OCI Request for Proposal, Part IV

 Specialization & the Division of Labor

Since 1776 the only basis for increased value generation has been the expanded definition and use of specialization and the division of labor. Adam Smith proved in his research that by reorganizing a pin factory around specialization and the division of labor between individual workers, augmented through proficiency, automation and mechanical advantage, the factory output increased 240 fold. Today the opposite is true. Software and most particularly ERP software has sealed organizations to a definition that is unchangeable through any means other than changing the software process definition. This aids producers' status quo configuration when they don’t sponsor or initiate any change in ERP software. Instead, focus on engineering tasks such as cost cutting to generate business value. If we are to meet consumer energy demands in the 21st century it will be the result of an “all of the above” energy strategy. For the next several generations the largest component of energy makeup will be oil & gas. Therefore, dealing with these issues and opportunities demands that we increase the industry's throughput substantially in order to meet the increasing demands of the North American marketplace. 

It is therefore necessary to ensure that we proceed from this point forward with the defined capability and capacity to enhance the ERP software used in North American oil & gas. And to do so to facilitate an increased level of specialization and division of labor that is iterative and constantly evolving. People, Ideas & Objects provide for this and are configured specifically to ensure this. Our business model depends on change. We generate revenues from software development changes initiated by our user communities interactions with industry. Our user community will be available everywhere and always on a part-time basis to work with our developers to make the changes they’ve identified while working in their service provider operations. These service providers will be configured to deliver the explicit knowledge captured in our software and the tacit knowledge provided by their services. Our user community members are therefore on the ground in the industry on a day to day basis in the administration and accounting of producer firms. They are the exclusive, licensed individuals authorized to change the software's Intellectual Property. Our developers know of no one else providing input. In other words, our user community members have the power necessary to ensure that the processes they manage ensure the most profitable means of oil & gas operations everywhere and always. Only our user community members own and operate service providers. If anyone in the industry wants to know who they need to resolve their issue, they only need to contact the relevant user community member. Who do they call today, or at SAP if our suspicions of the officers and directors' actions are correct and they're selecting their solution?

People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification brings significant advantages to all producers. This is a solution that should be used by all producers in the North American industry. Whether that is Exxon or the producer firm that originated at breakfast. This also applies to any and all other types of secondary and tertiary industry firms involved in the greater oil & gas economy, no matter their size. While we provide advantages to junior and startup oil & gas producers, we put their organizations in a position to succeed and grow. They’ll have distinct competitive advantages over today's business model methods of organization. These are brought about through the reorganization of producer firms' administrative and accounting resources into our user communities service provider organizations. And the implementation of our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas service provided by them. 

The producer organizations that we define and support in the Preliminary Specification employs and deploys higher levels of specialization and division of labor. We feel the overhead costs of producers demand these be dealt with by making organizations more efficient through the application of advanced, and continually advancing, specialization and division of labor. We also turn their overhead costs from a fixed, producer based capacity and capability, into a variable, industry based capacity and capability, their variable behavior being decided upon a Joint Operating Committee's ability to produce profitable production. One of the reasons for the high overhead costs of each producer (up to 20% of revenues, not the 1 to 6% reported on financial statements) is that all of their capacities and capabilities are replicated within each producer firm in an unshared and unshareable form. Today these accounting and administrative capabilities and capacities are purpose built within each producer organization to meet the demands of the various stakeholders. They also meet tax and regulatory requirements. It is these high overhead costs that are the secondary cause of oil & gas profitability problems. Overhead costs do not constitute a producer's distinct competitive advantage.

Preliminary Specifications support a reallocation of the producers' administrative and accounting resources into individual service providers headed by members of our user community. Our user community and their service providers are independent businesses that specialize in one administrative or accounting process. They conduct that process on behalf of the entire industry as their client base. If a Joint Operating Committee produced that month, under our decentralized production model price maker strategy, we can reasonably assume it is profitable. Upon production the processes administered by each service provider will be invoked through our task and transfer network. The processes undertaken and their associated billings will be charged directly to their Joint Operating Committees. If it’s not profitable, the property would be shut-in and none of the service providers would receive any data from our task and transfer network. Therefore, no processes will be conducted and no service provider billings will be rendered. The shut-in property does not incur a profit or loss, but is a null operation. Under either scenario, overhead costs will be covered in the current period through profitable operations or by the fact that costs will be variable under the Preliminary Specification. Meaning they won't be incurred when a property is shut-in.

Producers can benefit from beginning operations in this manner. First they will reach their optimum profitability when losses stop diluting profitable properties. Whether that is at 25% or 100% of the producer's capacity. When all costs are variable, production will be profitable at any volume of their production profile. This will preserve their oil & gas reserves for a time when they can be produced profitably. Those reserves will no longer have to carry the incremental costs of losses otherwise incurred if they continued to produce unprofitably. Keeping the commodity as reserves can be seen as an affordable means of storage where the subsequent costs of production and storage are zero. Commodity markets will find their marginal price when unprofitable production is removed from the marketplace. Increasing the value of all producers' production by realizing marginal prices across their production profiles. Producer officers and directors assert this is collusion. If making independent business decisions based on detailed actual, factual, standard and objective accounting information that determines profitability is collusion, it is no wonder producers are incapable of profitability? 

During 2017 officers and directors realized their collusion claims were moot; they stated unequivocally that they could never shut-in any production, it would cause the formation to “fold over on itself” or other specious arguments. That is until they ran the oil price down to negative $40 in April 2020. The refineries had to tell them they wouldn’t take anymore, forcing production to be shut-in. After resumption of over 25% of global shut-in production, formations showed no damage. These are just some of the many reasons for the Preliminary Specification implementation. Oil & gas commodities are price makers, not price takers as the officers and directors assumed they were for all these decades. One critical aspect of a price maker is that they only bring on new production when it’s profitable. The method we’ve developed is detailed in the Preliminary Specifications Preamble. 

Our decentralized production models price maker strategy engages North American oil & gas producers in disciplined production. Achieving maximum profitability can only be achieved when unprofitable properties stop diluting corporate earnings. Therefore the need to ensure they are fulfilling their primary task of maximizing profitability becomes the predominant method of production discipline. Competing on the capital markets of the 21st century, it will be much different than previous years. With technology and other industries providing growth opportunities, for oil & gas companies to continue to assert they are in a growth mode precludes them from that competition. They are a primary industry with commodities subject to price maker principles. An industry where shale reserves have changed the game from scarcity to abundance. This will also affect producer capital allocation and capital discipline. Capital investments will only be made assuming or demanding they will be immediately profitable. Why would they invest in them if they cannot meet that criteria? This implies a very different approach to what is done in the industry. We can cast the foolishness of “building balance sheets” and the like on the scrap heap. Balance sheets are the fallout consequences of business management, not an objective or target.

Cash demands in the industry are presently one of producers' pressing concerns. A consistent theme that defines a cultural dependence on annual outside capital infusions. This is due to all producer costs outside of operations being more or less capitalized and then recognized as depletion over several decades. This includes capitalizing large percentages on overhead and interest. By not recognizing overhead costs in the current period producers can more easily declare specious profitability. However, the cash consumed in those overhead costs is not returned in the current period in the commodity prices charged to the consumer. These overhead costs will sit as assets on the balance sheet in property, plant and equipment, or as we call them “the unrecognized capital costs of prior production,” for the next few decades before they’ll be realized as depletion and returned as cash. Therefore the search for new cash each month to replenish the cash float has been the producers' issue for decades. When investors were willing, this was not an issue with the annual top up of investors' dollars being priced to cover these costs. Now the reality of their specious accounting haunts them daily as they try to find new cash sources to cover their basic overhead costs, each and every month. Working capital has been and will continue to be a crisis in the industry under the current business model. No matter what commodity price is offered. 

Basic cash management would have indicated this to officers and directors many decades ago. I wonder why they never changed these methods? (I’m sure they had their reasons! Other interested parties should ask these probing, and revealing questions.) With the Preliminary Specification recognizing overhead in the current period as part of the operation, capturing that in the price charged to the consumer, return of the cash to the producer will occur within that production month. That however assumes profitable operations are conducted and all costs are accounted for appropriately. I’m on record, and allege that hasn’t happened. Calling the producers' accounting specious and deliberately misleading. I do sometimes wonder what costs are contained in capitalized overhead that no one appears to know or question? Both in terms of their size and composition. I do know each account never breaches the level of materiality during the annual audit, but outside of that these state secrets seem to me to be the reason that officers and directors have never changed these methods despite the negative consequences they cause and the Preliminary Specifications availability since August 2012.

Our user community and their service providers are involved in the delivery of the explicit knowledge captured in our ERP software and the tacit knowledge of individuals within each service provider firm. Fulfilling the accounting and administrative needs of producers with variable, industry-based accounting and administrative capacity and capability. We are delivering these in what we’re calling Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. Building and leveraging the same principles of specialization and division of labor that deliver cloud computing's extreme value proposition.

With the clear objective of rebuilding the industry brick by brick, and stick by stick. This is in a style of rebuilding that involves a dynamic industry based on a decentralized, connected environment such as the Internet provides. People, Ideas & Objects et al don’t have to break down oil & gas to rebuild it. The rebuilding is necessary due to the damage and destruction the chronic mistreatment industry has experienced at the hands of the officers and directors of the producer firms. Hierarchical strata of advanced paper shufflers define future failure. To bring about an ERP system for the industry such as the Preliminary Specification provides, we must consider the opportunity of disintermediation. And People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations abide. 

The nature of this rebuilding process is the cannibalization of the processes that have occurred since investors sent their dissatisfaction message to producers in 2015. Being solely dependent upon investor cash meant organization cuts were necessary. This was when the producers' sole source of value generation, the investors' annual injection of additional capital, was no longer available. Keeping production processes in place was the priority and those processes involved in the early stages of oil & gas development were subject to layoffs. Assuming that the situation is alleviated in the following year and any resources recalled. Since the inactivity and abstinence of the officers and directors has continued for eight years, we can assume that the process management has been cut well into the eighth year of the development cycle. Therefore either way, through People, Ideas & Objects or SAP, the processes will need to be redefined and rebuilt. And if a producer chooses SAP as their current system, it should be final. People, Ideas & Objects will not build on SAP's proprietary and custom implementation. Producer firms must realize the Preliminary Specification is an oil & gas implementation based on its Intellectual Property. We are not looking to support or recreate any past failed policies and procedures no matter how inert they may appear. People, Ideas & Objects expect the same from SAP in terms of respecting our Intellectual Property. In the Preliminary Research Report I think we aptly stated the "SAP is the bureaucracy."

However, bringing one of the most complex systems, Oracle Cloud ERP, into one of the most complex industries into the environment of the small and startup, or any producer, is a risky proposition to consider. How could that ever be a commercial software product? Or be provided to a commercially viable small or junior oil & gas producer? And that is the fact of the issue we are facing today as a result of the officers and directors “consolidation as a solution” or with SAP as alternatives. We need to ensure the future of the industry is in the hands of oil & gas men and women. They will knock down the barriers that stand in their way, just as so many have done before. The constraints and reality of regulatory, compliance and investment demands are real impediments to these needs. That is, if producers could not access the kind of systems necessary to operate in that environment, no matter their size, capital markets would remain forever closed. Today, this is an untenable barrier, and it will be even more so in the near future. Investors have explicitly requested Tier 1 ERP systems be implemented. Therefore all producers need to understand that the production discipline provided by the Preliminary Specification is necessary across all classifications of producer firms.

Under the Preliminary Specification a startup or junior producer would no longer need to establish the point where they’ll have to generate the full $3 to $5 million of free cash flow necessary to offset the annual base overhead of the producer firm. For administrative and accounting purposes, they will only incur the variable overhead costs of the service providers fees that they use. In addition, they will incur the costs of software development assessment by People, Ideas & Objects each year. As we noted earlier, not only are these overhead costs variable, but if they’re charged, that denotes profitable production. This indicates these costs are covered. In contrast, if the property is not producing it does not incur any overhead costs. And there are more attributes of our system that benefit the new oil & gas industry we are rebuilding. 

The Preliminary Specification also implements specialization and the division of labor across the producer firms, particularly in the earth science & engineering capabilities and capacities. As a first step in our solution for startups and junior producers, we listed this as the first step. These capacities and capabilities are becoming increasingly burdensome to each producer firm due to their unshared and unshareable nature. However, they are for different reasons than the administrative and accounting difficulties mentioned. The costs incurred to maintain these capabilities are growing as a result of the advancement of their science and technological development. This requires further specialization of the producers' capabilities, and critical competitive advantages. We believe that all producers have reached the point where the demands to maintain these capacities and capabilities have expanded beyond the usable population of these technical resources. Or will soon. With the retirement of the brain trust of the industry, and the universities not producing anywhere near the replacement number necessary, a critical shortage will soon demand that these technical resources will become too rare, too costly and too unavailable to maintain, not to mention, expand the deliverability of the North America-based industry. 

Consolidated producers will have particular difficulty managing this technical resource when entrepreneurs see the startup opportunities we’re defining here. That is, if only there was an ERP system that provided a solution for oil & gas startups to deal with the compliance, governance and regulatory environment. This would enable them to access funding! In addition to this limited technical resource supply we also believe that producers' firms are reaching a point where the costs of their scientific engineering and geology needs are beyond their commercial grasp and necessary to maintain their just-in-time operator status. Even so, a higher level of specialization and division of labor will be needed in earth science & engineering. It is the unshared and unshareable characteristics of these capabilities that we find the nascent difficulties to overcome. As operators, producers require these technical resources for a variety of just-in-time purposes. If we assume that across the industry the utilization rate of these technical resources is 75% due to organizational inefficiencies. Then by releasing that other 25% and deploying that unused and unusable capability more effectively we’ll have what I believe to be the second aspect of the solution to these pending and most certainly future difficulties. A one-third increase in capacity with higher output from enhanced specialization and division of labor, providing a good start to solving this pending critical resource shortfall.

Instead of letting another issue manifest itself as a crisis level issue, People, Ideas & Objects et al have implemented a variety of changes within the Preliminary Specification. As soon as the Preliminary Specification becomes operational, the producer firm will have two revenue streams. Their oil & gas sales are augmented by their earth science & engineering capabilities being deployed and used for revenue generation. The individuals can consult with one of the producers' own Joint Operating Committees or with other producers / Joint Operating Committees, as their clients. Due to the specialization and division of labor demands producers will need to choose to specialize or acquire specific capabilities and competitive advantages. These producer revenues will then offset engineering and geological costs incurred and charged to Joint Operating Committees or other producer clients. And through this enhanced specialization and division of labor, we achieve the same benefits of the 240 fold increase in productivity that Adam Smith experienced in his pin factory.

The second source of revenue should be seen as the starting point of oil and gas industry startup revenues. The startup's capabilities and competitive advantage will be less specialized than those of more advanced companies. The additional costs of head office operations not considered in the administrative and accounting category will be offset by these revenues. And this will apply to all producers no matter their production profile. When producers specialize in their distinct competitive advantages, and all producers including Exxon, Shell and Chevron will need to do so, the demand for outside technical resources will be required to augment their needs.

In a world where software defines and supports organizations. This is some of the what, how and why we can provide when the Preliminary Specification is delivered to all producers in the North American industry. Instead of being mere serfs as the officers and directors wish to continue treating the engineers and geologists, they’ll be able to take control of their careers from this point forward. The facility most responsible for this capability of making direct labor charges to the Joint Operating Committee is what we are implementing in the industry. This is our Work Order. Officers and directors may claim that charging labor directly is already available through their systems. Which is true, they can allocate some of these labor costs to the field. However, some are assumed to be captured in overhead allowances which the Preliminary Specification eliminates the use of. However their methods do not provide the necessary features of raising it to the point of making it a defined revenue stream for the firm. Its ability to interact throughout the industry is also a benefit. Allowing for interactions between resources and where they need them. Subject to appropriate approvals and governance. Theirs does not enable the second purpose of our Work Order system, which promotes industry-wide innovation through the establishment of working groups etc. Our Work Order system bills its costs at all times to corporate overhead, Joint Operating Committee overhead, an AFE or to a lease. Therefore the billable time of the individual engineer or geologist should be deployed within the producer 100% of the time or not be working for the producer. A fundamental component of this is requiring these people to establish their own producer firms. These firms are based on their earth science and engineering competencies, capabilities, and Intellectual Property. An industry where it will be less about who you know, but what you know and what you're capable of delivering, what is the value proposition that you’re offering? Preliminary Specification facilitates dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producers, whether they are startups, juniors, intermediates, seniors, or multinational companies.

OCI, Request for Proposal, Part III

 Organizational Constructs

Key to the Preliminary Specifications value proposition is its alignment to seven different Organizational Constructs that convey an understanding and common sense approach to how the Preliminary Specification operates. These Organizational Constructs consist of the Joint Operating Committee, encouraging and facilitating the expansion of Specialization and the Division of Labor. They also include Professor Paul Romer's non-rival costs, Intellectual Property, Innovation, Markets and Information Technology. Developers and users of the system will default to these constructs for process definitions, frameworks and methods. Therefore, they will be able to understand what should be done and the consequences of it. To enable all stakeholders in the greater oil & gas economy to focus on providing a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producer.

Professor Richard Langlois believes business is in transition. What Adam Smith described as the “Invisible Hand” of the marketplace, Professor Alfred Chandler hypothesized the “visible hand of management” had replaced it in his 1977 book “The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business.” Professor Langlois wrote in his paper “The Vanishing Hand: The Changing Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism.” And features prominently in his June 2023 book “The Corporation and the Twentieth Century, The History of American Business Enterprise.” Within the paper and book of Professor Langlois is the discussion of market supporting institutions to enable the transition from managerial capitalism back to the dynamics of the marketplace. To suggest that this is a natural process that happens with no thought or influence is incorrect. These market-supporting institutions need to be in place for the transition to occur. These seven Organizational Constructs, and the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee are market supporting institutions the Preliminary Specification has recognized and implemented in Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas.

In a related matter, I would argue managerial capitalism has waned across the economy and is the primary reason why it has become susceptible to disintermediation. Professor Langlois writes in his book. 

For Chandler, the revolutionary change after 1840 was the newly abundant availability of coal as a powerful energy source. Coal made possible an unprecedented scale of production that slowly destroyed the small-scale market-based system and called forth the modern managerial enterprise. p. 3

To which I would add, 10 to 25 thousand man hours of mechanical leverage in each barrel of oil equivalent have contributed substantially to economic performance. It is therefore reasonable to ask, what contribution above and beyond the value realized from the enhanced mechanization of our economy was achieved by management? Are they claiming that the innovative developments since 1840 in the use of these three sources of energy were a result of management efficiency? If that is the case, why has their performance ceased to generate that value? Would it therefore be valid to claim the Soviet Union's hyper managerial system should have been more productive than ours?

The Joint Operating Committee

The first Organizational Construct that contributes to our value proposition is the Joint Operating Committee. This is the key organizational construct of a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producer. The Joint Operating Committee is the industry's legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic framework of the industry. When we move the compliance and governance frameworks of the producer firm away from the hierarchy and into alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee, we’ll achieve increased organizational speed, innovation, and accountability among producers. Continuing on with the theme of “what, how and why” we do that, these are some of the advantages gained.

Adoption of the culture of the oil & gas industry in the form of the Joint Operating Committee is one of the fundamental changes in our ERP system. By doing so we’ve changed everything done in oil & gas administration and accounting and reconfigured it around what is unquestionably its cultural method of operation. Creating an opportunity to solve these issues and take this once in a lifetime opportunity to move back to the more natural flow of the oil & gas business. This is focused around the Joint Operating Committee's seven frameworks.

Our research taught us that when compliance and governance are aligned with operational decision-making, accountability results. This is intuitively understood. We believe this to be a source of conflict throughout the oil & gas industry. This creates an atmosphere and culture of unaccountable decision making. The contradiction occurs when operators assume the responsibility of managing the Joint Operating Committee. This is based on the need to have the requisite capabilities available to conduct the necessary field operations. The Joint Operating Committee holds operational decision-making authority. This is then delegated in the Operating Procedure to an operator based on voting by its producer participants. A threshold percentage is established for any decision to be passed. Let's assume 60% is the required percentage for approval and the operator has a 33% working interest. Decisions are then made on this basis, AFE’s are issued, funds are spent and the initiative fails. Who’s responsible and who needs to be accountable for the difficulties? We believe this to be the root cause of a related issue we identified in our discussion regarding Specialization and the Division of Labor. When producers have never been held accountable for the day-to-day individual field decisions during any period of their tenure at the producer, why would they then be held accountable for any decisions when they’ve assumed officer or director roles in the firm? Just “muddle through.” It is the industry culture developed over the past six decades that underpins this unaccountability. In its place a culture of excuses, blaming and the generation of what we call viable scapegoats is the product of this lack of accountability. To resolve this the Preliminary Specification aligns and implements the Compliance & Governance module to the operational decision making framework of the Joint Operating Committee. This is to establish an organizational culture of accountability for decisions.

The next point is related to the accountability issue and to other issues around resource restrictions in the earth science & engineering resource supply. Professor Richard N. Langlois was an extensive source of primary research we used throughout the Preliminary Specification. His research is in industrial and innovation economics. He raises what he calls the agency issue or rights assignment problem in his working paper “Modularity in Organization and Technology”

The question then becomes: why are capabilities sometimes organized within firms, sometimes decentralized in markets, and sometimes coordinated by a myriad contractual and ownership arrangements like joint ventures, franchisees, and networks? 

Explicitly echoing Hayek, Jensen and Meckling (1992, p.251) who point out that economic organization must solve two different kinds of problems: "the rights assignment problem (determining who should exercise a decision right) and the control or agency problem (how to ensure that self-interested decision agents exercise their rights in a way that contributes to the organizational objective)." There are basically two ways to ensure such a "collocation" of knowledge and decision making: "One is by moving the knowledge to those with the decision rights; the other is by moving the decision rights to those with the knowledge." (Jensen and Meckling 1992 p. 253). p. 27.

Oil & gas has a looming crisis in its ability to source the appropriate level of engineering and geological resources available to it. This is due to retirements, low numbers of graduates, each barrel of oil produced demands an increased level of science involved in its exploration and production. In addition, it demands high production throughput. People, Ideas & Objects therefore questioned whether each producer firm could continue to establish the full suite of their in-house earth science & engineering capabilities and capacities at the level necessary to meet all of their needs, just-in-time, on a go forward, commercial basis. This would be particularly difficult when the solution to the resource shortfall can only be resolved by a revised specialization and division of labor. All producers would be unable to commercially sustain the burden of a full suite of operator capacities and capabilities with such diverse scientific and engineering demands. This is after specialization and the division of labor. And therefore we concluded that the control or agency problem would need to be resolved on the basis of knowledge being transferred to where decision rights were held. It is specifically in the Research & Capabilities, Knowledge & Learning and Resource Marketplace, but also throughout all of the modules of the Preliminary Specification that we’ve moved the knowledge of each participating producer in a Joint Operating Committee into alignment with its operational decision rights. Where it is then possible to pool the available and specialized technical resources of the producer members of that Joint Operating Committee, or available in the specialized market.

A secondary point I would raise is the definition of capabilities. Professor Langlois defined modularity in his paper “Modularity in Organization, Technology and Society”.

This is the basic modularization of the market economy. It accords well with the modularization G. B. Richardson (1972) suggested in offering the concept of economic capabilities. By capabilities Richardson means "knowledge, experience, and skills" (1972, p. 888), a notion related to what Jensen and Meckling (1992) call "specific knowledge'' and to what Hayek (1945) called "knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place." p. 27.

To which we've suggested that “ideas” be added to that list. Professor Carliss Baldwin also notes that “knowledge begets capability and capabilities beget action.” 

What will become of the oil & gas earth science & engineering related capabilities and capacities now that officers and directors have committed their future to clean energy? Renouncing shale and casting it to the back of the bus where no one will see or hear from it again. Shale being the most advanced science the industry has ever seen or developed. Shale technologies will develop no further, atrophy or be cast adrift. I’ll reiterate that People, Ideas & Objects have a plan to make shale commercial in the energy independent North American market. This plan is the Preliminary Specification. Shale is a critical and highly necessary element of North America's energy independence. 

Officers and directors of producer firms have to stop reading tea leaves about what investors want. Investors want profits everywhere and always, and that is all. With their contrived positioning of clean energy and environmental concerns I would ask what is it in oil & gas that will be the new frontier if it is not clean energy? Offshore, the Arctic, conventional, heavy oil, shale or any of the other areas producers previously renounced as commercially viable? It is this focus on clean energy that will do more damage to the industry and seal the fate of existing producers. What message is communicated to oil & gas investors or related service industries? Let’s assume the service industry is looking for capital for a driller to build a drilling rig. Their potential investor’s first question is "why? Producers aren’t focused on oil & gas, it's clean energy.”

In a related manner, if investors haven’t seen any effort by the officers and directors to make shale commercial, don’t see producers investing in their organizations' profitability or remediating any of the damages, what message does that send?

People, Ideas & Objects have repeatedly stated that each BOE provides 10,000 to 25,000 man hours of equivalent labor. This is 28 to 71 times the world's population. Producers' capitulation of shale resources should be seen as irresponsible when we understand that it's the world's most powerful economy that is the largest energy consumer. Why aren’t officers and directors seeking to make shale profitable and accountable by adopting the Preliminary Specification? It's for reasons like these that people elected to boards of directors are given such responsibilities. Selling energy consumers the immense value they gain from oil & gas and taking the political high ground away from government actors and environmental groups. 

In terms of alignment with the industry's legal framework. The Joint Operating Committee is the representative organization for the partnership between producer firms on oil & gas properties. It is the standard method by which industry operates and all agreements and understandings are based on the work done through these joint ventures. It is rare that a producer firm has a 100% interest in a property. The diversity of producers in these holdings is necessary to mitigate financial risk and regulatory requirements that require specific land holdings etc to drill and produce. Current accounting systems report on Joint Operating Committee activities however People, Ideas & Objects et al have expanded the accounting and administration of these organizations to the level of stand alone reporting entities. Producing detailed, actual, factual financial statements each month for each Joint Operating Committee. Including detailed actual overhead costs. As a result, we can evaluate the property's performance based on its actual cost. This is what North American capital markets expect. By ensuring that each Joint Operating Committee remains profitable by not overproducing or engaging in unprofitable production based on low commodity prices. 

It is through our user communities individually owned and independent service provider organizations that we enable many of the value-adding features of the Preliminary Specification. Service providers are the reorganization of producer administrative and accounting resources into process-focused organizations. Focusing on one process and managing it for the entire oil & gas industry. There may be one lease rental payment processor that ensures all lease rentals are paid on time. The lease rental is charged directly to the Joint Operating Committee in addition to the service provider fee. An ancillary benefit of this reorganization is that the process management conducted by the service providers is standardized and objective in nature. Objective in the sense that no one producer firm dominates the software development process definition. The objective of People, Ideas, & Objects is to identify through our user community and industry participation the full scope of processes management. 

The need to have standardized accounting is necessary from the point of view of having industry rely on the accuracy of these methods. Objectivity is achieved because producing data and handling distinct circumstances is counterproductive in view of global dependence on data and process methods. Consider the process of balancing production data across the month, across a gas plant processing 1 bcf per day. Consideration of the specific location elements, regulations and needs of the property and industry as standard and having them captured in the software is necessary for this reason. By following this strict interpretation, when a property is reported as not profitable using Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas' standard and objective accounting, it will be clear that the property is not profitable. The producers in each of these Joint Operating Committees will understand it is in their financial interest to shut-in the property for the short term. They’ll know the property was assessed on the same basis, under the agreements in the Joint Operating Committee, as all the other oil & gas properties throughout the continent. They'll be satisfied with standard and objective accounting understanding. And be satisfied that the determination of profitability or loss was the same that was applied across the continent. Producers will understand the impact on their organizations' profitability of shutting-in unprofitable properties. Their influence on their innovative processes, determining and applying these standard and objective methods and governing themselves accordingly. To increase property performance and value by producing only profitable properties and by innovating within that framework and understanding.

Overhead in the form of service providers fees for administration and accounting services are charged directly to the Joint Operating Committee by each service provider. If a property has been shut-in then no data is produced and nothing flows through our task and transfer system to the service providers. No process management is conducted by them when properties are shut-in and hence no billings will be rendered to the Joint Operating Committee. There is no profit or loss associated with the property's operation. The Preliminary Specification makes all producer costs variable, based on profitable production. 

The benefits of doing business in this manner are substantial. 

• It enforces production discipline across the industry for the first time when producers learn that corporate profits are highest when only profitable properties are produced. Dilution of earnings from losses on properties will no longer occur. 
• They’ll retain their reserves for a time when they can be produced profitably. 
• Those reserves will not have to carry and recover the costs of any additional losses. 
• Keeping the commodities as reserves instead of prematurely incurring the costs of production and storage. 
• Commodity prices find the marginal cost when unprofitable production is removed from the market. Marginal prices are realized for all properties across North America. 
• Producers argue this is collusion. However making independent business decisions at the Joint Operating Committee based on detailed, actual, factual, standard and objective accounting that determines profitability is not collusion. 
• Markets provide one thing and only one thing, the market price. 
• While properties are shut-in producers can innovatively work the property back to profitability. 
• Is the only reasonable and fair means of production discipline. Capital discipline used by producers today is a very dull, ineffective instrument. 
• Service providers overhead costs are incurred by the Joint Operating Committee, determining the cost of the property, which further defines the profitability threshold. 
• Therefore overhead costs are captured from the consumer in the current period to establish a real cash float. Whereas today overhead is capitalized and the cash incurred is returned only after decades of depletion.
• Building, maintaining and managing administrative and accounting capacities and capabilities through service providers at the industry level eliminates the costs associated with each producer continuing to build, maintain and manage these capabilities in an unshared and unshareable manner.

It's no longer enough to own oil & gas assets. It’s also necessary to have access to ERP software in the form of the Preliminary Specification which makes oil & gas assets profitable. We are configuring an industry of successful producer and service industry organizations based on resolving issues that cause systemic failures. These unresolved issues dictate future difficulties. Non-participating producer boards of directors in this initiative will have told their shareholders they’ve opted out of an investment in their organizations' profitability, accountability and performance.

OCI Request for Proposal, Part II

 Our Value Proposition

What if ERP software in oil & gas was no longer seen as an overhead cost but as the business opportunity that People, Ideas & Objects suggest it is? Which is the perspective oil & gas producers need to adopt to move their organizations on a higher trajectory in terms of performance and accountability. There will be no further development of any organization in any industry without software, but particularly ERP software. This defines and supports an organization's structure, performance and changing capability. Otherwise we will continue to have the paradox in oil & gas where the status quo is satisfied with the status quo and therefore only the status quo will ever be offered. People, Ideas & Objects believe this is the source of the tragic cost we’re experiencing with much more damage soon to arrive. It’s not enough to own an oil & gas asset. Without access to ERP software in the form of the Preliminary Specification there is abundant evidence now that North American oil & gas assets will never be profitable. Regardless of the commodity price, producer officers and directors have shown no interest in anything else. The level of destruction they have caused is unprecedented in business history. We should note that this occurred while our Preliminary Specification, designed specifically to deal with the producers' issues, was offered to mitigate these damages. The faith, trust and goodwill built in prior generations has been destroyed and the industry remains in the hands of those who operate in such bad faith. Now that there’s money on the table in the form of higher commodity prices, and potentially detrimental energy shortfalls this winter, actions need to be taken by oil & gas investors to specify the selection of an acceptable tier 1 ERP provider such as the base of our offering, Oracle Cloud ERP. It should only be People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers operating as our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas.

In order to clarify their culpability, see the following chronology of recent officers' and directors' records. Each of these specific events is generally known and can be easily verified. 

• On July 4, 2019 People, Ideas & Objects published a White Paper "Profitable North American Energy Independence -- Through the Commercialization of Shale". The title covers the topic, the development and integration of the Preliminary Specification. 
• Our proposal was rejected on the basis that producers were unable to shut-in oil and gas “without damaging their formations.”
• A claim made by producer officers and directors who had done nothing about their organizations after many years of investors' demands to remedy the behavior of chronic overproduction due to the lack of production discipline. 
• In April 2020, or within 9 months of the producer's rejection of our specific proposal to deal with the issue of overproduction. Oil prices reached the negative $40 range and producers were forced to shut-in production. 
• A claim they made to their investors was not possible in 2017 to refute the Preliminary Specification. They knowingly misrepresented the facts, it turned out to be incorrect as they always knew it to be. For example, what do producers do when hurricanes threaten the Gulf of Mexico. Shut-in production and evacuate the staff. Or annual gas-plant turnaround, shut-in production.
• With over 25% of the global oil supply shut-in during COVID, no producer subsequently reported any damage had occurred to their formations. 
• Once oil prices recovered, these officers and directors declared that “shale would never be commercial.”
• In 2021 they announced they were beginning the transition of their organizations to clean energy. 

"It may well be that we have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions through efficiency savings, through rationing and as a very, very quick build out of alternatives," Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden told reporters at a conference in Stavanger, Norway. “That this is going to be somehow easy or over, I think is a fantasy we should put aside -- we should confront reality."

• In 2022, 2023 they appeared to realize their error of misdirecting funds. Sold clean energy investments to return to shale. 
• Today we don’t know what business they're in? This is the quality and style of leadership responsible for our economies' energy supply? A responsibility they’re unwilling to recognize, much like their inability to comprehend the need to earn “real” profits these past four decades? Where will we go from here with “muddle through?”
• With a sudden rush to implement SAP at the behest of their "shareholders' demands," it was during July 2023 that producers began parroting the thought that they needed to stop listening to their investors as it has always been "poor advice."

The reality to confront is the industry's dominant "muddle through" culture and strategy. This has helped producers “accept that we can transition to clean energy and discard conventional sources of coal, oil & gas.” Oil & Gas provides 10 to 25 thousand man hours of equivalent mechanical labor per barrel of oil. This amounts to 28 to 71 times the mechanical labor of the entire global population. If we have to ration or conserve this resource, as Mr. Van Beurden asserts, we make decisions about who may eat and work. The officers and directors did not feel obligated to do their job of providing oil & gas to the market, therefore that was the consumer's problem. 

We were also allegedly told we held 50 and 100 year supplies of oil & gas in shale formations available on the North American market a few years ago. This was prior to the unanimous declaration by Shell's former CEO Mr. Van Beurden that shale would never be commercial. In 2021, it was abandoned and sold to invest in clean energy. Now we hear there may only be 10 to 15 more years of usable, drillable shale locations in the U.S. How is this? Oil and gas producers have always focused on reserves. Oil & gas exists in oil & gas men and women's minds. Of which the industry's leadership, such as Mr. Van Beurden prefers chasing fairy tales in the land of perennial losses and the abhorrent accountability of clean energy. Oil & gas reserves depend on economic conditions. At a $5 oil price there’s no oil in the world. At $150, you get a 50-year supply, etc. Technical specifications as to the amount of oil in place are as useless as the estimated remaining usable life of a punch press from a manufacturer. The market will determine its value.

In terms of the value People, Ideas & Objects generate, our Revenue Model provides the lowest ERP system cost in the industry. And that is by charging for software development costs, plus a profit as our fee structure, across the North American producer population. These costs are distributed on a per barrel of oil equivalent production basis. Therefore the industry pays for the one-time costs of ERP software development. A fundamentally more efficient value proposition than any of our competitors that charge each producer individually. Our user community is implementing Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas of our software and services of their service provider organizations. Realizing the remarkable cost savings and associated benefits of the cloud computing paradigm across the accounting and administrative domains of the industry. The substantial fixed costs associated with developing administrative and accounting capabilities and capacities within each and every producer organization are redundant, unshared and unshareable. High overhead costs are, we believe, the secondary reason for the chronic lack of “real” profitability in the industry. 

People, Ideas & Objects Cloud Administration and Accounting for Oil & Gas transforms these non-competitive attributes into variable overhead costs. Production that is not profitable can be shut-in to incur a null operation, no profit or loss. Consequently, overhead of the producer firms and Joint Operating Committees will only be incurred during times of profitable production. Using our Preliminary Specifications decentralized production models price maker strategy, all production will be profitable, everywhere and always. Therefore all overhead is recovered in current operations by passing these costs on to the consumers. A critical difference to today's method of operation where most overhead is capitalized and therefore the cash spent is recovered through depletion over subsequent decades. Leaving cash deficiencies for costs such as rent and administrative salaries etc to be replaced by the investors annual stock issuance!

We also provide value because we're not focused on traditional software company concerns like code and customers. Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas is oriented and focused on the changing business of a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producer. It also includes their associated service industries. This highlights the different motivations of software developers over the long term. With People, Ideas & Objects we generate revenues based on changes and needs producers and others communicate through our user community. We are motivated by continuous software improvement. In the traditional software vendor’s case they are motivated by their code and customer base. The larger their code base, the harder it is to change, which does not produce revenue. And the larger the customer base the more costly any changes become for the software provider to implement across their user base. Coincidentally, these changes to customer software do not generate revenues. Hence, their age and size as a software firm paradoxically leads to increases in development costs and overhead burden. What we have is a contrast and conflict in the dynamic nature of the software itself. This is in terms of the cost to each oil & gas producer and the motivation behind the developer. In addition People, Ideas & Objects uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and specifically Oracle Cloud ERP, which is built on Java, the first object-based ERP system. Therefore People, Ideas & Objects will be the first object-based ERP system available in the North American oil & gas industry, providing additional cost benefits over traditional procedural programming languages when all future object developments are incremental to existing code.

It is in each of these areas that we set the foundation for the material value proposition we provide North American producers. We have valued this in the range of $25.7 to $45.7 trillion over the next 25 years. There are many aspects of our offering that are not qualifiable or quantifiable and they are detailed in the discussion below. Our quantified numbers show that operating the industry on the basis of profitability everywhere and always increases North American producers' earnings by $5.7 trillion. The remaining $20 to $40 trillion of our value proposition describes how much capital will be required over the next 25 years. This is an estimate based on what others have said. In the Preliminary Specifications method of recognizing and passing capital costs on to consumers. Overheads are recovered in the current month of operation. And other cash management techniques have been used to manage the business. Using the same investor dollars captured in property, plant and equipment repeatedly on a cycle that competes with North American capital markets expectations eliminates the need to demand $20 to $40 trillion in new capital from investors. There will be no further need to build balance sheets or put more cash in the ground.

We only include this otherwise redundant business number as part of our value proposition as there has not been any change in industry methods to recognize that a capital intensive industry demands that the consumer's product cost reflects its capital intensive nature. That has not been the case for decades. We've stated this change during the past decade when the Preliminary Specification was available. Investors subsidize consumers' energy use by paying for capital costs. The subsidy amount is reflected on producers' balance sheets in the property, plant and equipment account. Or as we call these costs, they are the unrecognized capital costs of past production. Officers and directors have relied on a steady stream of new investor cash each and every year for decades, declared they’re profitable in the most specious manner and left the assets on the balance sheet for the CEO to run down mainstreet and brag about how big they grew their balance sheet and how much “cash they put in the ground.” Only in oil & gas could one hear such arguments, however we were subjected to a chorus of this each quarter across North America. 

This overreporting of assets has an equal and commensurate effect on over reported profits. High profits attract investors to invest. Ultimately leading to overcapacity and overproduction of oil & gas commodities that are subject to price maker economic principles. This resulted in continued price decreases across these commodity markets intermixed with the occasional and all too frequent comprehensive collapse of commodity prices for the past four decades. The consequence is an industry with a substantial negative present value. It consumes value to fund its operations. Only People, Ideas & Objects et al have identified this issue. Prepared a software solution with the Preliminary Specifications in the form of our decentralized production model's price maker strategy.

Contrasting Visions

People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service provider organizations have painted a viable and profitable vision of how to rebuild the oil & gas economy in North America from the ashes of what remains. We see the destruction, and much of what will happen in the next few years and it is not something people expect. Producer firms are comprehensive failures of tragic proportions. Action is needed to proceed with this software development initiative. From whom, when and where our funding is sourced is not known to us. We only know the one significant criteria to succeed. Funding must come from the oil & gas industry itself. Otherwise, the industry won’t respect these developments, commit to them, and only look for alternatives when the opportunity arises. Only when they have some “skin in the game” can we begin to rebuild the greater oil & gas economy brick by brick, and stick by stick.

The Preliminary Specification is now more than a decade old. What if its existence was no longer available? Would producers pay dividends, stock repurchases or pay off bank debt? What if the threat of using the Preliminary Specification no longer existed in oil & gas? In September 2023 I will be 65 years of age. Producers' officers and directors may be close to making their ideal situation permanent. What they always wanted is just around the corner. Only People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service provider organizations stand in their way. Producers have cash streaming in, unaccountable organizations that could overnight and at a whim be involved in a variety of different businesses. Accounting methods that have been accepted by all concerned in the industry for decades, including the CPA firms, and a culture of “muddle through.” It’s decision time as People, Ideas & Objects believe the producers are moving now to seal their legacy of unaccountability and non performance. Doing so in the selection process of SAP as their tier 1 ERP system. They publicly state that listening to their shareholders is a misguided policy. An attitude that may soon be entrenched.

On the other hand this issue needs to be weighed against far larger issues that are persistent and unaddressed in the industry. The first is the science basis of the business and the "muddle through” approach of dealing with the looming retirements and continued inadequate interest in the university faculties the industry depends upon. The Preliminary Specification addresses this in the only way possible through organizational performance increases due to specialization, the division of labor and Professor Paul Romer's non-rival cost or sharing principles. The most significant part of this issue is leadership itself. As much as we berate them here at People, Ideas & Objects they are critical resources. Their inability to deal with the business may be a precursor to their exit from the industry. My point in raising the age issue regarding People, Ideas & Objects, engineers and geologists and industry leadership. If these points are so protracted that if Humpty Dumpty did fall, all the King's horses and all the King's men...

Oil & gas producers' investors insist that they implement a tier 1 ERP system, such as Oracle Cloud ERP or SAP. The Preliminary Specification base is Oracle Cloud ERP and qualifies for this requirement. SAP is used by a few oil & gas producer organizations and they are currently offering their solution as we speak. SAP’s system is designed for manufacturing companies where the ability to organize first, second, and third tier industry product production, just-in-time is attainable. Major auto manufacturers use it as does any global manufacturing concern and SAP makes them their priority. SAP sells their product to oil & gas producers however does not have an oil & gas solution. On September 12, 2022 SAP hosted their 11th annual oil & gas conference in Houston, and virtually. They published a 2017 white paper reflecting what they’re selling in oil & gas. On page 6 we see they focus on “Paving the Way for Business Model Innovations” indicating to me they don’t have a plan. However we read on.

• Oil, gas and energy companies pursue a bold vision for 2025 to deliver safe, reliable and sustainable energy products and services focused on the customer and enabled by innovation.
• To do this oil, gas and energy companies will implement new business models with a keen focus on sustainable energy transition. This will include investing in renewables, focusing on retail, electric vehicle (EV) charging at fueling stations, and carbon-cost reduction. 
• To manage the magnitude of data volume through production and operations, collaboration on access to, and analysis of data require intelligent technologies such as AI and machine learning. Connected machines and business processes can help realize industry 4.0 aspirations. 
• Larger oil, gas and energy companies will continue to diversify into adjacent industries such as utilities, solar and wind power, and energy storage.

SAP’s white paper shows the focus on Information Technology to solve oil & gas issues. Touching on all the key talking points, yet we find no instance of “accountable, accountability or performance.” This white paper and their Houston conference reflect SAP’s marketing brilliance which has been stellar. It is a study of some of the most effective examples in business. What I see SAP doing here is publicly stating that they’re selling unaccountability to producer officers and directors who want to maintain their chronic lack of accountability. Maintaining and permanently securing a lack of accountability in the organization through ERP software cements their bureaucratic manner and method of operation for the long term. I'm predicting significant SAP sales increases once the September 2022 conference is over. 

Once SAP is implemented, producers will be defined by their officers and directors in whatever business they choose that day. They will be built upon the non-accountability framework that has worked so well for them personally. In terms of “what, how and why” SAP proposes to resolve the oil & gas issues and opportunities there is nothing in their white paper. Rather, it focuses heavily on environmentally-based clean energy transitions that are "safe, reliable, and sustainable". It continues with the unauthorized diversion of oil & gas revenues that oil & gas investors create with their investment in the oil & gas business. Profits will continue to be irrelevant, however this behavior will include distributions to investors as they'll know nothing could be done otherwise. What should also be stated is that without a defined plan in place, SAP’s system will need to define, design and architect their system. A process that took a decade for People, Ideas & Objects as it does for all appropriately built systems. SAP will instead adhere to the current officers' and directors' culture to implement quickly.

The focus on oil & gas at People, Ideas & Objects was unwavering, and they could see the clean energy initiative for what it was. An opportunity to be unaccountable for oil & gas investors' money spent in that direction. There is no opportunity for any of the clean energy initiatives to begin to carry the freight that oil & gas does on a daily basis and we discussed that at length in our July 4, 2019 white paper “Profitable, North American Energy Independence - Through the Commercialization of Shale.” Using the Manhattan Institute's Mark Mills "The 'New Energy Economy:' An Exercise in Magical Thinking" to present the fact that the physics do not support a viable or commercial outcome of either wind, solar or battery technologies. Those who bought the tailor's new clothes through this energy transition are now aware of their purchases' shortcomings. Further pursuit in this direction by oil & gas producers only exposes their continued misuse and abuse of their power, authority and responsibility. After a year of this transition it is evident to me that the alleged investors' push and drive for clean energy was contrived for deceptive purposes.

Some people may say that SAP will struggle to build a solution in an environment where Intellectual Property being commercialized by People, Ideas & Objects exists and must be avoided. That however will be a bureaucratic feature, and not a bug. The Preliminary Specification will become the excuse producers use to justify not enhancing performance accounting or accountability due to "existing IP that legally has to be avoided." This may become their latest, and greatest viable scapegoat of all time. 

When I published in May 2004, organizations were defined, supported and constrained by ERP software. Producers interpreted that as the point where no further developments would be done to any ERP system. Cementing their organizations in bureaucratic stasis. Enabling them to hold onto power for decades longer. Not looking at the need to establish the permanent software development capability of the Preliminary Specification to ensure continued organizational development. Therefore in 2023 the prospective avoidance of People, Ideas & Objects IP will be a further extension of this same logic that precludes producers from ever attaining any level of performance or accountability expected of them.

OCI Request for Proposal, Part I

 Abstract

People, Ideas & Objects, our user community, their service provider organizations and Oracle Cloud ERP are based on providing the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producer with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations in North America. Our approach is business oriented to focus the industry on generating "real" profitability. This is to ensure society has abundant, affordable and reliable energy to fuel their economy. The most powerful economy known to man. Our value proposition is derived from hierarchy's disintermediation. To fully adopt and integrate the industry standard Joint Operating Committee, the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, strategic and innovation framework of the industry. Sound economic principles such as specialization and the division of labor and Professor Paul Romer's "New Growth Theory" regarding non-rival goods have helped establish our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas capability. Eliminating the need for each individual producer to build the same non-competitive capabilities of administrative and accounting expertise on an unshared and unshareable basis. Implementation of our decentralized production model as part of our business model ensures "real" profitability is earned everywhere and always. There are many other attributes of our value proposition such as innovation that cannot readily be quantified and qualified. However, all of these are focused on generating value for all concerned. Where profitability in the primary industry of oil & gas is necessary to ensure that a healthy and prosperous oil & gas economy is maintained and sustained for the long term. 

There are no other financial resources to do so. Governments only spend money taxed on earnings and profits. In general, investors allocate their investments to the most profitable areas of the economy. Oil & gas producers participating in a primary industry must stand on their own and provide for themselves, the service industry and all the subsidiary industries dedicated exclusively to their success. Producers must provide value for their investors, bankers, employees and ensure a healthy and prosperous industry is handed down to others. Profits are the only means to sustain anyone and anything for the long term. To do so takes effort, skill, courage and perseverance. None of these attributes can be pointed to in the current officers and directors of the producers, who coincidentally hold all the authority and responsibility to ensure profitability and accountability are attained, and are the only group who've obtained any personal value from this industry for many decades. These are disconcerting and difficult words aimed directly at those who choose which ERP system to use. However, the destruction and damage they've caused is a fundamental betrayal to all those who have worked to build the industry constructively. Officers and directors have the authority and responsibility to make changes and avoid further catastrophe. We can achieve this by implementing People, Ideas & Objects, our user community, and the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas service, provided by our service providers.

To resolve the current difficulties that plague the North American oil & gas industry, we need to organize an approach to how it will be resolved. That is the work People, Ideas & Objects have completed in publishing the Preliminary Specification. Our approach follows the industry culture contained in the Joint Operating Committee and six other organizational constructs, the overall vision of the Preliminary Specification, our user communities vision which provides them with the authority and responsibility to implement a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable foundation. SAP implementations are designed to cater to a firm's internal policies. Industry culture is defined in the Preliminary Specifications by seven Organizational Constructs consisting of the Joint Operating Committee, Innovation, Markets, Professor Paul Romer's non-rival costs, Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Specialization & the Division of Labor. Markets establish an organizational construct on the basis of price.

This proposed oil & gas organizational structure will be the software product of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. It will also include our user community and their service provider organizations. What we describe as a rebuild of the industry brick by brick and stick by stick. It's not our intention to destroy the industry. Unfortunately the officers and directors of the producer firms have already done so. Software defines and supports society today. Serendipity, spontaneous order, disintermediation and creative destruction have been hamstrung by software that constrains an organization in proverbial cement. This is based on its current process management definition. Any organizational or process change must be orchestrated through software first. Otherwise the organization quickly reverts back to the processes existing in the organization's software definition. 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 officers and directors took this knowledge, never changed the organizations ERP software and therefore secured their methods of management and personal aggrandizement. 

Fast forward to 2023 and People, Ideas & Objects believes this same logic is used again. Oil & Gas investors demanded producers move to a Tier 1 ERP system to enhance profitability and accountability, of which we qualify with Oracle Cloud ERP. Will producer officers and directors use this logic to select SAP with their vision of clean energy and a pliable "blind sleepwalking agents of whomever will feed them" approach to marketing to secure the sale? We believe this would harm People, Ideas & Objects by eliminating the Preliminary Specification as an active software offering for at least a generation. SAP would have to deliberately avoid our Intellectual Property and that would be considered a feature, not a bug by these officers and directors. Providing them with another viable scapegoat as to why they cannot provide the style of accountability or performance being asked of them. Lastly it would ensure the industry maintains the status quo strategy of "muddle along."

Regarding energy difficulties. I feel we do not have a handle on the situation and control is out of reach of these current organizations' officers and directors. Where we are is best explained in a Winston Churchill quote. 

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Background

As pertinent background information, I began this adventure in 1991. I spent the first year promoting Oracle to join our development of client server systems for Canadian oil & gas companies. This initiative failed in February 1997 due to my firm's inability to secure oil & gas producers' commitment. Or in retrospect, I believe now that producers rejected the system due to the high level of accountability we introduced. Oracle subsequently tried Oracle Energy and found the same outcome, no participation from the producers for the same reasons, and left in 2000. In a similar transaction, IBM sold their oil & gas specific ERP system in 2004 - 2005 for the same lack of producer support. There is an inherent level of commitment evident in Oracle's near decade long actions regarding oil & gas ERP systems that is not evident in SAP’s. A 22 page white paper and three day conference are superficial in comparison to the Preliminary Specifications 380 thousand words, a viable business model and an active user community that began its development in 2014. Accountable ERP systems have been deliberately avoided for at least three decades of my involvement. Those who offer such products have not benefited due to their specific pursuit of enhanced producer performance, accountability and integrity.

Oracle’s market capitalization is now $314 billion and it is the premier ERP provider in the world according to Gartner. SAP’s is $156 billion. I do not recall SAP’s efforts to build an oil & gas solution like Oracle or IBM had. Together Oracle and People, Ideas & Objects can build the Cloud Administrative & Accounting for Oil & Gas to solve these critical issues in this industry. And do so by first avoiding the issue of these officers and directors of North American-based producer firms and their desire to maintain their systemic lack of accountability. 

Looking at the decision to purchase and implement an ERP system. It’s expensive, time-consuming, affects firm management and tightens compliance and governance. It holds officers and directors accountable for their actions and decisions. Accounting is about reporting performance. As I’ve documented throughout these writings, the oil & gas producer officers and directors have morphed their accounting to record value. They've chirped their “building balance sheets” and "putting cash in the ground" mantra. People, Ideas & Objects believe that capital intensive industry products contain high levels of capital costs within the product price. By implementing the Preliminary Specification, industry would adopt our methods. This would allow producers to perform, provide accountability and compete for capital on the North American capital markets. ERP decisions are made at the board of directors level based on officers' recommendations. Due to the high cost, time and disruption in producer firms that undertake ERP implementations, this level of organizational involvement is mandatory to make the decision. Once the decision is made it would not even be considered again for at least seven years and only if management were dissatisfied. 

I became aware of a specific request for a Tier 1 ERP implementation by investors a few years ago. I am unaware of how long it has been since it was requested. What we do know is that unlike the move to clean energy which was implemented the night the alleged investors allegedly asked. In what I’ve described was an unauthorized manner, we only recently saw what was predicted for SAP uptake. This is wholly consistent with the refusal to provide competitive investment performance through appropriate profitability for decades. On the one hand, they move into unrelated, uncompetitive industries with no performance record and massive government involvement to compensate for value generation. With no plans or strategy for how to turn clean energy into a success, officers and directors grant themselves the authority to proceed without shareholder approval. Producer officers and directors will be able to justify these actions with the simple viable scapegoat that they’re “saving the planet,” and the reason they’re not profitable is “they haven’t figured it out yet” for their continuing poor performance. Focusing on oil & gas and enhancing its performance doesn’t intrigue them for some reason. Less than 2 years ago, they abandoned shale as a "noncommercial" resource. It is always the officers and directors' primary and only choice to move on to the next "great thing." Not once in their history have they sought to rehabilitate an asset's performance to profitability. Alternatively enhancing the level of accountability of their actions by implementing the August 2012 publication of the Preliminary Specification, our user community and their service provider organizations is obviously never going to happen if SAP meets the Tier 1 ERP requirement demanded by their investors and selected by the producer officers and directors. 

In late 2022 and 2023 we saw many clean energy investments suddenly lose favor among the North American producer population. Realization of the damage they are doing to their own organizations' capabilities in earth science and engineering. And certainly after being destroyed by the producers themselves, the service industry cannot justify capital expenditures when oil & gas leadership saunters off the stage chasing the latest shiny “clean energy” object. In the normal business world this lack of performance would be disqualifying for continuation of the management. The level of destruction is truly epic. Moving off into unrelated industries unauthorized is definitely grounds for dismissal. And now they’re returning due to potentially losing their personal financial benefits in the form of oil & gas cash flow. This should mark the end of this leadership. That they've never understood why performance or accountability are issues. The purpose and need of the Preliminary Specification shows no redeeming value for the officer and director class in North American oil & gas. 

I’ll emphasize the year I started this was 1991, 1992 with Oracle. Both ours and their initiatives failed due to producers' inability to participate? Yes, that’s a question. The issue was not brought up by investors in 2020, or whenever they first requested ERP systems upgraded to Tier 1. This is a culture, a behavior and an infestation across the North American producer population of officers and directors. It is designed to maintain their enhanced personal financial compensation. Producer firms must implement the Preliminary Specification to wrest control from the hands of a small cadre of officers and directors that have found the source of their personal wealth is through a deliberate, destructive and dangerous level of unaccountability. One that has caused enormous risk in societies' ability to source profitable energy independence from secure, reliable and affordable oil & gas. This risk is likely to become permanent if they implement SAP’s ERP software.

I would like to discuss those ERP providers that have been in the market throughout this time and the stellar efforts they’ve done. Producers can avoid Tier 1 ERP providers and maintain their history as I’ve briefly described here. There are ERP providers that cater exclusively to oil & gas. ERP systems providers have been in business for years and decades. They too have experienced abuse by producer officers and directors who seek deceptive accountability. To suggest these ERP providers have been put on a shoestring diet would be unfair and more appropriate to describe it as a second hand shoestring diet. A common tactic was signing a service contract and never paying for the application. Never sponsored any changes to their systems. Producer officers and directors have the systems they want providing them with the obscurity they desire. Why would they change that? Ensuring that their accounting and ERP systems were always inadequate. And I say that with all due respect to my competitors who have done the impossible in the most hostile of business environments. And should they have provided the accountability necessary, they too would have joined People, Ideas & Objects on the outside looking in.

Let me suggest a hypothesis that builds upon our situation today. If oil & gas producers had the appropriate Tier 1 ERP providers in place for the past decades of this history, would the industry have fallen into the financial, operational and political crisis that we see the North American oil & gas industry experiencing today? Is it the lack of effective ERP systems, including SAP, that leads to inaccurate producer results? This has enabled the industry to fall into the disaster and destruction it currently is? I’ll reiterate that the lack of effective ERP systems is the deliberate and desired outcome of producers' officers and directors' actions over decades. Why would only People, Ideas & Objects submit specifications?

Producers should ask themselves. Will consumers demonstrate the same tolerance, patience and perseverance that both their oil & gas investors and People, Ideas & Objects have displayed these past years? Or will they want answers sooner and hold producers accountable for their energy demands and whatever else is on their minds? Will they demand more than “muddle through” as an answer, and who will they turn to to heat their homes and earn their living? Having a permanent, firmly established SAP-compliant, unaccountable organization is a greater concern for consumers than for oil & gas investors. Investors could always sell their interests. I would advise these officers and directors to rethink their approach and ask themselves, just because they can continue with their unaccountable ways, does that mean they should? No one questions oil & gas reserves due to shale formations. There is no doubt that oil & gas producers possess the capacity to spend investor money to increase deliverability. What’s different today is that investors aren’t volunteering for the “dupe” role anymore. And producers have never earned “real” profits. History may not repeat itself. Will there be oil & gas reserves everywhere, and not a drop to burn?

In writing this I fully understand the implications of doing so. Making this a failed RFP a self-fulfilling prophecy is not what I intended. This is my attempt to highlight the risks we may face by cementing the established bureaucracy for at least the seven years SAP will be present. Who will step up if People, Ideas & Objects fail in the market, yet the IP of the Preliminary Specification will need to be accounted for in any future solution? And even if someone felt they could provide a better solution, would they lead their product forward with enhanced performance and accountability? In the same way Oracle and People, Ideas & Objects were ostracized and vilified in the past?

I also want to clarify, it should not be misunderstood that I’m conceding the point. After 32 years, that’s not even on the table. What I am stating is that the stakes for all concerned will grow exponentially more difficult in what appears to me to be this next phase of our journey. More difficult for all those associated with People, Ideas & Objects but also for all those who depend upon North American producers in some form. We are heading to what appears to me to be a “quick decision" by producers to adopt SAP based on satisfying their investors' input, much like they adopted investors' clean energy demands. We should ask these producers if those phantom investors that demanded the transition to clean energy ponied up and actively supported these activities. Returning from the clean energy horizon is like slinking back with their tail between their legs. Although SAP meets the general requirements of a Tier 1 ERP system, it's a decision made in the immediate interest of officers and directors' continued, deliberate and destructive lack of profitability and accountability. As with so much of their activities, it’s specious. SAP will also be the least costly in the short term, however far more consequential to the industry's profitability, accountability and prosperity. To suggest that People, Ideas & Objects may benefit from the producer firms' decision is an argument that doesn’t comprehend the value destroyed by this deliberate bureaucratic sloth. It also doesn’t understand the relationship People, Ideas & Objects have with producer bureaucrats.

OCI Knowledge & Learning, Part VII

 Markets Replacing Bureaucracies

We see with the decline in natural gas prices that the bureaucracy is not attuned to the market or the “price” system. Officers and directors are more comfortable when they have control of everything and it operates as it should. Unfortunately for them the scope of their authority is not as broad as it once was. What other areas has the market sent price signals that officers and directors refuse to hear? We can only imagine. The fact of the matter is that the oil & gas producer and the Joint Operating Committee need to be attuned to the marketplace to better understand their business. They also need better Information Technologies so that they can know that they are not making any money on natural gas that sells below $6.00. In the last item of this next paragraph, we learn that the bureaucracies' lack of hearing is symptomatic of their species. Quotations are from Professor Richard Langlois' book “The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New Economy." 

As Chandler tells us on the first page of The Visible Hand, two characteristics set the managerial corporation apart from earlier modes: (1) it is overseen by salaried professionals rather than by owners, and (2) it comprises multiple units or stages of production each of which could in principle have stood on its own as a separate organization. The last characteristic is really the essential one. In the large corporation, management supersedes the price system as a method of coordinating stages of production. p. 8.

It is therefore within the nature of bureaucracies not to listen to markets. If natural gas prices hit $2.15, it is simply a matter of ignoring these signals and producing as usual. That’s the solution. The aim is to create sympathy for poor earnings by looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Langlois believes the Visible Hand of management is replaced by the Vanishing Hand of the marketplace. I would suggest that in oil & gas the transition hasn’t happened fast enough. 

The question, then, is clear: why did managerial coordination supersede the price system? Why did “managerial capitalism” supersede “market capitalism” in many important sectors of the American economy beginning in the late nineteenth century? p. 9.

In this next quote Professor Langlois captures the essence of what the oil & gas industry needs to grow and prosper. These elements are captured in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules of the Preliminary Specification. 

Economic growth is fundamentally about the emergence of new economic opportunities. The problem of organization is that of bringing existing capabilities to bear on new opportunities or of creating the necessary new capabilities. Thus, one of the principal determinants of the observed form of organization is the character of the opportunity – the innovation – involved. The second critical factor is the existing structure of relevant capabilities, including both the substantive content of those capabilities and the organizational structure under which they are deployed in the economy. p. 13.

When an earth scientist or engineer can deploy a capability with the ease of calling a play, as in our football analogy. This is the opportunity in the Preliminary Specification. Economic growth results. Having a listing of the capabilities available from the participating producers of the Joint Operating Committee. The Knowledge & Learning module offers economic opportunities. Seeing that producer X has developed an enhanced capability to conduct Y's operation may motivate the Joint Operating Committee to deploy the capability. This may enhance its production. 

If we look back to the previous modules we recall the discussion around moving from the “high throughput production” model to the “decentralized production” model that is being conducted in the Preliminary Specification. Essentially the “decentralized production” model has all production and overhead costs matching revenues. So when production was shut-in, there would be no production, administration or overhead costs associated with those shut-in properties. 

The current “high throughput production” model has producer overhead costs fixed. These costs remain fixed despite the volume of production and are difficult to adjust to any change in the underlying business. The “high throughput production” model is how North American oil & gas is configured. In the past, it was how management provided value in the organization. That "high throughput production” is incapable of providing value today is a matter of the time and place we find ourselves in. Using the “high throughput production” model requires officers and directors to disregard the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the oil & gas industry. It cannot do both. "High throughput production” requires operatorship to be granted to one partner for operation of the property. From Professor Langlois.

Industrial structure is really about two interrelated but conceptually distinct systems: the technology of production and the organizational structure that directs production. These systems jointly must solve the problem of value: how to deliver the most utility to ultimate consumers at the lowest cost. Industrial structure is an evolutionary design problem. It is also a continually changing problem, one continually posed in new ways by factors like population, real income, and the changing technology of production and transaction. It was one of the founding insights of transaction-cost economics that the technological system does not fully determine the organizational system (Williamson 1975). Organizations — governance structures — bring with them their own costs, which need to be taken into account. But technology clearly affects organization. This is essentially Chandler’s claim. The large-scale, high-throughput technology of the nineteenth century “required” vertical integration and conscious managerial attention. In order to explicate this claim, we need to explore the nature of the evolutionary design problem that industrial structure must solve. p. 50.

With the Preliminary Specifications adoption of the “decentralized production” model recognizes and supports the Joint Operating Committee. All the change elements are in place. Industry culture uses the Joint Operating Committee. This is an industry based on partnerships and the closer we move to that culture the greater alignment (speed, innovation, accountability and profitability) we will achieve. This next quote should be read twice with either the hierarchy or the Joint Operating Committee in mind. 

And there are certainly examples of this. But it is also possible that a structure of organization can persist because of “path dependence.” A structure can be self-reinforcing in ways that make it difficult to switch to other structures. For example, the nature of learning within a vertically integrated structure may reinforce integration, since learning about how to make that structure work may be favored over learning about alternative structures. A structure may also persist simply because the environment in which it operates is not rigorous enough to demand change. And organizations can sometimes influence their environments — by soliciting government regulation, for instance — in ways that reduce competitive rigors. p. 58.

This discussion emphasizes the importance of the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules in defining how the industry operates. These modules remove the task of how the industry is operated from the hands of the officers and directors and move the operations to the Joint Operating Committee. It is therefore a critical module. 

Over time, two things happen: (a) markets get thicker and (b) the urgency of buffering levels off and then begins to decline. In part, the urgency of buffering declines because technological change begins to lower the minimum efficient scale of production. But it also declines because improvements in coordination technology — whether applied within a firm or across firms — lower the cost (and therefore the urgency) of buffering. p. 78.

As a point of interest when I read this last quote I became concerned about the natural gas business in North America. The size of North American natural gas storage has become so large as to dwarf any real purpose for its existence. What appears to be another officer and director capital incineration project was the rushing in a few decades to overbuild natural gas storage facilities. The subsequent sale of the facilities to midstream companies has put the business out of reach. They've effectively become a competitor with immediate, high deliverability to urban markets. I originally wrote this argument in August 2012 when natural gas prices became depressed after the proliferation of shale gas and the global financial crisis in 2008. Whether it was the overbuilding of storage, the transfer of ownership into others hands, or the overbuilding of shale gas or an all of the above strategy. What we know since August 2012 is that natural gas pricing has declined so dramatically as to be surreal. Natural gas traditionally trades between 6 to 1 with oil prices. Has grown as high as 40 to 1 and we’ve heard not a single concern or mention of this issue outside of People, Ideas & Objects. Only we have a plan to restore natural gas prices to historic traditional levels. How can producers in a market economy get market prices for their products again? The answer is through an industry wide deployment of People, Ideas & Objects decentralized production model. 

Conclusion

As with the Research & Capabilities module, I am very satisfied with the Knowledge & Learning module content. It is through this module that we move knowledge to where decision rights reside, the Joint Operating Committee. In the latter part of the specification, we isolate and berate the officers and directors of the current oil & gas companies. Officers and directors have a unique characteristic that is easily identified and criticized. I for one am happy to initiate the discussion. But the larger point of discussion is the war between bureaucracy in every industry and Information Technologies as represented by the Internet. As I have stated I’ve placed my bet on who will win this war, as I would suggest everyone else should determine which side they are on. 

Knowledge-based systems fell out of favor several decades ago due to their inability to capture organizational needs. Professor Richard N. Langlois' research has defined organizational needs. Points such as the inability to capture tacit knowledge, moving decision rights to where knowledge exists and many of the other points he raises. These points we've incorporated into both the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules.

What is needed now is the creativity and innovation of our user community to implement their "knowledge, experience, skills and ideas" into the foundation these modules have established. Dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producers desperately need them.

Software's role in society is increasing. We are still in the beginning stages of what can be done. For an industry such as oil & gas to continue without the software development capabilities that People, Ideas & Objects is proposing, and the organizational structure focused on the Joint Operating Committee, the prospects look dim. Our claim is that we provide oil & gas producers with the most profitable operations.

To begin with, we provide our software in the most cost-effective way possible. That is charging our subscriber base for one-time development costs. And secondly, higher economic output requires higher specialization and division of labor. To organize specialization and division of labor, it requires the use of the software specified in the Preliminary Specification. There is no other method to organize a higher level of specialization and division of labor. The hierarchy is exhausted. And lastly I should point out that $94 billion in 2012 lost revenues and profits due to not using the decentralized production model. These have proven to be annual losses incurred under the current administration. Nothing has been done to recognize, remediate or rehabilitate what is so obviously wrong with their administration. "Muddle through" is the solution to all their concerns.

When undertaking a large project such as the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. And we have estimated the total software development cost of $15 billion U.S. in its first commercial release. There is a need to maintain a sense of urgency for the people involved through to the end of the project. As we know, most people will remain motivated as long as the money keeps flowing. So how do we ensure money flows? It is through the fact that we provide the most profitable means of oil & gas operations that we can motivate producers to maintain their sense of urgency. This is in keeping this project funded and moving forward to its conclusion. Their alternative is bureaucracy and we see how well they’re doing. Owning oil & gas assets may not be enough in the future. It will also be required to access software that makes the oil & gas asset profitable. This is the importance of software in today's society. 

People, Ideas & Objects is a derivative of Professor Paul Romer “New Growth Theory," which states that economic growth is the result of People, Ideas and Things. We just exchanged “things” for “objects” as we are object-based software developers. I highly recommend reading his interview on “New Growth Theory” ; it will provide you with an understanding of the theory and how it pertains to the Preliminary Specification. It indicates that we need the right institutions. “This new theory says technological change comes about with the right institutions.” Oil and gas being one of the most technical of all industries. I've indicated that we completed the Preliminary Specification in August 2012. We are pleased that we selected the name People, Ideas & Objects. We have incorporated Professor Romer's sharing model throughout the industry reorganization. Areas such as Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas offer a single source of capabilities for North American producers. This shared facility reduces overhead substantially, and makes them variable based on profitable production. The news is that Professor Paul Romer won the Nobel Prize in 2018 for "New Growth Theory" which is captured in his paper "Endogenous Technical Change," and expressed in this 2000 Reason magazine article.

Within the Knowledge & Learning module we have the capabilities of the producer firms that participate in the Joint Operating Committee. Each capability contains the knowledge, skills, experience and ideas of the people who are part of that producer firm and the service industry representatives. As we have learned “knowledge begets capability, and capability begets action." Quotes are from Professor Richard Langlois book “The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler and the New Economy.”

Indeed, the job of the entrepreneur is precisely to introduce new knowledge. The “Circular Flow of Economic Life” is a state in which knowledge is not changing. Economic growth occurs at the hands of entrepreneurs, who bring into the system knowledge that is qualitatively new – knowledge not contained in the existing economic configuration. p. 27.

Here we begin to see the role that people have in the makeup of the oil & gas industry. And to sum it all up, it is everything. One also needs to consider the role of computers in these “actions” and that it amounts to not very much. People, Ideas & Objects divides the jobs between what people do well, thinking, generation of ideas, leadership, collaborating, deciding, learning to list only a few. It leaves memory and processing to computers. 

There has to be a mechanism by which new knowledge enters the system. And that mechanism cannot be rational calculation, for as David Hume (1978, p. 164) long ago observed, “no kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea.” p. 27.

There is much to be done in the industry and much of it involves blazing trails. People will need to work hard. The challenges and opportunities are of historical significance and will require dedication from many people. 

What has been done already has the sharp-edged reality of all things which we have seen and experienced; the new is only the figment of our imagination. Carrying out a new plan and acting according to a customary one are things as different as making a road and walking along it. p. 27.

One of the difficulties we see in oil & gas is the systemic lack of accountability. Whether that is at the level of officers and directors and the inability to act. To hide in the crowd of other producers who pursue the same strategy of “muddle through” or migrate towards the same spending patterns. The same spending patterns are seen in natural gas storage, shale gas, shale oil, heavy oil or any other aspect of the business. This is until that newly formed business is over-built to such an extent that it is rendered useless. Officers and directors have been raised in this industry culture over four to five decades. Where the ability to account for a property's performance is lost in the hierarchy. Experiencing this culture through their formative years, these officers and directors assume the level of accountability they’ve provided throughout their careers will continue to be adequate. 

By recognizing the Joint Operating Committee operational decision-making authority. The processes and capabilities selected by the partnership in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules will be made by those designated individuals of each of the participating producers. Therefore the "lessons learned" will be able to be captured and those that make the decisions will be able to deal with what was learned as a consequence of their actions. No one is looking for scalps, we are looking for an effective accountability process that will ensure that what is learned is built upon and any negative consequences can be avoided through duplication throughout the producer firm.