These Are Not the Earnings We're Looking For, Part LXX

 My producer bureaucratic friends will be looking at the title of the post and saying Part LXX, same as Part I through to Part LXIX. And they would be right. The officers of the oil and gas producers do not understand my argument. My repetitiveness is attributable to their thickness and obstinacy in terms of understanding and accepting the argument. We can be sure they’ll stop reading now. The tragedy and devastation that is the North American oil and gas industry is by a substantial margin the largest, most protracted and difficult issue that it has ever faced. Trillions of dollars have been destroyed in the process of misunderstanding the point that I’ve had to repeat ad nauseum. Consider for a moment the most devastating action that can occur to a business or industry is that the investors and bankers lose faith and walk. We’ll be into our seventh year of this event occuring in North American oil and gas. Nothing has happened. The issue is not discussed, as it appears there is no issue other than covid, OPEC or the moon. A failure to accept the basic business cause and effect that has been known and understood for the many hundreds of years that accounting has been established isn’t understood. I think the best way to recruit oil and gas personnel is to hold up a pack of 3M Post-it notes and ask them if it’s an asset or a cost. If they say it’s an asset then you should hire them for the oil and gas producer immediately. You have a potential corporate officer in your midst. Yes I’m afraid this is representative of the issue that has led to the damage and destruction that has caused trillions of dollars of waste, rendered the industry valueless as it takes capital to just operate it at a loss and has no viable future beyond the absolute current horizon. Let me summarize once again therefore, the issue as it stands for our good friends the producer bureaucrats and why this has happened. Please read the second paragraph of this post carefully. Your career and personal financial health is in jeopardy. 

Overproduction throughout North America has been caused through the inappropriate recording of the majority of the producer's costs, outside of operations, as capital assets in property, plant and equipment. At the same time maintaining those costs as assets on the balance sheet for decades in an annual contest to determine who’s built the biggest balance sheet. Simply, over reported assets create the exact and equal amount of over reported profit attracting over investment, eventually leading to chronic overproduction. This overproduction is also represented in oil and gas through the breakdown of oil and gas commodity prices that fall under the economic principle of price makers. People, Ideas & Objects assert that overproduction is also defined as “real” unprofitable production. Which has consistently occurred for thirty five years that we’ve documented through the inappropriate accounting methods of recording most of the costs outside of operations as oil and gas assets. Which has been necessary due to the depressed oil and gas commodity prices. The costs that should be captured and passed on through the commodity prices to the consumers, in a capital intensive industry, should reflect that the majority of those costs are capital in nature. Instead producer bureaucrats collect assets on the balance sheet in a vain contest to see who will be this year's biggest spendaholic. And to chronicle the dollar amount on their balance sheets of the amount that investors have been forced to subsidize consumers consumption. 

This accounting game has been played throughout the industry since the time that the SEC instituted their Full Cost accounting methods for oil and gas in the late 1970’s. These regulations seek to establish the outer limit of what is acceptable in terms of asset valuation on the balance sheet. Producer bureaucrats have used them as targets to be met every year by any means possible. I’ll need to be shown any evidence of a producer that is the exception. It is times such as 2021 that we see the means in which this is done. 

As of December 31, 2020 our sample of producers had recorded property, plant and equipment of $407.235 billion. For 2020 they recognized depletion and incurred significant levels of impairments (breaches of the SEC regulations acceptable outer limit) due to the covid induced price collapse of $101.753 billion. On a straight mathematical basis this level of depletion would retire that balance of property, plant and equipment in the subsequent four years assuming no further capital expenditures were incurred. What I would assume to be a more representative amount of annual depletion in today’s capital markets, of a capital intensive business, would be a 30 - 36 month depletion schedule. 

In 2021 we have a different situation with prices of the commodities supporting a larger capitalization of the assets on a producers balance sheet based on the oil and gas reserves valuation. A bureaucratically deemed necessity to become a contestant in each year's balance sheet beauty contest. Therefore for the six months ended 2021 we have property, plant and equipment of $448.825 billion, depletion and impairments of $22.982 billion, or $45.784 billion of depletion and impairments on an annualized basis. Implying that those assets would be retired over the course of 9.8 years on the same simple mathematical basis. Buried in this number are property, plant and equipment increases of $41.867 billion in acquisitions that our sample of producers undertook during the first half of 2021. These acquisitions are immaterial to the point I’m making. The extension of the depletion rate is the other half of the method that bureaucrats use to achieve their objectives of building balance sheets and are subsequently able to continue reporting their “profits” for 2021. This method adopts the fact the U.S. has approximately 63 years of technically recoverable resources of natural gas, shale has had a similar effect on oil reserves. I’ve consistently failed to understand the business case for depleting assets over the life of these reserves. How oil and gas reserves are connected in any way to the financial performance of the producer, particularly with regard to a four decade history of the reserves inability to produce a “real” profit. Accounting is about performance, not value. What we’re being provided with today is a solution in the form of consolidation of failed bureaucracies into larger bureaucracies which will somehow overcome the four decades of established culture of bureaucratic systemic, failed behavior? 

There is a fundamental difference of opinion between the producer bureaucrats and People, Ideas & Objects way of thinking regarding the recording of property, plant and equipment, depletion and impairment. We see the producers' interpretation and the methods they use. Ours is that the most competitive producer would seek to maintain a balance of $0.00 in property, plant and equipment. Achieving the lowest cost of capital at all times. The implications of our method may not be appreciated by the producer bureaucrats so I’ll spell them out. This $0.00 balance of course would be unattainable but the objective is to reduce any balance as quickly as possible and would reflect that the producer had recognized their costs of capital in a capital intensive industry, in a competitive environment faster than other producers due to their higher profitability and better performance. Under the Preliminary Specification, Joint Operating Committees will be evaluated as to their determination of profitability to produce and if unable to be produced profitably they’ll be shut-in. A high performing producer may therefore achieve profitable production all the time at 100% of their production profile, and would be retiring their property, plant and equipment account faster than a profitable producer who was able to produce only 80% of their production profile. Let’s not forget the validity of the bureaucrats' claim that you wouldn’t recognize any capital in an environment where there were business difficulties or hardships, in the short term. We concur with this and have applied it in its proper context, in the short term. When the decision is made to produce or shut-in a property due to its profitability as proposed in the Preliminary Specification the shut-in properties will not attract any of their costs of capital during these times of hardship. This contrasts with the bureaucrats method of deferring the majority of their recognition of capital costs, or as we call them today “the unrealized capital costs and losses of past production” from their balance sheet for eternity on the basis that it’s another bust year in their capitulation to a boom / bust business cycle that every other industry has worked out of their business model. 

People, Ideas & Objects defined competitive game is the inverse of the beauty contests best built, big, beautiful, balance sheet. The benefits of our business approach include higher levels of cash flow, their favorite measure would be ballistic and enable them to pursue opportunities in the market at their discretion and on their terms. Investors would be more than satisfied, bank debt would be employed for its appropriate purpose of leveraging the organization's capital structure and not deemed as “liquidity” from unused lines of credit as they are today. Cash and working capital would be highly problematic due to their “bank” like abundance. They’ve never considered that if they weren’t carrying assets as property, plant and equipment they would be carrying assets of some form in a commensurate amount, would they not? (See Apple’s cash management difficulties and pathetic level of property, plant and equipment. Who does Apple think they are?) 

This prosperous environment would be a constant state where the costs of oil and gas, due to its ever escalating and capital intensive nature, are always being captured and passed onto the consumers in a reasonable, timely, accurate and profitable manner. Providing the producers employees with the confidence and knowledge they need to commit to a career in oil and gas without the substantial risk to their family and mortgage. The service industry would be able to count on a consistency in the demand for their service to be better able to serve their customers, the oil and gas producers. And on down the line throughout the greater oil and gas economy. This is the vision that I see of what’s possible and what I assume would be considered the normal course of the industries business operations. That this is not within the realm of consideration or the current industry's objectives is a tragedy. Our vision is a polar contrast to what exists today, the past four decade history and bureaucratic legacy. This is what I’ve always considered as the bureaucrats' ongoing damage and their cumulative destruction. What do they call it, “muddle along?” And what we get instead is a refusal to hear People, Ideas & Objects message, absolute harmony in the “building of balance sheets” and “muddle along” strategy seeking to satisfy what bureaucrats believe they hear from their investors. Investors are only interested in “real” profitability. Environmentally woke directors at Exxon, elected under a contrived voting ritual aren't representative. The message that People, Ideas & Objects offers the producer bureaucrats is creative destruction and disintermediation of their personal interests. That is the issue that is being decided at the board of directors this month. And as of today I’ve still heard nothing, so we can assume they’ll continue in their ways. 

Back to the point of the expansion of the number of years of depletion of capital assets. We saw in the second quarter of 2021 a reversal of some of the 2020 impairments having an impact as well. One of our sample producers reversed $2.5 billion of 2020s reported impairments on their $1.029 billion in the first half of 2021 oil and gas revenues. The amount recorded as depletion and impairments for 2021 was therefore negative $2.165 billion which miraculously corresponds exactly to the $2.165 billion in profit that was reported. Math is so much easier when you understand how it can work for you. 

The number of share buybacks was much lower than I was alleging in my “Managed Industry Hypothesis.” There were only $2.2 billion in share buy backs by our sample of producers. However, the producers that did participate were the few with cash balances and those that were active in the acquisition market. Was I wrong about these hypothese? Yes, I think I was unable to comprehend the potential for the success they’ve achieved. The only lingering unanswered question I have is why were the values of the acquisitions done at the inflated prices of property, plant and equipment when the asset market prices were so impaired? Even Chesapeake’s acquisition of Vine on Wednesday was at 1.97 times Vine’s market capitalization? There must be significant competition in the market for these oil and gas producers! My associated abandonment hypothesis is also out as it would seem bureaucrats have regained the confidence and control they need with the current higher commodity prices. They certainly have their swagger back. The question remains will that alleviate the pressure on the directors and allow them to pass on the decision we’ve asked of them in our July RFP Response process? In this game I call life I say no. Clearly no change in behavior is evident in the bureaucratic mischief being displayed in the second quarter reporting of 2021. We’ll get what we’ve been getting for decades if the director's action is not taken. And after the “record cash flow” period being experienced today eventually leads once again to negative oil prices, we’ll relive the horror once again. I will once again quote General Eric Shinseki, Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff. “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” To which side of the fence this applies, the directors or the bureaucrats is to be determined. I’ll remind directors that the two highest costs an organization incurs today are time and errors, particularly uncorrected errors.

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

These Are Not the Earnings We're Looking For, Part LXIX

 Reflecting back on the work that I’ve done I feel People, Ideas & Objects have been able to accomplish many things that I didn't think were possible. I’m fond of the Preliminary Specification and the profitable environment it will establish for the oil and gas industry. The bureaucrats expressed satisfaction with today’s performance contrasts with the actions they took to earn the claims they’re now making. In reality they’ve done nothing, as testament to their repeated call over the past decades to “build balance sheets” based on their “muddle along strategy.” A legacy they’re satisfied with and looking forward to securing for the future. With everyone so happy and satisfied, how could there be any difficulties? Producer bureaucrats are the ones who have consistently feigned their actions are precipitated on the demands of their shareholders. Such as Exxon's Annual General Meeting “voting” climate change enthusiasts to their board. Yet, they’ve done nothing about their profitability for the time that I have been offering the Preliminary Specification as a solution, or since it was raised by their investors in 2015. I’ll be speaking to many more of these larger issues after the People, Ideas & Objects August 31, 2021 board of directors deadline has been determined. They would normally fit well within the context of this series however their deferral is the appropriate step at this time. 

My first job in oil and gas was with Shell Canada for the summer between grades 10 and 11. I was training to help out and to learn the role of mail clerk! We also stocked the office supply room. Between grade 11 and 12 I washed dirt (tailing samples) in Shell’s geological lab. If I knew then what I know now I would have stayed in that first position and worked to become the Senior, Executive Vice President and Chief Stationary and Mail Clerk Officer (CS&MCO) of a producer company today. The proliferation of vice presidents in oil and gas is incomprehensible. It’s a farce and a facsimile of their chronic mismanagement. Or is it, in our enlightened world, these bureaucrats are just looking to share the personal risks they’ve earned?

I’m on record for my distaste of the practice of hedging commodity prices on any portion of a producer's production. They’re designed to inspire mediocrity throughout the organization. When performance is predetermined what purpose is there in trying? The Preliminary Specification precludes the need for any hedges in the calculation of profitability at the Joint Operating Committee level. Maintaining the edge within producer organizations that is necessary to sharpen the pencils and to ensure their properties were always profitably produced at the objective of 100% capacity of their production profile. Therefore if a producer continued to pursue their hedging activities, then that would be their own corporate gambling activities. If all production was produced profitably at each and every Joint Operating Committee, and always, what purpose would hedging provide? Management by exception continued in the second quarter of 2021 with profit hedging taking a front seat in terms of their exceptional costs that management should have paid attention to. Losses through both recognized and unrecognized commodity hedging totalled $8.107 billion for our sample of 18 producers. Alternatively these costs of hedging across the industry would have easily provided the financial resources for the producers to have hedged their bets on their future that the Preliminary Specification may be needed and therefore provide People, Ideas & Objects and our user communities funding as a viable alternative. The value proposition of the Preliminary Specification puts it well within the region of the best investment producers could be making but it also disintermediates their bureaucracies.

Granted only a small percentage of these hedges were realized in the second quarter. Most will be realized and extend throughout 2021 and into 2022 and be incurred at that time. They were contracted as a result of chronic North American overproduction in combination with the virus demand destruction in early April 2020. All of the hedges thankfully were contracted to command positive commodity prices in the range of $20 to $40 per boe. Future oil prices may decline to the April 2020 period as a result of OPEC+ increasing production by 5 - 10 million boe / day. Or prices could play a windfall role in the producers future where these hedges would offset those larger, speciously reported profits. Either way the future is fixed and clear.

Had I mentioned that cash and working capital were issues in oil and gas? Since the withdrawal of investors which began in 2015, there have been critical shortages of cash in the industry. We’ve identified the key point of cash drainage as the overheads of the industry are not included as costs in the prices of the commodities that are passed on to consumers, instead they are capitalized. We believe producer overheads which include the excessive, and growing list of vice presidents, their excessive executive compensation are capitalized to property, plant and equipment to the tune of 85% across the industry. Therefore the cash consumed in paying these monthly recurring costs is not returned to the “cash float” in the current month and therefore new cash needs to be sourced each month these expenses are incurred. All as a result of the investors no longer willing to play along. Average prices in the quarter of $68.00 oil and $3.25 natural gas prices just weren’t enough to overcome the overhead. Paying out an annualized dividend and stock buy back rate of 18.96% for our sample of producers may appear to them to have been onerous. However, I would suggest it’s only onerous in contrast to the producer's history. For example Apple’s annualized rate of payback was 86.73% or actual cash of $77.05 billion for three quarters in 2021. One company is successful, one industry complains. I only mention this as Apple is a New York Stock Exchange listed company with a 28.61 P/E ratio. Shell’s P/E ratio is 28.96%, which in a way is competitive?

The point regarding working capital is of critical importance. Although we see the high prices being realized, “profit hedges” were on a large percentage basis unrealized and extended well beyond the next quarter, yet working capital continued to decline. Consolidation was effective for our sample which acquired four producers, one member of our sample was acquired by another sample member, for a net three new producers increasing our samples production over last year's production volumes. This moved the overall production profile from 10.056 mm boe/d on December 31, 2020 to 10.354 mm boe/d on June 30, 2021. For the 2021 calendar year this has totalled on a rounding basis to a 2.9% production increase. Yet there was a disproportionate increase in short term liabilities of over 17% which had the commensurate effect of reducing working capital. I only highlight this to point out that it’s tradition in the industry to always have someone else pay for any of the difficulties being experienced by the producers. 

What is clearly coming into focus for all those that held out hope for the resurrection of the industry due to the moderation of commodity prices. Is that at any time and given any set of variables whether they be good or bad, oil and gas producer bureaucrats will seek to make the industry take another step down on the ladder of success. What we must understand is that they are hopeless victims of society, incapable of helping themselves or doing anything about their issues. But they’ll “muddle through.” The level of excuses, blaming and viable scapegoats diminished lately and I’m therefore unable to determine who it was they allege were responsible for their current difficulties. Maybe they're getting the point of my criticism and are stopping that whining. There was and is gripping going on that is somewhat new and it seems to already be achieving a remarkable level of push back. Gripping occurs when you complain up the chain of command. In this case to the shareholders, and most specifically in this case regarding the amount of dividends and other payments being made to shareholders. And yes even Exxon was brought into the discussion and questioned why they were paying their debts instead of spending more on shareholders? Which is an interesting question from a number of points of view and particularly this pushback being at Exxon’s level of the industry. 

Looking at the Exxon pushback, the shareholders of producers are fed up to a level that is unsatisfiable, it would appear. Such is the level of betrayal orchestrated by the bureaucrats, and the final act that the board of directors will be conducting during this month of August 2021. I am suggesting here that they won’t be responding positively to our July 2021 RFP to fund the Preliminary Specification. And therefore lose the opportunity to ever gain their credibility again. That however is their objective of the exercise. Of course this is just one man's pious, obnoxious and self serving opinion. With the organizations consolidated mega-corp cash flow funding whatever their desires may be, in completely unaccountable fashion, as the objective that is attainable in the next few quarters, why destroy that opportunity? The tug of war with the banks is another interesting point. Is Exxon being kind and paying their debts off quickly? Or, as I suspect, are banks taking the money that they want? Investors have now learned the revolving oil and gas bankruptcy game / strategy. Consolidation is just another name for the bigger they are, the harder they’ll fall and the even greater the chance the bureaucrats survive the bankruptcy process. Banks own everything in the process of bankruptcy and investors get zip. If investors don’t make hay in the next few minutes before the sun completely sets they’ll be out of pocket for good. They want out and they want what they’re entitled to and were promised. Please note, it is through my audit experience that I learned that Bankruptcy Judges are more intoxicated by the thought of cash flow than bureaucrats. They seem to think that if there’s money being generated there then there’s value that needs to be managed. And as such will gladly go along with the plans that management put in front of them. What choice do they have? Shareholders and directors are not party to that circus and as such the appeal for action that we made in our July 2021 RFP Response to the directors last month.

It is these niggling little issues that I’ve been criticised for in People, Ideas & Objects. Focusing on profits, performance, time, a sense of urgency and I think a few times I even stated this should be operated as a business. These are counter to the culture of the industry that is best expressed by the bureaucrats when heard by them in absolute resonance and harmony “we’ll muddle through.” That these are parotted by all the old and new vice presidents doesn’t mean they personally believe them; however, it’s the best cover story of the century. With our July 2021 RFP Response we identified only five of the organizational constructs inherent in the Preliminary Specification. Turning the industry into a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable industry where everything that is produced in North America is always produced profitably. And these second quarter results are the producers' response to their legacy of greed and inaction.

People, Ideas & Objects pursuit has and is constructive which looks to solve the industries difficulties and make producers profitable everywhere and always. That has made me a pariah and the poor bureaucrats the victims. It’s a role they’ve cherished for a long time now. We see the financial situation as presented today being celebrated. They’re in the black according to their accounting and we’ll need to go through another cycle of temporary “good times” and be back to where we’ve resided for all but 5 of the last 35 dismal years of their management. The fact of the matter is they’re closer now than ever to a permanent, independent and unaccountable state.

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

To: The Board of Directors, Our RFP Response (Summary & Conclusion), Part XIII

 To resolve the current difficulties that plague the North American oil and gas industry demands that we organize an approach to how it’ll be resolved. That is the work that People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers propose to do with input from the oil & gas, service and all the tertiary industries involved in the greater oil and gas economy. The new organizational structure will be the derivative software product of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification and the services of our user communities service providers in this overall ecosystem. Software is what defines and supports the organization in today’s society. Serendipity and creative destruction have been hamstrung by the fact that software also constrains an organization in proverbial cement based on its current process management definition. To make any organizational or process change has to be orchestrated through the software first in order to have the change take effect. Otherwise the organization will quickly regress back to the software definition of what the process is. This is the consequence of our dependence on Information Technology and is what we’ve called a modern day software bug. One that has cost the industry its prosperity as bureaucrats took this knowledge, never changed the organizations ERP software and therefore secured their methods of personal aggrandizement. 

Let's revisit two hypotheses that People, Ideas & Objects have asserted about the state of affairs in North American oil and gas. These are what we call our Managed Industry, and Abandonment Hypothese. Throughout 2020 we documented the material personal risk that officers and directors of the producer firms had incurred as a result of the catastrophic destruction they created. We’ve attributed this destruction to chronic overproduction of oil and gas, or as we describe it, unprofitable production. Which has occurred systemically throughout North America as far back as July 1986 and ever present since. This was the issue that prompted me to get involved in building ERP systems for oil and gas in 1991. All that was needed was to shut-in any unprofitable production. People, Ideas & Objects solution to this issue was finally completed in December 2013 in the form of the Preliminary Specification. 

I’ve been writing about components of our Preliminary Specification since late 2005 and at no time did producer bureaucrats make any effort to mitigate the damages they were causing. Upon the realization of their personal risks, officers and directors were noted by Reuters on June 9, 2020 to have increased their officers and directors liability insurance coverage by 75%. In late 2020 investors began litigating many of the producers for related issues. Exxon became the subject of an SEC investigation into the overreporting of assets, particularly in shale. The SEC was also rumoured to be issuing subpoenas to many of the shale producers for similar reasons. Businesses understand that overreported assets beget equal and commensurate overreported profitability, attracting disproportionate volumes of investors who in turn create overinvestment leading to the inevitable overproduction and the continuation of unprofitable production. This was done through a number of accounting shenanigans that we’ve documented throughout the history of these writings. Producer bureaucrats were only concerned with their “take” and not with the business of the oil and gas business. This became evident and obvious in the downswing that began in 2009 with shale gas volumes destroying the natural gas marketplace. Investors bailed on the industry in 2015 and nothing but lies, excuses and the naming of any and all viable scapegoats as the only action that we’ve seen since then. In summary the personal jeopardy that officers and directors have attracted in this process has been significant. 

At the same time that the industry experienced a cash and working capital crisis due to the exit in 2015 of their investors. Chronic unprofitable production demands new investors resupply the spending machine. Without investors to fleece, all means of accessing cash was used to maintain the operation. Initially, selling of oil and gas properties was the most lucrative as there was a ready market with some producers continuing with some alleged “liquidity” derived through increasing their bank debt. All of the industry's cash resources were eventually consumed by the producers' excessive overheads and the volume of properties for sale eventually overpowered the markets cash, collapsing the assets prices that were being offered for oil and gas properties. Which is odd, the oddity being that it was that same behavior and characteristic shown earlier during the collapse of the oil and gas commodity prices. Asset prices remained in positive territory but no one had any money to buy them at the fire sale prices. I believe this was part of the justification for the write downs of oil and gas properties in 2020. Creating a catch 22 scenario for bureaucrats where they’d destroyed their entire business model of building balance sheets and were in need of some method in order to rehabilitate their asset values and firms quickly. 

The performance of shale never happened and the wholesale abandonment of that concept was completed without a whisper or second thought. Our July 2019 white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale'' provides the means to turn shale commercial. This was never considered a solution and therefore did not motivate the bureaucrats to action. It was summarily rejected as it required them to work. Besides, their directors never held them accountable for any of their past failures. Leaving the remaining life of an oil and gas producer to pursue the previously renounced and otherwise abandoned areas of conventional oil and gas, offshore, heavy oil or the arctic to pursue as the oil and gas frontier? Like shale’s renouncement, these areas were approached with no understanding or concern about their profitability until it was absolutely proven otherwise. And once unanimously proven across the industry they were abandoned with no remedial efforts to rehabilitate them and bureaucrats were able to pursue their next bright shiny object. Today their chosen new frontier is clean energy. An area proven to have never been profitable, even with government subsidies. An area where there are no plans on how to make them profitable. It has however the one redeemable feature of avoiding accountability for shales unprofitability. Reflecting the inherent lack of understanding and business sense of the entire bunch. After six years of investors withdrawal we’ve seen no change in their behaviors, attitudes or actions! These issues are culturally ingrained and the only method to rectify them are to rebuild the industry brick by brick, and stick by stick in the vision of the Preliminary Specification. 

We now add the method that was used to raise the value of property, plant and equipment and the value of the producers' share price. Making it appear like its good times in this “Managed Industry” and our hypothesis. This was done with two mechanisms. Consolidating producers at the higher “market values” of property, plant and equipment. High enough values that they would exceed what was on the books in 2019 and erase any public memory of the collapsed asset marketplace. These transactions would all be financed with shares of the producer firms. There’s never been a bureaucrat that would not dilute their shareholders and this of course went down without a second thought. The other leg of the transaction was to use the last dregs of their cash and more fully plumb the depths of negative working capital to expend what was left or remaining in the stock “buy-back” authority to participate in the “rally” that would happen in the acquiring company's stock. The proof that we would point to for our Managed Industry hypothesis is the following question. Why weren’t the consolidations valued at the current market price of the assets? The last element of the Managed Industry Hypothesis is the Abandonment Hypothesis which is where I think we are today. 

The Abandonment Hypothesis is simply a resumption of the past centuries management's activities during similar failures and that there’s nothing in oil and gas left for the bureaucrats, all the cookie jars are empty. It will take substantial work and effort to turn the industry around and they’ll admit that’s not their forte’. What’s obvious is they don’t know how or what to do. In a world such as theirs, focused inwards, they’ve acquired risk through the signing on as officers of the producer firms. A risk that will be with them unless they can dispose of it in some reasonable way. That is their focus of concern and where their obligations and priorities will lead them. With the rally in the producer's stock behind them, they'll need to exit the firm quickly and say they did so when the ship was sailing well and they had nothing to do with any subsequent failures. 

They say that gold is a dead asset. Meaning it doesn’t generate a profit, doesn’t generate any economic activity. Theoretically provides a hedge against armageddon. The same could be said of many commodities. Does that apply to the petroleum reserves that were once so coveted by these bureaucrats? The ones they’ve now been able to reestablish at the high valued paper assets on their well built, big, beautiful balance sheets? They’ve proven over the past four decades that none of these “assets” can be produced profitably and are now actively disproving that they generate any incremental economic activity. Without profits in their real form there isn’t much else. Past industry activity has been more or less just like when we were all kids and traded hockey or baseball cards. Some were seen as more valuable than others and that’s where the fun was. And just as we don’t deal in the trading card world anymore, do we want to live in a world where those who own gold today are the dominant power in society? Bureaucrats never saw the larger purpose in their activities, other than to secure the best baseball card or the biggest balance sheet. The paper stuff they deemed valuable.

Since OPEC+ resolved their production allocations there has been a capitulation in the industry. Post covid elation is turning to the reality of the situation and the difficulties the bureaucrats put the business in over the past number of decades. These officers were never held accountable for anything by their boards. Rubber stamping and back slapping were all the rage. Contrived initiatives that were allegedly shareholder driven, such as Encana's overwhelming need to split into an oil producer and a gas producer, or Exxon’s clean energy proxy war for board seats were never questioned with any logic or common sense. Until just a few years ago I was considered crazy for suggesting profits were an issue and needed in the industry. The level of conflict that has been created and exists between bureaucrats and myself is a healthy thing as far as I’m concerned. I’ll never be able to work with them again. But they’re leaving the industry and have nothing to do or say anyways. 

Appealing to the directors is the last hope for the oil and gas industry for these organizations as they exist today. Shareholders deserve to be treated fairly and provided with an effort that is commensurate with what had been promised those many years ago. Profits. The service industry, those that are and have worked in oil and gas and the greater oil and gas economy also deserve the same. Real profits of a primary industry everywhere and always is the responsibility of those that are representing the shareholders and received their money to do so. Directors share the same risks that the bureaucrats have acquired in the process of this chronic mismanagement. Their risk is commensurately higher as a result of the risk of bankruptcy terminating the directors immediately. Courts are beginning to look to the directors and officers liability insurance policies as assets of the firm. Leaving the directors on the outside, funding their own defence and fully exposed. Directors may think the shareholders won’t sue if there’s no insurance proceeds available. Lawsuits have never been about the money.

People, Ideas & Objects RFP Response should be seen as an olive branch that will alleviate the directors personal litigation risks. Providing directors with the opportunity to explain to the judge that they took the steps to remediate the damage that occurred. When steps to mitigate the damage have been taken there’s nothing to litigate. Alternatively, explain to the judge why the RFP of People, Ideas & Objects was disregarded. And make sure to generate the arguments that can be used to refute the individual points made in this RFP Response and those in the Preliminary Specification. What our response was to those specific arguments. Or directors could tell the judge how their actions were effective and they didn’t understand our argument. That may be their best approach. If the courts perceive there's a consistency in each of the producers' destruction and throughout the industry they may find that curious. Who is the producer that has competitively drawn down their account of property, plant and equipment in the past decades? And now has a low cost of capital that performs in this environment?

This ends the RFP marketing series highlighting only the larger points of the Preliminary Specification. The rest is contained in the two hundred thousand words of its thirteen modules. If directors have found the dialog here too condescending then they should probably get used to it, or maybe after the past six years of waiting in the investors' reception areas and waiting rooms they already have. I’m putting the deadline of August 31, 2021 for a response to this RFP as the deadline for commitments by the producer firms. This follows with a 10% deposit of the producer's obligations by September 30, 2021 and the balance due by December 31, 2021. Any non-participating producers will trigger a reassessment of the participating producers for the shortfall in our budget. This should precipitate the need for participating producers to ensure their working interest partners in their Joint Operating Committees are participating in this RFP. These are and should be considered tight and final deadlines. After thirty years I’ve lost my patience and want to begin the development of the system. As soon as these organizations are no longer seen as viable, based on their choice to opt out, the better as far as People, Ideas & Objects are concerned, and the rest of the industry can commence rebuilding the industry brick by brick and stick by stick in the form of the Preliminary Specification. Allowing directors the time necessary to tend exclusively to their legal matters. 

Postscript. Some may feel that this series should have included the compliance frameworks of the various regulatory authorities involved in oil and gas. I disagree. Bureaucrats have had these handled well in their model. That didn’t aid them in any way to better manage the firm or increase their accountability. Just as it’s believed that you don’t let the tax tail wag the dog, I feel we should not allow any of the compliance frameworks to wag the dog either. In the Preliminary Specification compliance to the various regulatory agencies will be the fall out consequences of the decisions and actions that are taken by the producers. 

I’ll be taking a few weeks off from posting but am available and can be contacted at any time. Check our Twitter feed for a weekly summary of the number of calls, emails, discussions and commitments that industry has engaged with me. When I post just the word "nothing" I'm sure you'll understand my point. I’ll be returning on August 16, 2021 with our blog's first post on the second quarter result of our sample producers. And begin anew on September 1, 2021 regarding which direction we go from here.

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

To: The Board of Directors, Our RFP Response (IT), Part XII

 I personally have been working on bringing ERP systems to the oil and gas market for thirty years. Our first attempt in 1991 failed in 1997. This initiative began in 2003 and there have been other failures. There are few ERP providers available in the market today and nothing else that is a dedicated development towards oil and gas with a tier 1 provider. The benefit that I’ve gained from this latest initiative is that copyright law is now upheld in all marketplaces and I’ve secured what it is I’ve developed. My point in this is to suggest that oil and gas companies have mistreated the vendors of oil and gas ERP systems development in the three decades I’ve been involved. Much as it has mistreated the service industry, its investors and bankers, not saying anything about their current and former employees. The need to financially support these initiatives from the primary revenues of oil and gas sales is now a result of this mistreatment and a reality that has yet to be realized by producers. Just as there are no oil and gas producer investors, there are no investors that are interested in anything associated with oil and gas. 

Although I feel highly productive today, that will not be the case in thirty years. Who’s coming into the field with the scope and scale of opportunities that are being presented in the marketplace that these producer bureaucrats have created. What Intellectual Property will they bring, and conversely after consideration of People, Ideas & Objects et al, what IP can they bring? It may be surprising to learn that there are other industries that are dynamic and exciting right now. I can conclude that I am stuck with the consequences of my choices and am able to live without regrets of what I’ve done. I doubt those that follow me will feel the same after they’ve put in the three or more decades of effort necessary to generate that first penny of revenue from oil and gas producers. And that assumes People, Ideas & Objects will make it to that point. Conversely, who do I go to if the Boards of Directors fail to act and fund the Preliminary Specification during this RFP marketing process? Alternatively, the better question may be who do producers go to for funding in the future when it’s proven directors don’t care about investing in their organizations profitability?

Throughout our writings we have alleged the accounting conducted by producers over the past four decades, and particularly the profitability reported, is specious. That overhead and other costs are handled inappropriately. Raising serious governance issues that have now resonated throughout the investment community and elsewhere with similar concerns. This accounting allegation of ours is that the specious accounting conducted throughout the industry is best obscured through poor ERP systems. Governance over the quality of the accounting and the companies systems has become an issue at the level of the board of directors in the past year. People, Ideas & Objects would state, finally. However, in addition to the accounting, the ERP systems that are used throughout the industry are woefully inadequate. There are no tier 1 ERP systems providers selling oil and gas systems today and more importantly, outside of People, Ideas & Objects et al no interest. It has not been the case that there was no opportunity for producers to participate in the development of these systems. SAP provides ERP software to some of the senior producers but SAP does not have an oil and gas based application. The workarounds in SAP to accommodate the oil and gas industries unique characteristics are horrendous. SAP’s specialty are large manufacturing concerns like Ford who need to interact with tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers “just in time.” To bring wheel nut part z in d volumes to production line x at y time. SAP’s sale to Ford is more profitable for them than all the revenues they could ever earn from oil and gas. Please read on page 17 of our White Paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale'' about some of the history of ERP systems providers in oil and gas and how they’ve been mistreated which led to the tier 1 providers exit. A purpose built oil and gas ERP system will need to be developed on a tier one systems vendors platform in order to implement a governance model that will satisfy the investment community. That has been specifically discussed and asked by the investment community. People, Ideas & Objects uses Oracle Cloud ERP. The unquestionable leader in ERP systems according to Gartner. In May 1991 I contacted Oracle to commence joint development of oil and gas ERP systems. It was in 1992 we signed an agreement to do so and I feel Oracle threw their entire weight behind the project. This is the project that orchestrated my first failure in the oil and gas ERP market in February 1997. My point here is that not only myself but all the ERP systems vendors have been here doing the job that was necessary. Without financial or any other form of support from the producer bureaucrats. It’s odd how bureaucrats have prospered, accounting is as specious as it is, ERP systems providers aren’t involved due to the lack of financial resources and the industry is such a spectacular failure. Except on a clean energy basis which has all those oil and gas revenues that should have been used for the service industry, investors, bankers and in self serving fashion I’d mention ERP systems providers. All of those people who worked on a good faith basis to build those oil and gas revenues. Bureaucratic betrayal has always been such.

It was in our May 2004 Preliminary Research Report that I noted the research of Professor Anthony Giddens and Professor Wanda Orlikowski. They’ve defined Structuration Theory and a Model of Structuration. Which suggests that organizations, people and society move together in lockstep. Any disparity in one of the three's progress will create conflict and potentially failure. Professor Orlikowskis model suggests that technology is part of society which of course has a disproportionate influence today. We therefore applied this research and showed that Information Technology was defining and supporting the producer organizations, but also constraining them. Therefore I have alleged on many occasions that the purpose behind the use of old, stale and for lack of a better description homegrown ERP systems are what the producers have relied upon and maintained to ensure their franchise was competitively unchallenged and financially unaccountable. This is not to disparage my competitors who have done remarkable work in impossible conditions. Bureaucrats purposely set out since May 2004 to not support any further developments of these systems by cutting off funding to People, Ideas & Objects and other ERP suppliers. What was a robust ERP marketplace in the 1990’s with over 20 providers leaves a dominance by P2 who are a consolidated accumulation of many other ERP providers solutions that were unable to continue profitably. Maybe an oil and gas consolidated mega-corp will work after all! At least from a survival point of view. And at the same time we’ve seen the maturation of the IT market ignored by these producer bureaucrats in the administrative and accounting areas. Whereas producers have declared frequently the latest version of Microsoft Windows was moving them forward on a renewed trajectory. Unknown and undetermined at the time if that was an upward trajectory. Today we better understand the intent and result of these bureaucratic initiatives. It’s always appropriate for producer bureaucrats to state the latest IT trend as to what “sounds good” from a progressive, aggressive oil and gas user of IT. These items include the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or whatever technology promises the biggest bang for the buck. Microsoft's capacity to provide these has waned in the past few years. Producer bureaucrats have metaphorical aspirations of taking on Usain Bolt's world records and Gold Medal haul at the Olympics. Objectives which are parotted during their Annual General Meetings. They know their boards have never held them to account, therefore there is no risk in them stating anything that may come to mind. 

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

To: The Board of Directors, Our RFP Response (IT), Part XI

 We now move on to the next organizational structure that is redefining the way in which oil and gas producers operate in the proposed Preliminary Specification of People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations. It is the Information Technology environment and the revolutionary impact that these have had on business in the past number of decades in terms of enhanced productivity, performance increases and leveraging value out of the business model. The promise of additional performance and productivity enhancements are just around the corner as these technologies have matured and are more integrated to provide their consumers with even greater value. The key technology today and the one that we’re leveraging in this community is the establishment of cloud technologies. Introducing a shared and shareable cost model across its users. This is how People, Ideas & Objects et al sees this change. Instead of incurring large capital costs to acquire capabilities, users are able to access their needs as a monthly operating cost. The shared and shareable cost model doesn’t just end there. The costs of providing those services are provided on a variable, or as used basis. The producer's users will be provided with the most recent applications and the quality of technology service and support is enhanced through a further definition of specialization and division of labor. Cloud computing is a new and better method of accessing the IT resources that businesses need and want. One that provides a lower overall cost, yet provides the full value of IT that would otherwise demand that each company invest in unique capacities and capabilities outside of their competitive advantages, and demand significant corporate resources and focus in order to build, achieve and maintain. People, Ideas & Objects see cloud technologies as revolutionary to oil and gas. Having oil and gas producers accessing the same state of the art IT capabilities, capacities and infrastructure at low, variable and affordable prices will enable the opportunity for producers to participate in the anticipated future performance, productivity and value enhancements that they choose to. 

People, Ideas & Objects et al sees a further extension than the IT infrastructure, software, service and support. We have adopted the shared and shareable cost methodology of cloud computing and applied it throughout the oil and gas administrative and accounting processes and functionality conducted in the Preliminary Specification software, user and service provider community. If we look at the difficulties of what, how and why producers are consistently unprofitable. We see the overhead costs that are incurred within each producer are what we consider to be the second issue causing a systemic lack of corporate profitability. Building the necessary administrative and accounting capacities and capabilities, particularly in this regulatory environment, is costly to achieve and maintain. It’s also incurred by each and every producer on an independent and isolated, or unshared basis with all other producers. These are not core strategic competitive advantages. They are not competitive advantages from any point of view or perspective of the oil and gas producer. Attaining state of the art administrative and accounting capacities and capabilities are not seen as a necessity or desirable part of the producer and probably rightly so. At least we could point to that as a probable cause to the state of affairs the industry is facing today. That attitude may now be a relic of the 20th century lingering about for its last few minutes. If anything, People, Ideas & Objects multi trillion dollar value proposition should show that the need for attention in the area of managing the business more effectively and efficiently are necessary, desirable, achievable and tangibly valuable. The shared and shareable business model will attain the variable administrative and accounting state of the art capabilities and capacities. However with lower variable costs based on the producers current, profitable production profile. 

When we listen to customers who have implemented Oracle Cloud ERP applications within their organizations there are a number of consistent messages coming through that I find interesting. The first is that their roles as senior management and officers of the firms change to begin dealing with the prospective changes that are coming in the quarterly release or upgrades of the Oracle Cloud ERP offering. These are now in the area of around 200 individual additions per quarter. Note, additional changes will be made when the Preliminary Specification is operational in addition to this volume of Oracle changes. Based on the selection of which ERP solution is determined by the Board of Directors, how many of these changes will be the concern of the producers senior management or the user community and their service providers. The majority of these changes would be handled by the user community under the People, Ideas & Objects et al model and implemented, maintained and supported by the service providers. Input from the producers being funneled through to the user community, consolidated and optimized from the producers point of view. Let’s call this a shared senior management and officers role. Ensuring effective and efficient management of the producer's processes, both from a time, effort and cost perspective. Which brings up an important question. Who’s in control of this entire ERP ecosystem as proposed by People, Ideas & Objects et al? It’s the greater oil and gas economy and most specifically the producers who our users look to for input of any and all information. Our user community are deaf, dumb and blind to any others, however share my allergy to bureaucrats. Our developers are deaf, dumb and blind to all others except our user community. 

The traditional approach to having a unique ERP system that caters to the needs of a specific industry is to customize the vendor's application to do so. This is frowned upon by Oracle and recommended not to be done. People, Ideas & Objects have adopted this policy in our user community and service provider licenses. Stating that all customizations of the application are to be avoided at all costs. This certainly seems to be at odds with what it is that we’re doing. The point is subtle and is a unique characteristic of the Oracle Fusion Applications. Other than Workday they are the most recently written applications of all ERP systems. They were the first to be written in the Java Programming Language which introduces the full object model to those applications. The Fusion Applications are supported by the Fusion Middleware which is an enhanced Java Server with expanded function and process management that is generic and written by the Oracle Fusion developers. This is the base of the Oracle Fusion Applications. It is also the base of any “additions” that are written to provide industry specific application capabilities to the Oracle Fusion Applications. Enabling People, Ideas & Objects to embed the oil and gas industry features directly into the Oracle Fusion Applications as “additions.” This is opposed to the industry customizations which would traditionally sit on top of the ERP applications. Oracle’s method avoids a key difficulty in the environment where the needs of the users are dynamic and changing. Any system changes at the Cloud ERP, or Fusion Application ERP level are therefore not going to break any of the customizations that sit on top, as there will be nothing there. The new quarterly release of Oracle features will be embedded with the “additions” from People, Ideas & Objects and therefore, as they too are object based, updated as well with the new features or unaffected by them without any of our additional developer involvement. Yet, I am satisfied that our application code base is separate and distinct from the Oracle Fusion Middleware and Fusion Application code. Maintaining full control over the Intellectual Property that is a key source of People, Ideas & Objects competitive advantage. I have to mention another unique characteristic that will soon be available to the Oracle Fusion Applications and Middleware. A feature that they’re calling “Fusion - Future Zero Down Time.” Seems self explanatory. 

This next point is one of contention between the IT community and those within the business community. It is a method of implementation that is becoming increasingly the norm and the more successful method of ERP implementation. It goes by the name that captures it most effectively as “rip and replace.” I subscribe to it simply for the time element of the roll out of the Preliminary Specification when completed in its commercial release. Please note it is the domain of our user community and service providers who will be planning and conducting the implementations for each of their individual processes themselves and of course the producer firms. Time is the demand that should be focusing the minds of the producers on dealing with their shareholders issues of accounting integrity, accountability, tier 1 ERP systems use and the melting down of their financial position due to absolutely no capital structure. But that may be just one man's opinion. People, Ideas & Objects primary issue is that we are conducting this across the North American producer marketplace. Therefore the need to focus the energies of the industry on this task will need to be a priority. Both from a software development point of view and an implementation. Otherwise in this man's opinion the industry will just melt down and oil and gas will have failed in its primary role of providing affordable energy to the North American consumer. North American’s will become dependent on foreign sources of energy to meet consumers' needs. And as we’ve noted the most powerful economy in the world is also the largest consumer of energy. These foreign sources of oil may therefore deprecate us from that traditional economic role. 

People, Ideas & Objects have chosen to pursue our user community, research and Intellectual Property as the three areas of focus for our competitive advantages. Note that none of these involve the development of the software code. We’ll own and provide the software code that is derivative of the Preliminary Specification and our Intellectual Property. We have contracted all of our software developments to Oracle Corporation. Their services division are well versed in their products delivery and are ready and capable. We believe we would need to dedicate at least a half decade in order to assemble a team of the size capable to deal with this project and then an unknown amount of time necessary to turn them into a functioning capable team competent to put out the quality of software necessary. We’ve been working on the development of the user community since the first quarter of 2014. A task we’ve assigned as our priority since then and one that will differentiate our product offering in terms of quality. Time is not the commodity available to the producers at this stage. Focusing on the IP aspects of this project will be a better use of our time, resources and skills. It is also where we see the value in the software business. It is consistent with our belief that specialization and the division of labor will need to be applied to all aspects of the economy and by doing so we can do a better, more productive job.

If directors believe these ERP developments can be done within their organization then why haven’t they happened? Our scope of application development in the Preliminary Specification would be considered equal to what each and every one of the producers would need to undertake if they chose to continue to go it alone in the unshared cost model. The main difference is in terms of scale. To acquire just the depth of understanding and detail necessary of the Oracle ERP Cloud offerings would require the same costs being replicated across the industry in each and every one of the producer firms. Assuming producers had a workable, profitable business model, or have a model developed in a timely manner. I could be reading things differently regarding the shareholders and bankers expectations. 2015 was when they began to express their discontent with the industry at large. The industries lack of performance, accountability and transparency were identified as issues by them at that time. I, like others, would never have assumed that six years of inaction was a tolerable amount of time. 

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

To: The Board of Directors, Our RFP Response (Markets), Part X

 In this our second post regarding markets we are not pursuing the resolution of any issues such as we discussed in the Resource Marketplace module of our prior post. An issue that needs to be addressed and resolved in order to attain a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry. The Financial and Petroleum Lease Marketplace will also implement the market's organizational structures into the Preliminary Specification and provide the organized interface necessary to access and interact within these markets of the oil and gas industry as they exist and evolve. Modules in which the full transactional power of the Preliminary Specifications ERP system supports the activities within these markets. We’ll also briefly discuss the Marketplace Interface that we’re building as I believe the virus provides the opportunity to adjust one's opinion to the use of this feature. I have suffered the slings and arrows, the ridicule for it in the past and there is not much that can stand in disagreement to what I haven’t already heard. In my opinion it is revolutionary and needs to be seen in the context of the changes that occurred in 2020. 

The Petroleum Lease Marketplace module is as one could imagine. An opportunity to post, bid, purchase, sell mineral rights and producing properties in the marketplace that exists and is replicated virtually within the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module. Everything from the opportunity to participate in a joint venture to establishing the surface rights payments is fully supported by the ERP system of the Preliminary Specification. Our product sits on top of Oracle ERP Cloud which includes their tier 1, Oracle Fusion Applications that Gartner rates as the highest quality offering. These oil and gas markets include the data of the Federal, State, Provincial, Freehold and Offshore leases. An opportunity for industry to consolidate on a dynamic platform which uses proven tier 1 technologies with the constant support of the service providers maintaining transaction administration and accounting in a standard and objective manner. (Note: People, Ideas & Objects have maintained the policy, and it is written into the user community and service provider licenses. That we will maintain arm’s length distance from all royalty administrations. We are operating in the best interests of the oil and gas industry. To ensure that they are provided with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. There will be no compromise on this anywhere within this sub-industry.) This will be enhanced with the constant iterative design and development being undertaken by People, Ideas & Objects user community and developers on a permanent basis. Whereas if a jurisdiction reviewed and changed their royalty rates at some point, in terms of either the rate or method calculated, producers would not need to concern themselves with the administrative or accounting aspects of those changes. The user community, developers and service providers would have them covered and implement the necessary changes in the software and services in a timely and accurate manner. Producers would only need to deal with the issues regarding the revised costs of the royalty. 

Administration and accounting are not competitive advantages of the producer firms. Thankfully that is one of the statements that we’ve received no pushback on. That doesn’t mean that these areas have to be a hodge podge, slapped together system that only makes do. There’s no reason why the industry shouldn’t have achieved state of the art ERP systems within their firms. That producers haven’t had state of the art ERP systems has led to many questioning not only the integrity of the accounting but also the systems that are being used by industry. Why? And why is it that the issue of overproduction, or as we define it as unprofitable production, can be documented to have existed in the North American marketplace back as far as July 26, 1986? The solution we propose to the overproduction issue, in addition to aligning all of these organizational constructs, but not the bureaucracy, has been available since December 2013. We documented the directors and officers liability throughout 2020 and these still stand today. Investors today are unhappy and becoming litigious. There is significant personal risk involved to the officers and directors, and People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers are offering a value proposition that makes the Preliminary Specification the best investment a producer can make. In terms of markets, it is alleged that there is double the amount of oil needed up until 2050. This capacity overhang forces the North American high cost producer to assume the swing producer role. To produce only profitable production. Saudi Arabia has production costs of $3 and probably $0.00 capital costs therefore can produce profitably at literally any price. They could use the money and the markets in 2050 are too far away and unpredictable for them to sit back and wait for. Let's call that the reality of the situation. 

In terms of marketplace modules, there is the Financial Marketplace module. As with the Resource Marketplace module we see many changes in this oil and gas marketplace. Which I would think producers would welcome at this point as financing is next to impossible. Moving to the Joint Operating Committee as the key Organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producer is achieved in the Preliminary Specification. You’ll recall in Part VII of this series we noted that the movement of the knowledge to where the decision rights were held, which is the Joint Operating Committee, enhances accountability. It's here that the Financial Marketplace enhances that accountability with the board of directors' interaction with their current and prospective shareholders and bankers. A review of the Financial Marketplace modules specification would be the best source of information to capture an overall understanding of the module. If we also recall the discussion we had in Part VIII of this series regarding the standard and objective nature of the accounting that is conducted throughout the Preliminary Specification and the service providers. Consider if that would satisfy some of the issues that investors and bankers have raised regarding their investments and loans in the industry? Where everything being produced is profitable and the producers are seeking to maximize their profits by shutting in unprofitable production. Would People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers be helping producers satisfy their shareholders and bankers to the point where they’d begin investing in the industry again? We hope that this enhanced accountability is not one of the reasons that the Preliminary Specification was not accepted in the industry? Sanctimonious questions I know, but that is what this environment and the relationship between People, Ideas & Objects and the bureaucrats has become.

Hokey graphics aside, the demos for the Marketplace Interface were prepared by the underlying technologies that are available to us. These were also prepared almost a decade ago. Much has developed in the technological environment since. There are many points that I would argue that are different today than were at the beginning of 2020. They include.

• The work from anywhere and its enhanced productivity of employees.
• The co-mingling of professional and personal lives, the deduction of redundant travel times and archaic rituals has had a marked increase in the performance of white collar workers engaged over a 12 to 14 hour day. 
• Zoom induced hell. (The demand to always be on camera.) 
• Turning cameras off for peace of mind is now a necessity to this ball and chain. All to satisfy one’s immediate supervisor's demand for command and control through continuous mandatory attendance.
• The lack of ERP tool support availability.
• Search, contracting, buying, selling, financing, billing, paying, marketing etc. What is currently being done in the ERP area of oil and gas vs what could be done could not be more stark. Oil and gas is in the dark ages.
• Proliferation of bots. 
• Both good and bad. Note, Oracle’s Cloud ERP now has “good” bots that fight the “bad” bots that may be attempting to get in. 
• Always there capability. 
• The establishment of permanent, virtual real estate for your bots and organization. 

Looking at the establishment of IT in other industries where technology has been embraced we can ask some interesting questions. Why is there such volume on the stock exchanges today? What are all those algorithms doing? It’s been more than two decades that they’ve existed. How is it that NASA, Ford and GM can all be collectively outperformed by Elon Musk? And how is it that oil and gas is generally, and rightly regarded as having many of the best science and engineering Information Technology available to it. Yet its business is about to be thrown on the trash heap of history? 

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here. 

To: The Board of Directors, Our RFP Response (Markets), Part IX

 Although many may not have seen the overall vision of the Preliminary Specification before, this series is bringing a few more of the pieces into the picture for people. We could probably spend a few more posts just on the Joint Operating Committee as the move of the compliance and governance frameworks to its seven frameworks has a dramatic effect on everything that is done in the industry today. Is there a need for that level of change? It may be consolidated mega-corp would satisfy everyone with everything and always. That there’s excitement in the industry may be more attributable to the covid release from lockdown and economic freedom. What is not being realized is that the issues in oil and gas have been prevalent for many decades. The financial destruction was complete prior to the lockdowns. Our approach is to establish the necessary organizational structures that will support a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer, industry and supporting service industries. What we’ve discussed in this series are the organizational structures recognized, defined and supported within the Preliminary Specification which include the expansion of specialization and division of labor, Intellectual Property, the Joint Operating Committee and today we’ll discuss the adoption of markets as a framework that defines and supports both the producer and secondary service industries. 

We have three modules in the Preliminary Specification that are “market” modules. The Petroleum Lease Marketplace, Resource Marketplace and Financial Marketplace modules. Each establishes marketplaces where producers can engage in the markets which they need to function. To suggest these are B2B’s or exchanges as have been the traditional “solution” would undermine their functionality and purpose. These marketplace modules emulate the markets that producers participate in and are designed to deal with the day to day activities of each of the producers, service industry and others. Supporting them with the contractual, transaction processing and other capabilities of our ERP system. Reading these modules definitions to capture their purpose and approach is necessary as it is impossible for me to do so in a simple post or two. Speaking generically we can discuss the larger issue of our approach vs consolidated mega-corp’s in terms of the reliance on markets vs firms. How we are using disintermediation, with its reliance on larger decentralized capabilities enabled by the Internet, establishes far greater opportunities, speed and performance in the organizations that adopt them. 

The economic principles of markets and price discovery are two of the mechanisms by which North America has advanced its overall quality of life. Adoption of these within the oil and gas industry are therefore a necessity and the Preliminary Specification has done so as part of the structures that define and support these industries. Our decentralized production models price maker strategy relies on the principle of oil and gas commodities being priced based on the price maker principle. The need for producers to produce only profitable production, after full consideration of all of their costs on a timely and accurate basis, is how they’ll operate under our ERP system and service provider offerings. Using all of the information contained within the commodity markets price, (production, inventory, consumption, reserves) to determine profitability and ultimately what will and will not be produced. It is the same mechanisms that are involved in every transaction involved in a free market. 

From the Preliminary Specifications Resource Marketplace module we quote from a paper written by Professors Richard Langlois and Nicholas J. Foss entitled “Capabilities and Governance: the Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization.” they note.

The organizational question is whether new capabilities are best acquired through the market, through internal learning, or through some hybrid organizational form. And the answer will depend on (A) the already existing structure of capabilities and (B) the nature of the economic change involved. p. 21

And

If by contrast, the old configuration of capabilities lies within large vertically integrated organizations, creative destruction may well take the form of markets superseding firms. History offers many examples of both. p. 21”

And

Either way it boils down to the same common-sense recognition, namely that individuals - and organizations - are necessarily limited in what they know how to do well. Indeed, the main interest of capabilities view is to understand what is distinctive about firms as unitary, historical organizations of cooperating individuals. p. 17

We first need to discuss two components of how I see one of the marketplaces in oil and gas. The reliance on the field service industry providers to extend the producers capabilities and capacities into their regions of interest. To own and operate their field infrastructure would otherwise be an impossible impediment and constraint towards progress. The second component is the history of abuse and disrespect that producers have displayed and presented to the service industry over the past forty years. And particularly since 2015 when the producers recognized their financial difficulties were amplifying. The assumption that oil and gas is a boom / bust industry has been accepted over the long term by these producer bureaucrats. All other industries sought to work these issues out of their businesses and industries many years ago. It is this continuing acceptance that has left us with a legacy of maybe five good years out of the past thirty five. Bureaucrats don’t understand this point as they’ve experienced thirty five years of excellent compensation. Producers assumed the service industry would need to adjust to the boom / bust trend in lock step with the producers. There is an implied assumption that the service industry, like the oil and gas industry itself, enjoys revenues as a primary industry and therefore continues business as usual during the bust cycles. The diversity of the service industry offerings, and their coverage across the various regions of their operations throughout North America spreads them relatively thinly. As secondary industry participants they are not as resilient as the producers believe them to be. The collapse of their revenue streams into the low teens in terms of percentages has been devastating.

Now in 2021 the consequences of this downturn have destroyed much of the service industries capacities and capabilities that were once available to producers. This decline in support since 2015 on top of the cumulative difficulties administered by oil and gas producers has created the situation where it will be difficult for many of them to survive. The largest service industry providers have left the continent as a result of the abusive treatment they’ve received. Therefore working out the boom / bust cycle through our price maker strategy will go a long way to rectifying this issue in the long run by providing a stable environment, or constant level of demand for which the service industry can prosper. However, investors in the service industry have had it for the remainder of this millennium. They invested in good faith and were abused by the producer firms. They’ve witnessed the equipment they invested in being cut up for scrap metal to pay the light bill and taxes on the shop. This was primarily due to the producer bureaucrats determining they could get away with leveraging additional field activity by not paying their bills for 18 months after the jobs were completed. The dilemma today is who’s going to provide the financial resources for the service industry to recapitalize itself and reestablish the capacities and capabilities that will be necessary for a self-sufficient and profitable oil and gas industry?

This is what’s known and understood in the market today, it’s not news. Consolidated mega-corp will expect the service industry to dance for their dollars just as they’ve always done. If People, Ideas & Objects are correct and no one’s going to play that game, what would be the result. I would point to the example of the history of the ERP providers in oil and gas over the past thirty years. I can report there is still no consideration whatsoever of a second chance these first tier ERP providers will be riding to the rescue of the producer firms. Why, they feel the industry is too complex, too costly and there are not enough producers to be able to negotiate their sales prices fairly. The last two ERP providers left in 2000 and 2005, as documented on page 17 of our White Paper, due to the inability of producer bureaucrats to pay for their software development in advance. Producers have never paid for any ERP systems anyways, so why start? Producers have had eight years to invest in the Preliminary Specification to make their organizations profitable and to avoid this inevitable, predictable and disastrous outcome but didn’t do it. Not a penny has been spent on People, Ideas & Objects at any point. Therefore producers will be paying for all of the costs of the Preliminary Specifications development and user community in advance. The need for skin in the game is the apt approach when so many investors and vendors have been betrayed so comprehensively.

As the producers sit upon the primary industries revenues they so enjoy. (And mostly for enhanced, innovative, executive compensation. I do question what's in those capitalized overhead accounts we never see.) They will show a thumbs down to this idea as if People, Ideas & Objects is the only vendor they’ll be faced with who has this ludicrous idea. Bureaucratic actions have consequences which have been wholly detrimental to everyone else in the industry. Bureaucrats will no doubt argue, rightly, this does not remind them of what markets and price discovery should look like. Correct, it's what’s necessary after the destruction of the markets they’ve caused. These facts on the ground are what bureaucrats refuse to consider or admit. Until they do the industry will be plagued with problems. And they’ll never admit this, what they will do instead is they’ll just leave which is the historical action other bureaucrats have taken in other industries. These issues need to be dealt with and I am unaware of any other solution. The need to rebuild these industries brick by brick and stick by stick must be financed by the only means now available. The primary industry revenues of the oil and gas industry. Facilitated through the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production models price maker strategy. Granted there will be those within the service industry that will continue to scrounge for the pennies falling from the bureaucrats pockets. However, that does not create the dynamic, innovative, accountable, profitable and self-sufficient oil and gas industry that we need does it? 

The only solution as it stands today, from a creative destruction and disintermediation point of view, is People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations implementation of the Preliminary Specification. The natural forces of disintermediation and creative destruction are being obstructed through the diversion of industry revenues away from the development of initiatives such as the Preliminary Specification. And therefore are unnecessarily directly supporting the status quo behaviors that have been proven to be disastrous.

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. We’ve joined GETTR and can be reached there. Anyone can contact me at 713-965-6720 in Houston or 587-735-2302 in Calgary, or email me here.