting has hidden the real damage for many decades which can only raise serious questions as to the quality of that accounting. Where were the audit firms? Now that these issues are here bureaucrats have three options. Two of them are incapable of solving the issue. Those being bankruptcy and the self declared movement towards clean energy. The third is they take the responsible choice of funding the Preliminary Specification in order to mitigate their responsibility in the destruction of the industry, and provide the solution to ensure that they can claim “issue mitigated, nothing litigated.” It’s the easy way out and by far the most effective way to deal with their problems. When I say their problems I mean their personal issues that are now center stage in terms of what concerns them. 

Our Budget

Let’s explore that third alternative for the bureaucrats. Although they may blame the most viable scapegoat that comes to mind that morning. The reason for the difficulties that oil and gas producers and the industry face today is due to the C suite and board of directors primarily focusing on innovative and creative solutions of how to enhance their personal executive compensation. As far as they were concerned that is what they were there for. Nonetheless their personal fortunes now stand in contrast to the value remaining in the industry and its inability to generate any value without direct outside investment from investors or bankers. Money only ever went in as they say and never came out. Or as the bureaucrats would say “you have to put cash in the ground!” The issue’s cause is a result of a lack of production discipline and chronic overproduction. We can trace the origins of this issue back to at least July 1986 and it has been ever present in oil since that time, and in natural gas since late 2009. Shale makes overproduction a permanent and tragic consequence of the bureaucrats “muddle along” strategy and business model. This is the point in which the directors and officers should have begun seeking a solution to the overproduction issue, in late 1986. In December 2013 publication of the Preliminary Specification occured. Our product deals specifically with the overproduction issue by applying common business principles. It was at this point that the producer bureaucrats redoubled our beatings and increased their overall efforts to silence us. We therefore have the established historical points where the issue is well defined, and the only viable solution that exists for the overproduction issue has been available. Yet nothing was done by said bureaucrats but to raise superfluous claims, outright lies, blaming of others and viable scapegoats. They were too busy “putting cash in the ground” and “building balance sheets” to concern themselves with the business of the business. Besides investors and bankers were buying the producers specious financial statements the producers were issuing. “See the accounting firm signed it too,” the bureaucrat states. 

Therefore the scene was set for today’s decline in the North American oil and gas industry. The personal fortunes of the officers and directors were untouched as they knew not to eat where they were working. I pointed out to them last summer that their officers and directors liability insurance was an issue at which point they promptly increased their coverage at that time by 75%. How much has their coverage gone up since then? And who says these people can’t act quickly? When I pointed out their liability and obligations the first thing they did was increase their coverage. Which I thought was an innovative idea. I then asked if I moved everything I owned into my house and set it on fire, would it provide me with a liquidity that I could appreciate? I still haven’t received an answer from them on that last question. We have however received a number of fourth quarter 2020 reports and they certainly support that cash continues to be put in the ground, and be firmly in place there. The SEC has allegedly launched an investigation into Exxon for the valuation of their assets in property, plant and equipment. This investigation may also extend to shale producers in general. An issue that we feel is directly attributable to the overproduction issue. When you overreport your assets, as a consequence you overreport your profits, which causes investors to pile in to chase the high profits which causes overinvestment leading to what has turned out to be chronic overproduction in North American oil and gas. What we should have all now learned from that is the middle man, our very good friends the bureaucrats, were personally benefiting financially throughout each one of those stages of creating the overproduction. Therefore why would they recognize the issue in 1986 or the solution in 2013?

Bureaucrats are supposed to be the responsible ones, they are also the culprits, they were the ones that were authorized to ensure these types of things didn’t happen, and if they did correct them. And most importantly of all, they have signed their John Hancock in order to commit themselves as personally responsible if anything should go wrong during their watch. In the process they have subjected their personal fortunes as a remedy to resolve any losses for those that they’ve betrayed by any of these (in)actions that caused damages to their stakeholders. Therefore let's discuss the third option that they have outside of bankruptcy and bailing on oil and gas for clean energy.

In order to prove they undertook their fiduciary duties towards their stakeholders. Officers and directors will need to show what it is and how it is they sought to deal with the decline in their organization. I challenge anyone to think of any activity that has been taken by any of these producers bureaucrats? We began a decade ago with the remedial action in the natural gas side of the business by “praying for a cold winter,” stating “we’re profitable,” and suggesting mythical theories of “market rebalancing,” how their accounting was irrelevant “now all of these losses are just accounting! And it deals with the sunk costs of the past!,” and a recent favorite “we can’t shut in production.” These top a very long list of excuses that were used to provide time in which bureaucrats didn’t have to do anything. Blaming everyone from OPEC+, to their own employees, the “service industry is lazy and greedy,” to the most recent, virus induced, “the government has to save us with direct support or tariffs'' or… That is their pathetic and culpable record of their fiduciary duty these past four decades. And now in order to avoid losing their personal fortunes in the process of chronic personal litigation from the producers stakeholders. Stakeholders that have claims that survive the bankruptcy process. The bankruptcy process that may deem the officers redundant just as the directors are on the street immediately upon the declaration of bankruptcy. Where they may have to fight stakeholders with their own resources if… The bankruptcy judge deems the officers and directors liability insurance coverage to be an asset of the corporation and therefore seize it. Where the officers and directors will be on the outside looking in with nothing but their personal asset exposure to protect them. Avoidance of risk should maybe be seen as the first rule to its exposure.

I thought this was about funding People, Ideas & Objects budget, and more importantly how we’re all going to achieve success as a result of the implementation of the Preliminary Specification? And you’d be correct which is why this has turned into a comprehensive series. The budget is the first aspect of our success. As ridiculous as our task is, the cost is among the most significant ERP implementations ever undertaken. Our costs stand at $3.7 billion U.S. dollars. People, Ideas & Objects are a business and businesses are profitable. We are in the Intellectual Property, research and user community business as our key competitive advantages and therefore these have costs that are associated with these attributes. As a result our entire budget comes in for the North American based oil and gas industry at $12 billion U.S. dollars. This is assessed on the basis of North American production per barrel of oil equivalent for the year 2019. This assessment stands at the one time cost of $315 / barrel. Which the bureaucrats might see as the deal of the century due to the fact that they’ve destroyed trillions of dollars in the process of raiding the industry. Personal guilt can be a great motivator. People, Ideas & Objects and I myself justify this budget on the basis of our value proposition that we present to the industry. It is determined to be $25.7 to $45.7 trillion dollars over the next 25 years as a result of making the North American sector profitable, in the real sense of profitability, everywhere and always. Bureaucrats have always scoffed at our budget as comical. I would ask what their value proposition has been?

This budget has to be secured in whole prior to any work being conducted. People will not commit to a project that will be subject to the financing whims of the bureaucrats mosquito like attention spans. Cancellation would terminate the project and nothing would ever be resurrected in its place. It would be an effective method for the bureaucracy to permanently continue. In addition those that have committed to the project would be left unemployed and most importantly tagged with a scarlet letter from the bureaucrats in terms of their career contributions in the industry. All for working to make things better. We need to begin the task of building and implementing the Preliminary Specification and finish it in uninterrupted fashion to ensure that those that participate are not subject to the consequences of their participation being an issue should bureaucrats be given any means in which to reassert control. We will not be “blind sleepwalking agents of whomever will feed us.” People, Ideas & Objects are offering an out for the bureaucrats to mitigate the personal financial risks they’ve created for themselves. Risks that have the potential to establish a miserable life for them that consists of court and legal issues. One of defending the ill gotten gains they pride themselves on today. We are offering them the opportunity to set in place the solution to their lack of fiduciary duty, manage the business in the interim while we build the alternative and then exit into their previously planned, peaceful and prosperous retirement. The best deal they’ve ever been offered. 

Since I’m in such an inquisitive mood today I thought I’d ask a few more somewhat related questions. Is it irresponsible for producers to assume that they can walk away from the oil and gas industry, allowing their production volumes to atrophy and leave the market without any production, chasing dreams of clean energy? This is in fact what they’re doing with their move to clean energy, abandoning the oil and gas industry because it’s in such disarray and so damaged by their bureaucratic destruction. Why don’t they take People, Ideas & Objects offer and leave oil and gas in the hands of new leadership? Are using the revenues from oil and gas to fuel dreams of clean energy, a radical change done in the classic stampede style mindlessness that has become the expectation in oil and gas, and without authorization from shareholders, a new low for these bureaucrats? Understanding all that is discussed on this blog, bureaucrats also need to ask themselves the following questions. Hasn’t enough damage been caused, if not how much more is in the plans? If these points identifying their personal risks don’t motivate them to act, what will? Knowing the general direction and trajectory of the industry. How many more careers need to be destroyed, money lost and how much longer will it take for bureaucrats to achieve these extra destructive attributes they need before they will be motivated to act? Asking for a friend.

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here.

Some Tough Love, From a Friend!

 Two quick points before we get into our actual post today. The first is I’ve made a mistake. I misstated that the SEC was allegedly investigating Exxon for their asset valuation. I should have stated that the SEC was investigating Exxon for their alleged asset valuation misleading investors. Clarified now. The second is in reference to any investors that may be looking for witnesses to testify against the officers and directors of the producer firms they lost their money in. Or anyone else that’s incurred a loss for that matter. When these litigants need witnesses for their litigation against the producer bureaucrats. A lucrative resource for their cause might be any of the accounting people that would have worked in oil and gas over the past number of decades. They could testify that bureaucrats' attitude toward accounting has been to pay the bills. At any point in time when the needs of the business were asserted it was literally “shut up and pay the bills.” There was never any opportunity to say otherwise when they would assert, as we noted in our White Paper “Profitable North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” On page 10 “The release of reserves value through further drilling is the business and the only business as far as the culture of the industry is concerned. The nuance of recording and reporting the accurate timing and recognition of capital costs of exploration and production are not a topic of discussion when “everyone” is following the SEC’s regulated requirements and are “building their balance sheets” faster than “we” are. What we do know is overreported profits begets overinvestment, and overinvestment begets overproduction. Especially when no production discipline exists.” And on page 26 how producers “were able to miraculously and retroactively reduce their production costs by reinventing the ‘historical’ aspect of historical accounting.” 

Now onto the post.

The coronavirus may be less of an issue at some point in 2021 and as a result less impactful as a viable scapegoat to our good friends the oil and gas bureaucrats. OPEC+ will feel less obligated to deal with the demand issues and resume their focus on earning back their market share. The strength of the North American producers has been well documented through our ongoing series of blog posts “These Are Not the Earnings We’re Looking For.” The six other crises that we recently listed which producers are facing are imminent and well in play. These collectively form an existential crisis to the North American energy industry. From the producer bureaucrats we hear that all is well as far as the great science experiment is concerned. The business of the business is in shambles but that is what they need to say in order to cover off and continue the scam that they’ve been perpetuating. 

The value represented in a barrel of oil is not being appreciated or considered by its consumers. In order to avoid the development of alternative sources of energy, producers have discounted the price of oil by not recognizing its total capital costs of exploration and production “to ensure that alternatives are not developed.” This capital cost discount had been financed by the producers' investors until they became wise to the bureaucrats' methods, and were at the expense of the financial health and sustainability of all the North American industries involved in its supply. Future generations will look to the fact that decades went by where oil and gas was sold substantially below the costs of exploration and production. In fact, little more than the operating costs were being captured appropriately. Unprofitability has been chronic and is now clearly represented in the financial statements of the current producers in their disproportionate and obscene bloating of their balance sheets. All oil and gas in North America should always be produced profitably to ensure that it is not wasted and a financially healthy industry is passed onto future generations. Neither of those two responsible actions have been undertaken by these bureaucrats. Consumers gain the benefit of 23,200 man hours of mechanical leverage from each barrel of oil. Which costs them substantially less than the equivalent cost of bottled water. Where is the logic and where are our priorities? It will be the most prosperous and powerful economy that consumes the most energy from all of its sources. Who will be the first to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in their life by moving to the mountains to replicate the caveman era? As that is what we’ll be faced with should the capacity and capabilities of the industry and service industry continue to erode and take on a steeper trajectory and greater momentum. These graphs from the Wall Street Journal should clarify the efficiency and effectiveness of clean energy. It appears to me that the lack of recognition of the cost of capital in the production of energy may not be just an oil and gas bureaucrats issue. 

These graphs reflect the effectiveness of energy investment in alternatives is unquestionably a farce. Making the argument that bureaucrats have been making that they must ensure that alternative energy sources do not become competitive appears to me to be self-serving and only a veiled justification for their poor management. Or as I prefer to call it, one more in a long list of viable scapegoats. It also brings into question the motivation and cause of the producers, when People, Ideas & Objects raised the point of their culpability, liability and guilt last summer. How they ignored the issue of overproduction since at least July 1986 and the solution to that in the form of the Preliminary Specification since December 2013. In which we saw their only actions to our claims were to first increase their insurance coverage of officers and directors liability and then to reconfigure their “strategies” to be “clean energy” and “zero emissions.” I would question if clean energy’s substantial demand for capital is not just a new method to fleece investors for additional investment dollars? Either way if they’ve chosen to pursue clean energy they should not be using oil and gas revenues to finance these changes? Please recall too that the “Noncarbon” sources indicated in the graph above include hydro and nuclear power. On the oil and gas side of the equation, it would only be fair and reasonable for me to point out that the North American producers have been active in identifying new drilling sites.

Back to the issue at hand, which is the comprehensive financial collapse and loss of control of any aspect of the industry in North America. Bureaucrats' only concern is what I’ve learned to appeal to, their personal financial compensation and risk, as these are the only concerns that motivate them into action. For the past four decades this motivation has been nothing other than the creative and innovative ways in which they’ve been able to feather their nests. The business of the business could only atrophy to such an extent when no one cared or was distracted while watching other things. This has been at great cost to the industry as they’ve done so at the expense of any productive action and some vigorous accounting sleight of hand. Instead of taking their life long siesta in their well compensated nests, they’re stuck in these creations of their own demise. If they leave the producer firms they’ve so destroyed, they’ll lose their ability to control the resources necessary to manage their destiny if things do spin out of control in terms of litigation from the damage they’ve done of which they’re solely responsible for. So they sit and wait for what we’ve documented in terms of the oncoming industry difficulties. As the crises multiply and “muddle along” provides less and less of a covering excuse. The next two months could see any number of triggering events that sets their personal downfall into motion. 

At this time the 2020 financial statements have been prepared by the management based on their activities. This being the first in a litany of really bad years where things only get much worse each and every day. Their audit firm, or as we like to call them Chesters, are beginning to realize they too need to recognize their role in the demise of the North American producers. Rubber stamping financial statements has been a great business for the purposes of feathering one's nest. The accounting firm's concern now is that the SEC is allegedly investigating Exxon and the shale producers for their asset valuations. The issue that we believe triggered the destruction of the North American oil and gas industry. What was Chester’s role in the enabling of the industry to pursue “building balance sheets” as the only justification of its existence? Just as it was the over capitalization issue that triggered the demise of Bernie Maddoff, Bernie Ebbers and Jeffrey Skilling. Therefore we may see these accounting firms seeking to regain their lost credibility in the form of forcing large write downs and issuing a heightened number of “going concern” comments. 

Capabilities and capacities were what I warned about and began research in how to enhance the Joint Operating Committees involvement in the broadening of those capabilities and capacities as early as January 22, 2007. That blog post discusses the work of Professors Richard N. Langlois and Nicholas J. Foss in their paper “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization.” However, that 2007 blog post of mine did not address the security and augmentation of the bureaucrats personal executive compensation and therefore was deemed to be irrelevant. I raise the capabilities and capacities as it is one of the crises on our list. An interesting turn of events has begun in 2021 for the North American oil and gas industry. It is noted in this World Oil article that others have lost interest. Again this is not a big deal for the bureaucrats as they’ve become used to it. Back on August 26, 2020 we posted the quote from General Shinseki which I’m glady providing again today. 

It’s not for me to suggest that the North American oil and gas producers have become irrelevant. They’ll be the ones that are in the best position in order to make that determination. I only cite this as the level of deterioration in the industry has hit somewhat of a record low, I would say. I am also unaware of any other industry that was able to attain this level of irrelevance and yet produce a product that is so critical to the way of life for everyone in society. Buggy whips made a transition to this level of irrelevance but everyone could see that they did in fact lose the ability to provide value to anyone. That is not the case today. The need for oil and gas for at least the next century is a guarantee. Oil and gas may not be as resilient as coal but could be! The point of the argument is that the irrelevance is solely the responsibility, accountability and inaction of the bureaucrats. In this case the exclusive club that consists of the C-suite as they are known and the Boards of Directors who have prospered so handsomely. It’s not just their irrelevance it’s also their lack of credibility, that no one trusts them anymore and after the litany of excuses, blaming and viable scapegoats, no one believes anything either. What they’ve done is fundamentally betrayed everyone of their stakeholders through the lack of real profitability. Which is what every primary industry needs to sustain itself and those secondary and tertiary industries need in order to maintain their capabilities and capacities too. 

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, everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable North American energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects have published a white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale.” that captures the vision of the Preliminary Specification and our actions. 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 Telegram, Parler or Gab @piobiz, anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here.