OCI Partnership Accounting, Part V

 The Decentralized Production Model

Traditional oil & gas accounting systems seek to identify and record operations costs and allocate them to the rightful owners. And these are the objectives of the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. We are also seeking to transform producers from a “high throughput production” model to a “decentralized production” model where operations and overhead costs decline in line with revenues. And then during periods of low commodity prices, if the marginal costs of the property are not covered by revenues, production is shut-in. And when the property is shut-in, royalty, operating, administrative and accounting costs track revenues. Thus, while shut-in the property will report a null operation, with no profit or loss. This is necessary in the highly volatile pricing situations the commodity markets experience as a result of oil & gas commodities being subject to economic principles of price makers. As Professor Langlois describes the model in his book “Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New Economy.”

In a world of decentralized production, most costs are variable costs; so, when variations or interruptions in product flow interfere with output, costs decline more or less in line with revenues. But when high-throughput production is accomplished by means of high-fixed-cost machinery and organization, variations and interruptions leave significant overheads uncovered. p. 58.

In the Petroleum Lease Marketplace we have the “Marginal Production Threshold Interface” which enables partners within a Joint Operating Committee to agree on a pricing point where production would be curtailed. We have also discussed in the Resource Marketplace module the use of a Production Accountant and other roles provided by service providers. Where service provider costs to the Joint Operating Committee are variable based on the property producing profitably. How these variable overhead costs would be reduced to zero during shut-in periods. What we haven’t discussed in detail is the need to charge the Joint Operating Committee directly for Production Accountants and other service provider charges. This will be a change due to the reorganization of administrative and accounting resources to the service providers and the transition to the decentralized production model. 

Many of these costs would have traditionally been incurred by the “operator” as administrative overhead; and were to be covered by the various provisions of calculating overhead allowances for the operator. These overhead allowances will be eliminated in the future due to service providers billing directly to the Joint Operating Committee. Any producer on the Joint Operating Committee may also incur administrative and accounting costs. Either directly by their staff or through a service provider. Either way, they'll be directly chargeable to the Joint Operating Committee. Joint Operating Committee costs include production, revenue, or partnership accounting. There would also be costs associated with the administrative areas of the production and exploration activities done on the property. 

During our review of Professor Richard Langlois, we learned that markets are ideal for sourcing producers' capabilities. That would be the case for administrative roles too. By hiring individuals in a dedicated manner, overhead costs are incurred during the time production is shut-in. By hiring service providers the costs associated with these administrative duties would be reduced to zero when production is shut-in. Attaining the “decentralized production” model benefits in terms of the properties operating and overhead costs. 

As we noted in the transition to a “decentralized production” model, it would enable the innovative oil & gas producer to match operational and overhead costs to any decline in revenues due to production being shut-in. By using accounting and administrative service providers the various Joint Operating Committees could control their costs if commodity prices were unfavorable. We want to discuss the configuration of those accounting and administrative service providers and how they will fulfill the needs of innovative oil & gas producers. 

As we discuss Service Providers, we emphasize their independence from any specific producer. With the elimination of the designation of "operator" from a single producer on the Joint Operating Committee no accounting, production or exploration administration is provided to the Joint Operating Committee in the manner that it is today. As a result, the way work is approached in the industry changes fundamentally. It is liberating when we consider the use of technology available today and the standardization of processes in the oil & gas industry. A Joint Operating Committee is therefore free to engage a service provider to fulfill these administrative duties. This is independent of any participating producers on a Joint Operating Committee.

From the accounting perspective we have reviewed the example of the Production Accounting role and how that could be specialized to the point where a service provider works in one geographical area for a large number of Joint Operating Committees. That is the most logical way to organize that type of work. We also discussed royalty accounting requirements. And how a service provider could specialize in that specific royalty legislation. This would enable producers that use that service provider to pay the lowest possible royalty obligations. And we have discussed an accounting service provider that specializes in SEC compliance requirements. The point being that we are seeing a further division of labor in the types of accounting service providers that specialize in a variety of different criteria for oil & gas producers. This is a necessary step in the evolution of the oil & gas industry's economic output. Further division of labor and specialization are the only means for an economy to expand output. 

With the specialization of individual service providers based on unique accounting specialities. [I’m not familiar with production or exploration administrative needs and therefore can’t comment on those. These would apply as well however.] A Joint Operating Committee would engage these People, Ideas & Objects authorized service providers to provide for the services required for their property. They could choose a regional Production Accountant. A revenue and royalty accountant known for keeping royalties down. And if the price of natural gas drops to the threshold price determined by the Joint Operating Committee, to where the facility will be shut-in, these accounting service providers are not engaged during that time and incur no billings for the property. 

The alternative is for each producer to hire the necessary accounting staff as they do now. This is bureaucratic and wasteful in that it builds capacities in each firm to handle X contingencies. The problem is that each firm only needs those capabilities for a few hundred hours a year. These capabilities are recreated within each producer firm and are unshareable between producers. Locking in unused and unusable capacity within each producer firm. It's time to look at alternatives, and the time to look is when we design systems for the Joint Operating Committee. 

We will simplify and reorganize oil & gas producers' administrative and accounting processes. Closer to the practical realities of the day we find that many administrative and accounting functions are driven by standards of practice and regulations. These standards of practice are critical elements in the market supporting institutions necessary for administrative and accounting firms to operate in the manner recently described here. It is the capabilities of the administrative and accounting marketplace, the skills, knowledge, experience and ideas that the Joint Operating Committees will acquire through what Professor Richard Langlois and others call Transaction Cost Economics. A concise summary of the concept is provided in Professor Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark’s paper “Where do Organizations Come From? A Network Design Perspective of the Theory of the Firm.” 

...objects that are transacted must be standardized and counted to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved. Also in a transaction, there must be valuation on both sides and a backward, compensatory transfer - consideration paid by the buyer to the seller. Each of these activities - standardizing, counting, valuing, compensating - adds a new set of tasks and transfers to the overall task and transfer network. Thus it is costly to convert even the simplest transfer into a transaction. p. 15.

However, within a system such as the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification, the costs associated with standardizing, counting, valuing and compensating a new set of tasks and transferring them into a transaction are minimal due to the advanced use of Information Technologies. These costs are incurred by both the service provider and the Joint Operating Committee and are for their mutual benefit. If the accounting service provider posts a journal entry for this month's revenue for a number of Joint Operating Committees, the transaction costs are minimal once the initial engineering of the system is complete. Producers reduce their focus to the development and deployment of their distinct competitive advantages of earth science & engineering capacities and capabilities, and their land & asset base. The benefit comes to the service provider when their competitive advantages become their primary concern.

The user and Producer need to deploy knowledgeable in their own domains, but each needs only a little knowledge about the other's. If labor is divided between two domains and most task-relevant information is hidden in each one, then only a few, relatively simple transfers of material, energy and information need to pass between the domains. The overall network structure will have a thin crossing point at the juncture of the two sub-networks. Furthermore, because the transfers are relatively few and not complex, mundane transaction costs will be low at the thin crossing point. Thus, other things being equal, thin crossing points are good places to locate transactions. pp. 17 - 18.

And

Placing a transaction - a shared definition, a means of counting, and a means of payment - at the completed transfer point allows the decentralized magic of the price system to go to work. p. 22.

We have discussed how the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification is designed to accommodate the needs of producers, suppliers and vendors in the service industry. This is in addition to society and individuals. These administrative and accounting service providers will need special interfaces to process their work with the producer firms and Joint Operating Committees that employ them. For instance, if a Production Accounting service provider is providing services to all of the Joint Operating Committees at three major gas plants, they might want to have special interfaces that display the information in different formats to what any one of those individual Joint Operating Committees or producers might want to look at the information. These types of interfaces will support further division of labor and specialization. This is a founding principle of the service providers' organization. To expect that they will fit within the generic system configuration of what a “producer” needs would be incorrect. This is another reason why People, Ideas & Objects provides permanent ERP software development capability for the innovative oil & gas industry. 

We have also discussed in the Accounting Voucher module the design of transactions. This work of determining where the transaction point should occur is part of that process. It is more complex and detailed than it appears. If done appropriately it can have significant process efficiencies on both the producer or Joint Operating Committee, and service provider sides of the transaction. 

The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on... Frederick Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” (1945).

Through the process of moving the industry to a “decentralized production” model as we propose in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. We have matched the operational and actual overhead costs of the Joint Operating Committee to the property's production and revenues. Now we have achieved a dynamic where no production occurs on any property within the industry that has not attained profitable operations. As prices decline, unprofitable production is removed from the market. And as prices rise production would return to the market when profitable. It would be at this point that the market would achieve a certain dynamic that is not present today. And oil & gas producers could claim that their operations were capable of providing returns to their investors that were real, everywhere and always. 

Discussion of the Decentralized Production Model will continue in the next post.

OCI Partnership Accounting, Part IV

 The Work Order system as a tool for innovation

We are discussing the role that the Work Order system would have in clearing up the administrative minutiae of the accounting related issues of the Partnership Accounting module in the Preliminary Specification. I want to continue with that discussion and ask what it has to do with innovation? Let's look at the Work Order system from the perspective of a successful producer in the marketplace that has developed an earth science & engineering capability. The CEO is approached by one of their engineers who hears of several other producers who are conducting a study on something of interest to their firm. They are looking for other participants to join in and want the engineer that brought the news to join in the project. Assuming everyone of the producers is using the Work Order system they can pool the resources they have within the Work Order to manage the project. The firm committed to a 10% share of total costs and offset those costs with engineers' time, office space and computer resources. (Note all of these producers' costs are pre-approved and budgeted from other accounts.) With the Work Order producers could make these commitments subject to the other 90% being committed to.

We have here the means by which people working within the industry can commit to programs and projects in a manner that is natural to their business. This is the way systems should work today. What we have today is an impediment in the industry for producers who feel that participation in the study with other producers would be worthwhile. However, the accounting, approval and accountability nightmare will haunt them for the next three quarters. It will subject them to regulatory oversight that questions their moral integrity. So instead the project doesn’t get proposed, funded, participated in or done.

In Professor Dosi’s paper “The Sources, Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation” he discusses the role these administrative minutiae have on innovation.

The discussion will aim to identify (a) the main characteristics of the innovative process, (b) the factors that are conducive to or hinder the development of new processes of production and new products, and (c) the processes that determine the selection of particular innovations and their effects on industrial structures. p.1121.

There are financial resources available in our example. Motivation exists within the organization to do an outstanding job on the project. What happens is bureaucracy gets in the way and slows things down and makes it a task that requires superhuman effort to even try. And maybe one or two projects will get done each year out of sheer will. But what is needed is the ability to conduct a volume of projects far exceeding one or two, and that is beyond the scope of the organizational context as producers are organized today. Without ERP systems to define and support these innovative processes and ad hoc organizations, these processes will not spontaneously appear.

We discussed how one producer could participate in a study with other producers by setting up a Work Order to capture their involvement. Their contribution involved one engineer, office space and computer time. That they would contribute some cash is also a possibility as they signed on for 10% of the projected costs. I want to discuss the other producers' involvement and how the Work Order system, being a multi-organizational system, can capture the different ways in which each producer will participate and account for these differences within the People, Ideas & Objects Partnership Accounting module.

The emphasis remains on enhancing innovation among producers. Collaborations and interactions between producers and industry participants will lead to many innovations in the future. The impediment to doing these as a result of the bureaucracy and the current suite of accounting systems in use in the oil & gas industry is what I want to contrast in this scenario using the Work Order. It's time in this day and age that systems become as sophisticated and complex as what is described here. This is so that innovation in the earth science & engineering disciplines can occur. Professor Giovanni Dosi expands on this point further in the following quotation from “Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation.”

Additional issues include the conditions controlling occupational and geographical mobility and or consumer promptness / resistance to change, market conditions, financial facilities and capabilities and the criteria used to allocate funds. Microeconomic trends in the effects on changes in relative prices of inputs and outputs, including public policy. (regulation, tax codes, patent and trademark laws and public procurement.) p.1121.

The producers are interested in participating in the project. Some want to contribute a variety of different resources, some have specialized capabilities that are critical to the project and others are more or less along for the ride and are willing to participate by paying cash. Some have an AFE that has been approved that directs funds to pay for their participation. Some companies incur the costs as part of their annual engineering budget. Some companies have a working interest partner that is willing to share the costs over Joint Operating Committees. The combinations and permutations of how a Work Order gets financed and funded are unlimited when we consider the number of different ways producers can participate.

To begin, we must have a Work Order system that takes into account the information from these various parties and assimilates the understanding of the deal from the five or six people who met to initiate this project. Each must codify how their participation in the costs is funded and costed in their People, Ideas & Objects Partnership Accounting modules Work Order. All of the participants use one Work Order, or in this case an Accounting Voucher, that is shared across all of the producers. This agreement understanding must be captured within the Work Order system before approval by all producers. As with all Accounting Vouchers, the accounting details need to be coded, as well as the sources of funds. Within the Preliminary Specification we are moving away from traditional transaction recording. Automation is the focus and this can be completed through Designing Transactions accounting features. This way the system can process charges within the firm in an accurate and timely manner. For any charges that are above the threshold that a firm is willing to commit to, that implies that another firm's cash commitment would be provided to cover those costs. The Work Order should make these cash transactions or equalizations between these producers as a result of document approval. The point of the exercise is that once the Work Order is approved, the understanding of the deal, as captured by the interface, or the designed transaction, is executed.

As I indicated, an accountant's ability to follow on with the necessary accounting for these transactions requires significant recreation of the “deal” and the time of the parties who conceived of the deal in the first place. A bureaucratic waste of time. The Work Order interface should be sophisticated enough to capture the deal substance. I understand the myriad ways to do these and the difficulty in making an interface that captures them. That I don’t think is the difficult part. What I think would be the difficult part is designing an interface that provides these services intuitively. An interface that conveys the deal's substance. I, however, know it can be done. The reason it hasn’t been done is that the budget for software development like this has not been set out. It's at times like these that we should revisit our revenue model and rethink the People, Ideas & Objects approach. This is based on our projected budget.

We used the scenario in engineering, however it could just as easily be used in geology or any other area of oil & gas interest. Alternatively, it could include the supplier or vendor marketplace to form a working group. The importance of the Work Order is that the producer or participant can designate how they want to participate in the working group. As part of their approval process, they identify the source of the funds and where the costs will ultimately be allocated. This is according to their organization. Each participant or producer in the working group conducts this, all within the same interface for the same Work Order. 

One of the most obvious areas that this interface will interact with the other modules is the Security & Access Control module. Access to the Work Order will require a certain period to recruit participants. And then it will be closed to everyone but existing working group members. Only those who are within the working group, or are subsequently granted direct access can participate directly in the working group.

With the Security & Access Control module we also inherit Industrial Command & Control that allows people to impose a chain of command across the working group. This might be something they want to do if they have a difficult task or a large group of people. The opportunity to do so is available to them if they so desire as this will be part of the Security & Access Control modules core functionality.

The designation of the source of funds and where costs will be allocated is coded directly to those accounts. The Work Order incorporates Accounting Voucher elements into its operation. Each producer's accounting system will be charged, upon approval of the Work Order, according to how they coded the Work Order. As a result, it will inherit many Accounting Voucher module attributes.

I see these working groups, as we’ve called them here, as an essential element of how an innovative oil & gas industry identifies and solves its problems. Professor Dosi states “In very general terms, technological innovation involves or is the solution to problems.” Dosi defines this as “In other words, an innovative solution to a certain problem involves “discovery” (of the problem) and “creation” since no general algorithm can be derived from the information about the problems. Solutions to technological problems involve the use of information derived from experience and formal knowledge. It is the specific and uncodified capabilities, or “tacit-ness” as Professor Dosi describes “on the part of the inventors who discover the creative solution.”

Therefore, how can oil & gas firms solve the technical and scientific problems of the future? How can a firm more effectively employ its capability to solve problems and encourage the discovery of other problems and the creation of their solutions? Clearly some companies are more effective at this process than others. However, this research in oil & gas asks, is there a means for an organization to increase its ability to innovate that leads to higher performance outcomes?

Having these working groups spawn at will without the bureaucratic, accountability and accounting logistical nightmare that they instill today will be a significant first step in making the industry more innovative.

The complexity of the relationships of these working groups must be captured and accounted for in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. Whether we are talking about the various forms of contribution that a producer may make to the joint account, or how they may participate in a working group, the bureaucratic machinations of accounting for these transactions can’t stand in the way of producers' innovativeness.

Today, participation is hindered by the difficulty of capturing and accounting for these unique business arrangements. What is needed is the ability to develop software that captures the substance of the manner in which contributions are made. This is followed by the manner in which they are accounted for. That is the purpose of the Partnership Accounting module, to support the innovative oil & gas producer in their innovative actions. Professor Giovanni Dosi in "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," points to the need for business aspects to support technical aspects of the business.

Internalization and routinization in the face of the uncertainty and complexity of the innovative process also point to the importance of particular organizational arrangements for the success or failure of individual innovative attempts. This is what was found by the SAPPHO Project (cf. Science Policy Research Unit 1972 and Rothwell et al. 1974), possibly the most extensive investigation of the sources of commercial success or failure of innovation: Institutional traits, both internal to the firm - such as the nature of the organizational arrangements between technical and commercial people, or the hierarchical authority within the innovating firm - and between a firm and its external environment - such as good communication channels with users, universities, and so on - turn out to be very important. Moreover, it has been argued (Pavitt 1986; Robert Wilson, Peter Ashton and Thomas Egan 1984) that, for given incentives and innovative opportunities, the various forms of internal corporate organization (U form versus M form centralized versus decentralized, etc.) affect innovation and commercial success positively or negatively, according to the particular nature of each technological paradigm and its stage of development. p. 1135.

Capturing the context of the deals made in both the Joint Operating Committee and working groups as described here in the Preliminary Specification can’t be done after the fact. What is needed is for the software to be sophisticated enough for the dealmakers to use while formulating the deal, to capture the substance of the deal, so that understanding will be used to allocate the costs and charge their accounting systems for these costs when they're incurred. The process we’ve defined is Designing Transactions within the Preliminary Specification. Then and only then will accountants have a chance of keeping up with the speed and innovation of the industry as it is contemplated here. Technical people will be free to pursue their science and not be hounded by those looking to recreate what was history and dealt with long ago. 

This is a necessary part of the People, Ideas & Objects software development team and most importantly, our user community. It won’t be too difficult to capture the multiple and myriad ways a deal can be formulated. The algorithm will be complex but with time and money it can be done. The real challenge in making this critical part of the Partnership Accounting module work is the user interface. Being able to intuitively use the module to capture the user's understanding. This is to document it in the People, Ideas & Objects system and account for it on that basis. That is what makes innovation possible.

We discussed previously how producers collaborated on a project to conduct research. The Work Order system of the People, Ideas & Objects Partnership Accounting module enabled the producers, who may not have been affiliated in any form or fashion until this working group’s formation, to be able to form and contribute to the project. The Work Order system captures the meeting of minds. This is because it captures the manner of each producer's contribution and method of payment at the time the project is formed. This will enable them to avoid the bureaucratic difficulties associated with participating in these types of working groups. Working groups are avoided today because accountants can make participation more difficult than they are worth. The reason we have to cut through the bureaucracy and promote working groups is that participation in these types of activities is critical to an innovative oil & gas industry. 

The accounting interface for the Work Order will have two elements. The first will account for the costs. This will list the costs of the working group and your interest based on your participation rate. The second element is where problems occur. Participation can be funded from a variety of sources and contributions. Some will have a key piece of research that is the foundation of the project. Some will contribute time and some cash. Combinations and permutations are unlimited. The one constant in these contributions is that they all have budgets. In the second element, you will identify the source of funding or contributions supporting your participation. It will need to be determined if that means cash will be transferred from your firm to others by simply clicking on a box in the interface. Once all of the producers have completed their interfaces the balancing of the Work Order will be attempted with any variances worked out to determine who will make up any shortfalls. Once all shortfalls are resolved, work can begin.

OCI Partnership Accounting, Part III

 The Work Order system as a means of budgetary control

We discussed how the Joint Operating Committee manages who’s available to work on the property. The ability to pool earth science & engineering resources from the partnership is asserted as a necessity in the future of the oil & gas industry. It should be stated here that our Industrial Command & Control would not be limited to just earth science & engineering disciplines. Instead, it would include everyone employed by producer firms. So this would help us deal with who, now we need a mechanism to deal with what they'll do.

The next part of the Partnership Accounting module deals with the operational side of how field work within the Joint Operating Committee gets completed. Partnerships have always had AFE’s and operations budgets to manage how much is spent annually at a facility etc. Those will be handled by People, Ideas & Objects. This discussion deals with how Industrial Command & Control can deploy resources and authorize budget spending in a manner that provides for the governance of the Joint Operating Committee. Basically, we are talking about the collaborative aspect of the Work Order System in Partnership Accounting and its interaction with other modules. (Compliance & Governance, Petroleum Lease Marketplace, Resource Marketplace, Accounting Voucher modules).

Deployment of the people within the Joint Operating Committee, with the budgets agreed upon, is not enough to satisfy any interpretation of appropriate governance. Proper authorization and responsibility are needed to ensure plans and budgets are executed successfully. Without a Work Order system within the People, Ideas & Objects application, property governance would not be possible. The ways and means of successfully controlling costs and deploying resources to complete the tasks at hand are what the Work Order system is designed to accomplish.

The Work Order system will be deployed in the following manner. If someone asks you to work on a project, your first question should be “what’s your Work Order number?" Then your time will be charged to that code. It doesn’t matter if you're an employee of the producer where the request came from, a partner in a Joint Operating Committee, a vendor or supplier. If they don’t have a Work Order number you're not generating service-based revenues or working for free. If they have a number, you key the Work Order number into your device or keyboard and continue. The Work Order system aggregates and bills your time spent working on that project. The details of the Work Order, chain of command, tasks and deliverables are all delivered within the Work Order system provided when you key in the number. Your role, based on your capabilities, is populated with those parts of that Work Order.

Note that one of the benefits of this system is that no unauthorized work gets done without a Work Order. Assigning budgets to a Work Order from an AFE, Lease or from internally sourced overhead accounts will be a matter of selecting from budget accounts or from pre-approved allocations. The ability to approve a Work Order would therefore be at an appropriate level within the Joint Operating Committee chain of command. This would be pre-authorized and designated through Industrial Command & Control (involving multiple producers) or a producer firm. If a Work Order were to exceed its budget it is reasonable to assume that it’s exceeding its AFE or account budget(s if it's involving multiple producers), which could trigger action from the Compliance & Governance module of the People, Ideas & Objects application, if that is what management desired or deemed necessary and established from that module.

Let's be clear, what People, Ideas & Objects propose in the Preliminary Specifications Partnership Accounting module is nothing like any other joint venture accounting system. When we consider the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producer. Aligning the producers' compliance and governance with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee, we create speed, innovation, accountability and performance over the base case. Creating a performance and innovation-based culture through our seven Organizational Constructs. Producers and industry are reorganized dynamically and innovatively. As well as being open to the possibility of enhancing their capacities and capabilities through the ubiquity of the People, Ideas & Objects Work Order. Where everyone, Joint Operating Committee, producer and service industry firm employed in the industry has an account to manage revenues, billing and time spent on projects. This is for the various producers, Joint Operating Committees and facilities.  

Some processes described in the Preliminary Specification involve multiple organizations, over multiple accounting periods. Whether that’s the development of capabilities which begins in the Research & Capabilities module. It touches on the Resource Marketplace and Financial Marketplace modules, and passes to the Knowledge & Learning module. Some of these processes carry transactions that are as complex and difficult to quantify as the process. Some will be for the joint account, some will be for the producer to incur on their own. As we learned in the Financial Marketplace module some transactions may be the result of an investment by an investment group.

Discussing the Work Order system that controls the costs associated with a project. The projects contained within a Work Order might be funded by multiple producers, AFE’s or budgeted accounts, and as a result producers will be able to control the costs of the project, monitor them and maintain governance through the Industrial Command & Control of People, Ideas & Objects system. Producers using the Work Order system will be able to charge the costs to the appropriate owners of the projects. This will be done at Work Order initialization. Since the Work Order is a multi-organizational system, members of a Joint Operating Committee or members of the field services industries can participate in a Work Order. This means they can pre-approve their participation in specific costs in the project. The accountant working within the Partnership Accounting module won't be running around trying to seek approval from partners to authorize individual expenditures on projects that weren’t planned or budgeted properly. If everyone within the industry works to chargeable Work Orders, and all Work Orders are approved by those who will be financially responsible for the charges, then the accountant's job in chasing their tail and aggravating people is over.

The point of the Work Order system is hopefully not lost on others in the industry. Some may feel that the Work Order duplicates the AFE attributes, and I would argue that they are fundamentally different. The AFE approves spending for field level and construction projects of a capital nature. The Work Order system is a means to deploy the producer's or Joint Operating Committee's capabilities in an authorized and ad-hoc manner. When we extend the Work Order system across multiple producers, Joint Operating Committees and suppliers, the ability to deploy the capabilities of multiple organizations will enable the innovation we seek in the oil & gas industry. The Work Order may take budget dollars from a number of AFE’s and assign them to a team of engineers that are asked to develop the process necessary to make their firm more capable. Two producers may contribute budget dollars to a Work Order for their Geologists. They will be able to attend a conference and conduct research on some promising developments as a result. The point being that no one works without a Work Order to charge their time for. No Work Order can collect charges without a budget pre-authorized and approved.

This will make the Partnership Accounting module workable from the point of view of controlling the costs of the multitude of different arrangements being made within the organization. If the accountants are tasked with putting together the costs and determining who is to be charged after the fact, this is how they become the annoying and bothersome people they can / have become and accountability is less onerous. By imposing the Work Order system in this fashion, within the Partnership Accounting module, the arrangements are pre-made and authorizations are required before charges can be incurred. Making accounting for capabilities deployment systematic instead of problematic, resolved before the fact and automated. This is not about accountants hounding people trying to understand why such and such was done.

OCI Partnership Accounting, Part II

 The Beginning of Automation and the Material Balance Report

The Material Balance Report is an Accounting Voucher that is unique and has the following characteristics. It automates producer firms' and Joint Operating Committees' production, revenue, royalties, marketing and other processes. It is this type of specialized use of an Accounting Voucher that our user community will consider applying to other situations when contributing to the Preliminary Specifications development.

What is proposed in the People, Ideas & Objects Material Balance Report is that for an Accounting Voucher to close it must balance the financial debits and credits. However, it must also, from a volumetric perspective, be material, system and partnership balanced. Each of these three volumetric perspectives is accessed through a different “mode” within the voucher. This is to make the necessary changes to correct any volumetric imbalances or errors in that specific perspective.

The Joint Operating Committee exists due to legal agreements and in oil men and women's minds. It therefore doesn’t “own” anything or incur costs. The joint account charges must clear in the month they are incurred. It is the same with volumetric information. The Joint Operating Committee "Accounting Voucher" balances to zero in terms of costs and volumes each month by clearing charges to the partnership and royalty owners of the property. Clearings are done after the balance is determined. That does not guarantee the facility will remain balanced. Adjustments and amendments during a production month will trigger changes to the Material Balance Report. These may happen and they can be balanced and cleared to partnership accounts in the same manner as before, which is automated. The exercise ensures that the Joint Operating Committee's business is captured in the Material Balance Report. This is an integral part of the Accounting Voucher. Essentially all three are the same thing, the Joint Operating Committee, Accounting Voucher, and Material Balance Report. An integrity of reporting that is embedded within the accounting systems that are as rigid as the overall accounting requirement of debits must equal credits.

We now want to discuss the contracts associated with that Joint Operating Committee. Gas, oil, and natural gas liquid marketing contracts, as well as gathering, processing contracts. I don’t know the correct term to use, but stream seems most intuitive. If a stream of product flows through a facility, then a contract for processing or sale would be attached to it. The ability to attach the contract to a stream would enable the Material Balance Report to establish the billing of gathering or processing charges / sales for that stream. These charges (invoices) or sales (receipts) are generated by People, Ideas & Objects software automation of the process. Amendments and adjustments would generate similar documents to the initial product flows, and on an automated basis. 

The Accounting Voucher is for lack of a better term a template that is built upon as time passes. Each month as the property changes, these changes are recorded within each Accounting Voucher. The template is renewed each month with the accumulation of the property's history and any changes in variables derived from other modules. For example, the Petroleum Lease Marketplace. If an additional contract is added for production from a newly discovered well, that contract stream and the newly discovered well would be represented in next month's Material Balance Report. The Accounting Voucher template documents property changes over time.

Critical to the “definition and design” of transactions is their balance. If the debits and credits were not in balance at the end of the day, the systems automation and the accountants would not be doing their jobs. Volumetric reporting would be the same issue. If in the Material Balance Reports, they were out of balance (call this material balance), or were not balancing the inputs and outputs to other Material Balance Reports (call this system balance), or the internal accounting of those volumes to the partners, royalty holders and others were out of balance (refer to this as partnership balance) the accountants and systems would not be doing their jobs. Closing a Material Balance Report requires more than balancing debits and credits financially. They will also need to ensure that the material, system and partnership volumes reported in the Material Balance Report are balanced. Without these systems in balance, the Accounting Voucher will not close or clear.

This imposes another rather strict condition on the quality of the information accepted into the People, Ideas & Objects Accounting Voucher module. Precluding the acceptance of a voucher due to the inability to balance a volumetric requirement holds the system up for common occurrences. What if volumetric information is unavailable? What if the information is part of the normal amendment process? Traditional accounting methods are left for these issues. An accrual of the volumes necessary to achieve the balance would be processed in the current month. Most production processes are amended for up to 90 days. These accruals would then be automatically reversed in the following month. What is different from existing systems is that we force them to be volumetrically balanced. Not just inputting key variables but imposing and enforcing the facts of what actually happened at the Joint Operating Committee. In the case of a Construction, Ownership and Operation (CO&O) agreement, what is to be accounted for before the Accounting Voucher is closed.

The difference may be subtle but the implications are significant. A system that locks volumetric balancing into the Accounting Voucher itself enforces compliance with volume production and processing. Obtaining a system balance where each Joint Operating Committee activity reconciles with all other facilities and Joint Operating Committees. In this way, an unquestionable level of integrity can be achieved. Detailed processes based on data and information captured in other modules can be fully automated based on those facts. Please see the Operations Management module in the Preliminary Specification for further expansion through the Internet of Things (IoT), SpaceX's Swarm network and other technologies that automate field data capture.

There are many aspects of this system's process management that are unique and necessary. The reason they have not been undertaken is that the broad scope and scale of the development undertaking is comprehensive and beyond what the technology could have provided even a decade ago. It is from a budgetary perspective beyond the scale of what one major producer could undertake as the value gained may not necessarily be there for the individual producer to incur the entire cost, and most certainly well beyond the speculative approach of an oil & gas ERP software development solution provider. People, Ideas & Objects seeks to aggregate North American producer ERP budgets to bring these software and services to the market. Turning the cost of oil & gas administration and accounting, which includes continuous ERP systems development, into the variable cost of Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and services for North American producers. Those with a comprehensive understanding of these processes will fully appreciate the points I make and the implications involved. My understanding of these processes is comprehensive and I know it can be done correctly. That this undertaking may be the single largest feature of the Preliminary Specification. Therefore, development costs are shared and shareable across the North American producer population. Driven by our user community's vision. From the perspective of dealing with contractual arrangements and governing agreements determining the production allocation method. Or if the agreement refers to an adherence to chemical composition as the basis of production allocation, both of these methods will be available in the Material Balance Report of the Accounting Voucher in an either, or and mixed environment. 

An element of the Material Balance Report is the clearing of both financial and volumetric information for the appropriate working and royalty interests. It is here where we find two critical points of interest in the differences between the Preliminary Specification and the status quo accounting methods. People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and their service providers provide standard and objective accounting information across North America. The Material Balance Report is an appropriate example of this. It will be the service providers managing the processes involved in the production, revenue and royalty aspects of the producer firms and Joint Operating Committees. We noted that in the Accounting Voucher module itself the Accounting Voucher could be generated based on either the producer firm or the Joint Operating Committee. The Material Balance Report cleared monthly is a Joint Operating Committee Accounting Voucher. Where the processes are automated and cleared based on the property's ownership and royalty interests. 

The Work Order System

In oil & gas there are two methods to capture costs. The first is the AFE for capital, and the second is the Lease for revenue and operating expenses. Incidental costs may also be incurred in departmental or Joint Operating Committee overhead accounts. These have been the standard methods used throughout the industry for decades. They have served the industry well, particularly from the point of view of distributing costs and revenues to other working interest partners. People, Ideas & Objects are introducing an additional document to augment the AFE and Lease to improve cost control in the industry. It is what People, Ideas & Objects call a Work Order. It has two distinct roles and captures costs in ways not captured today. The overall objective is to enable innovation throughout the industry, the producer firms and Joint Operating Committees. And to do so on the basis of the distinct science and technology of oil & gas exploration and production.

The Work Order is an implementation of our Accounting Voucher. A feature that we introduced as a separate module in the Preliminary Specification and a reflection of the capabilities of the Accounting Vouchers template characteristic. The Work Order is designed to capture costs in producer firms, Joint Operating Committees or other organizational structures that may or may not have a defined structure in terms of a formal agreement supporting the project or Joint Operating Committee. In the Work Order, costs and revenues could be assigned and authorized as the document that outlines the necessary details for these ad hoc organizations. These are not generally material costs, but they involve other complicating factors. This is not a license to spend funds in unauthorized areas. It is a feature of the Preliminary Specification that enables innovativeness to expand by allowing informal collaborative research and development work, or Working Groups, to be conducted throughout the industry. This is on the basis of its sciences and applied sciences. A means to benefit those participating in the research and development project. 

Today these types of costs fall outside the scope of the authority and responsibility of the producers' management. The AFE and Lease currently constrain producers to existing agreements as methods to capture costs. These Working Groups costs are therefore accountability and accounting nightmares that have proven to be more onerous for those that have attempted to benefit from conducting this type of research and development or even ventured to suggest them. Accounting for them is usually manual in nature as necessary to capture the distinct understanding of each effort and reflect it appropriately from a business perspective. 

Examples of these costs may include a geologic study of the producer shale gas characteristics of the Permian vs those in Pennsylvania's Marcellus formations. A study may examine the effectiveness of fracing in multilateral sections of shale gas wells with respect to longitudinal versus latitudinal orientation. They are necessary to advance the industries underlying science and technology, costly for one producer to undertake and of potentially limited value to the one producer that undertakes them, and therefore mitigation of risk through participation is the appropriate strategy. If costs can be mitigated through a shared model the results become more valuable, and it is this distribution of knowledge that is the basis of what we learned in our research from Professor Giovanni Dosi’s “Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation.” That would be of benefit to any of the producers who participated in the study. Contributions from the producers could include financial or technical resources, computer simulations and other data, assets or value that a producer could contribute to the study. All participating producers would be entitled to the findings if their contributions were deemed equitable and other criteria for how long the study would take etc were defined. From this a Working Group of producers would gain a better understanding of whatever they were studying. It is helpful to remember that innovation isn’t always due to these successes but also the failures that prove what science is not. 

The other method in which the Work Order is employed is in the process necessary for a dynamic, innovative industry to broaden science and applied science resource availability. This is done through specialization and division of labor of earth science & engineering capabilities of each producer firm and the overall oil & gas industry. What People, Ideas & Objects define as one of the producers' competitive advantages. The other being their land & asset base. 

In order to unleash the unshared and unshareable aspects of these critical, competitive and soon to be constrained resources to the broader market based on their specialization. This is done through the elimination of today’s operator role in the Joint Operating Committee and implementing the Preliminary Specifications pooling concept. The “pooling concept" is in which those with the required specializations are sourced from the participating producer firms making up the properties Joint Operating Committee, or the market of earth science & engineering capabilities available from the marketplace to fill the needed role demanded of the property. The pooling concept is designed to introduce advanced specialization and division of labor to these resources. And to release what we’ve described as the hoarding of these resources in each producer firm. The need to have just-in-time capabilities available to meet the demands of the producer's operated properties requires that a surplus capacity of engineers and earth scientists be available to deal with the cyclical nature of the internal demand for these resources. This hoarding consumes large amounts of these resources in terms of the industry population of engineers and geologists. 

To make my point clear, let's break down a process that may be provided as a better service. This is in terms of the type of earth science or engineering resources that could be reorganized based on specialization. When drilling a well, well control is necessary. This can be achieved when the well is drilled on a known seismic line that reflects the targeted zones' geological features. It can then be compared with a variety of well logs from similar wells in the area. These wells are produced in the target zone. It is at this point that sea levels could be determined, and the depth at which the well should be drilled could be determined. This could be done in the future by an outside service that specializes in a variety of these different processes of analyzing the logs. This could include using seismic to choose the well location and picking the tops. These technical specialists could manage machine learning, Artificial Intelligence and have human determination in the selection of the tops. This would enable quicker turnaround, at a much lower cost without sacrificing higher quality. Releasing the vast numbers of technical resources burdened by these tasks by each producer today. The service provider's results are available for the producer to verify. Much of this is done in software today, however by the producer firm with the resources of the firm being dedicated to it in an unshared, unshareable and unspecialized manner which is costing the industry and producers due to the inefficient use of engineering and geological resources consumed within each producer. With less specialized equipment and constantly switching between tasks unnecessarily and inefficiently. These technical tasks within the producer firm are valuable in establishing well control. In turn the engineering and earth science resources of the producers would be focused on the higher level, value generating methods of dealing with the firms and Joint Operating Committee assets. While the geological service provider specializes in highly sophisticated ways to ensure service delivery is of the highest quality, lowest cost, precision and effectiveness. 

The other example of the Work Order is the one we identified in Organizational Constructs that changed the start-up and small oil & gas producers competitive advantages to Intellectual Property, earth science & engineering capabilities and land & asset base. Essentially the other side of the prior example transaction. It involves the ability to generate initial revenues using the Work Order from the services provided. This involves marketing the start-up's Intellectual Property and earth science & engineering capabilities to other producers and Joint Operating Committees. These revenues would help offset the difficulties of the start-up oil & gas process and defer much of the overhead burden today. Moving the success or failure of the start-up oil & gas firm from its ability to access capital to its technical capabilities. It won't be an industry based on who you know in the future, but on what you know, and what value you bring. These will be the determining factors of success and failure in the future oil & gas industry. 

Facilitating these changes is the Work Order, and this is our solution to the constraint of these resources in the foreseeable future. What is agreed upon by industry is the lack of replacements and the retirement of the braintrust of the industry. What we know is that the North American economy is the most powerful economy in the world and will continue to be so. For the oil & gas industry to attain and maintain profitable energy independence, it will demand much more of this existing scientific and technological resource base that may be static in terms of its population for some time. This shortage may be further aggravated as we also know that each barrel of oil produced will continue to be more difficult from an earth science & engineering point of view. We resolve this shortage by using specialization and division of labor principles to maximize throughput from the same resources. These are some of the details of our Work Order.

Disintermediation of the Oil & Gas Industry, Part I

 People, Ideas & Objects will update the oil & gas community on the efforts we are taking to disintermediate the North American oil & gas industry. Progress in the marketplace supports our efforts and we appreciate that fact. There are many initiatives under way and our ability to communicate their status will be done in blog posts under this title and the disintermediation Label.

North American oil and gas producers continue to lose the faith, trust, and goodwill of all those involved in the industry. An inability to respond to investor demands for change since 2015. An inability to recognize the need for "real" profitability, what that is and why it's different, how to earn that, and the changes needed to make this a reality has passed them by. Excursions into unauthorized areas such as clean energy show they'll take any opportunity to divert oil & gas revenues from those who worked so hard to establish them. They have proven uncompetitive on the North American capital markets. Unaware that they needed to compete in capital markets, and believed that "building balance sheets" and "putting cash in the ground" would stand up against today's modern day shredders. They are fools and if we believe they'll leap tall buildings in a single bound, we are even bigger fools. 

Each week we see another loss of around 10 rigs in the United States. Why? Last week World Oil reported that producers were scaling back to accommodate global demand declines. Chronic lying continues. The reason these rigs disappeared is unknown to me and I cannot find an answer. Are they moving offshore, or are they being cannibalized to keep the fleet operational? The fleet is barely 25% of its high water mark. The DUC's (Drilling and Uncompleted) inventory has shrunk markedly. And all U.S. basins, including the Permian, are declining. The most tragic aspect of this is that the service industry has been completely destroyed by these producers in the past eight years. And producers can only "muddle through."

If there is one take away from this blog post today it would be this. We recently noted that we felt liberated by oil & gas investors' actions that favored People, Ideas & Objects. Our concern was that if we began developments and investors began financially supporting producers we would lose all credibility and have a failure on our hands. Producer officers and directors would have no reason to listen to us again. A detrimental situation we sought to avoid and one we now consider passed. A career risk that would have been catastrophic for those who followed us.

To ensure this risk has passed we are implementing actions we feel are necessary to begin the developments in the community necessary to force the issue. We are forcing the issue to ensure that investors never consider investing in oil & gas producers. This is unless producers are fully subscribed to and fund People, Ideas & Objects software developments and associated communities. When there exists a community of individuals who are actively working to resolve the oil & gas industry issues that investors have also identified, investors' actions would not be against us. This is the leadership position we are taking. This is the calling I'm asking individuals in the industry to consider. To become the solution.

Oil & gas investors want to participate in a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas industry. They see opportunities in the market and are disappointed with the status quo's performance and inability to change. Undertaking a cultural change for officers and directors of this scope and scale demands a rebuild in the form of the Preliminary Specification. If investors saw progress in that direction, where independence and funding for this community was secured, would they return? Would that allow producers to reinstate their capital structures? Would this enable the rebuilding process to be more effective with People, Ideas & Objects? Would this enable the communities described here to be confident in their success? I see it as a win, win, win. 

Oracle

First up is the Oracle CloudWorld 2023 conference which will be held on September 18 - 21 2023. They provide an opportunity to participate in CloudWorld “On Air.” There are many worthwhile presentations and I would highlight all of the Keynotes as a must see. Any events that were oversubscribed for the “On Air” presentations, and you were therefore unable to see, will be able to be viewed in the next month through registration to the Free “On Air” conference located here. 

It was during Oracle CloudWorld 2022 that I saw Oracle's revised vision with its products and services. We noted these points in an October 21, 2022 blog post entitled “And Just Like That, Everything Changes” and subsequent posts. It also triggered our rewrite of the Preliminary Specification with Oracle's revised vision and changes incorporated into our product. Oil & gas producers would benefit from not only the Preliminary Specification but also the updated Oracle vision. Oracle was affected by these changes. Oracle's stock has increased from $67.02 to $120.68 since that conference. An 80% increase in share price for a company with a $327.24 billion market capitalization. This was a material event in their company's history. Check-in to see Founder, Chairman, and CTO Larry Ellison and CEO Safra Catz keynotes at a minimum. 

Our User Community

Our user community, research, and intellectual property are People, Ideas & Objects three distinct competitive advantages. Our user community is our priority and focus. That is for today and always. Our commitment to user-based ERP software development is unwavering. The only method in which to provide quality ERP software is through strong user community participation. ERP software traditionally has a committee representing users. People assigned to the task are asked to fill in an otherwise nonexistent vision. Budget and time restrictions soon generate demands for cuts and the first thing to be cut is the user committee. 

People, Ideas & Objects published the Preliminary Specification in August 2012. In March 2014 we published our user community vision with its three distinct characteristics. This ensures that quality ERP software is delivered to dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producers throughout North America. Our user community includes:

• Exclusive licensed authority to the Preliminary Specifications Intellectual Property. Only our user community members can change the software. Producers and all others have one source to turn to and resolve their difficulties. 
• Only our user community members have our software developers' attention. They are licensed to look only at our user community for input. 
• And finally, our user community members are in control of their own budget. They are not “blind sleepwalking agents of whomever feeds them.”

How does the industry make the changes it needs to make to become the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producers that we need them to be? How will it remain able to accommodate changing business needs? We have structured our user community to lead the changes that are necessary. They’ll have the tools to define industry structure, processes and management through ERP software they develop. In addition, they will own and operate a service provider that will manage a process on their behalf. Participating in the development of the software will provide them with a better understanding of what the industry needs to succeed long-term. Through a long list of unique competitive advantages that include leadership, issue identification and resolution, research, ideas, innovating and automation user community members have the tools necessary to fulfill these tasks.

Confidentiality of participation is important to all early stage participants in our user community. We are all too familiar with producer officers and directors' retaliation methods. Application to our user community can be found here.

Whistleblower Program

Two weeks ago we announced the People, Ideas & Objects Whistleblower Program. What we know is that the Preliminary Specification has been actively discussed in the marketplace for over a decade. Some of our Intellectual Property has now permeated the industry in different ways. Primarily due to officers' and directors' disrespect for the Intellectual Property we’ve developed. This has obviously continued through their work with other ERP providers. Review of our Whistleblower program can be found here. The program maintains absolute confidentiality and proceeds from any actions People, Ideas & Objects take against producers will be shared 50 / 50 with Whistleblowers. 

Sales Commission Program

When we announced the Whistleblower program we also announced the Sales Commission program that we’ve put in place. Information regarding this program can be found here. It provides individuals in the oil & gas industry with the opportunity to participate in 15% sales commissions on the sale of the People, Ideas & Objects software. The ability to secure exclusive access to a specific producer is also available. 

Last Thursday People, Ideas & Objects completed the rewrite of the Request For Proposal and Discussion pages of our wiki. This is the information that fulfills the material differences in the Preliminary Specification compared to other systems. If an RFP were to be submitted by a producer the answers would be sourced from the RFP located here. The Sales Commission program should benefit from this, along with the Preliminary Specifications Wiki as sources.

The Whistleblower and Sales Commission programs are permanent additions to the way in which People, Ideas & Objects conducts business. We can affect change far more effectively through the opportunities we grant to oil & gas entrepreneurs who see them for what they are. Alternatively, sourcing, recruiting and developing capabilities in-house will deliver our software in the 22nd century. We reward performance and focus on the distinct competitive advantages we've developed in our Intellectual Property, our user community and research.

Establishing a New, Sub-industry

It’s one thing to start an enterprise. However, when the scope of the problem becomes as difficult as North American oil & gas, we will need a "bigger boat." People, Ideas & Objects have carved out the area where we can contribute the most. To suggest we'll build it is ridiculous. This will take the efforts of tens of thousands of people and we’ll be a relatively small part of it. Intellectual Property ownership and licensing, researching our IP's further development and using these tools to raise the financial resources to support the software development, its operations and our user communities needs is more or less the extent of our reach. Our user community consists of part-time members. They are well compensated for their work. However, the majority of their income and value is created in their service provider organizations which are a reallocation of the administrative and accounting resources of the producers. The long and short of this is, there are substantial money making opportunities involved in rebuilding the North American oil & gas industry. 

Closing Remark

Producer officers and directors will get less support from software companies if they continue to deny and abuse People, Ideas & Objects Intellectual Property. Even though they may have benefited up to this point. I don’t think they fully understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions regarding Intellectual Property. Who will provide better software products in the future when they see other vendors' Intellectual Property treated so poorly? Just a thought.

OCI Partnership Accounting, Part I

 Introduction

The Partnership Accounting module is a pure “accounting” module in the traditional sense. However, I think there are many attributes and concepts in this module that make it unique and of interest to everyone in the industry.

The following is a summary of what a statutory list of required functionality and output requires. We’ll then discuss some of the novel concepts and differences of the Joint Operating Committee. This is the key Organizational Construct of a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas producer.

• General Ledger
• Account Payable and Receivable Detail
• Payments
• Revenues and Royalties (Gross & Net)
• Capital and Operating (Gross & Net)
• Statement of Operations
• Statement of Expenditures 
• Gas Cost Allowance (Unique to each Joint Operating Committee participant)
• Trial Balance
• Balance Sheet
• Income Statement
• Statement of changes in financial position.
• Field data capture.
• Material balance c/w inventory control. 
• Nomination and contract fulfillment.
• And many, many more

This is the standard fare for oil & gas software providers. And our user community will fill this list with many more. Oracle Cloud ERP provides many of the accounting features and functionality used in these processes. And there are several processes and features that are standalone Oracle products and services that will be delivered to producers. As we will see in subsequent discussions the value proposition from the People, Ideas & Objects software application is substantial in the use of the Joint Operating Committee as the key Organizational Construct of the Preliminary Specification and is treated as the partnership that it is. It also recognizes that the costs of the property for each producer within a Joint Operating Committee are as unique as individual producers' strategies.

When we talk about the scope of operations managed under Partnership Accounting, we find that it includes everything necessary to support North American producers' accounting needs. The cut-off would be at the refinery inlet. Therefore the total scope of any upstream oil & gas operation. Let me be more specific about that from the point of view of geography and the type of operation managed by the People, Ideas & Objects application.

If we look at the North American oil & gas infrastructure we see a variety of oil & gas installations designed to serve both producers and consumers of oil & gas. Wells, gathering systems, gas plants, pipelines, storage facilities etc. At each point along these systems there may be additional deliveries of product, or sales of product or products inventoried. What seems to be an obvious and straightforward business becomes incredibly complex when it's realized that each asset may be owned by a Joint Operating Committee itself. It may also hold products on behalf of other Joint Operating Committees. This summary glosses over the incredible complexity of this business when the volume of transactions that occur in these businesses makes it a significant part of the oil & gas operation.

Critical to controlling the business is the Material Balance Report, part of the Preliminary Specification. It is the central document that so much of the subsequent process activity is based upon. If someone is to be charged for storage of butane for example, or if someone is to be charged a marketing fee for delivery of product to a customer. Or simply if a sale of a raw gas stream is deemed to have occurred at the wellhead. The Material Balance Report captures these transactions and initiates the flow of generated documents. These documents also need to be fully automated through the Material Balance Report. They are generated from the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. To state this as simply as possible, the Partnership Accounting module includes all of these activities for all of these facilities as its purpose. Each Material Balance Report must balance. Reporting inputs and outputs balances to other Material Balance Reports. Material Balance Reports are inter-industry and continent-wide balanced.

As we explore the Partnership Accounting module further we see the reasons why we take such a broad scope of operations into consideration. It would be an understatement to state that these areas are poorly served by IT. To approach it from a global perspective that includes production operations, accounting and the other areas that depend on this information would be "ideal." However, the complexity of the business has always been in the way. Software engineering has never been available to approach the type of problem this area presents. The cost would be unreasonable and of limited value for one producer. And no software vendor could justify the work on speculation. I think it exists now in the form of mature technologies represented in Oracle products and services. Our seven Organization Constructs include the Joint Operating Committee, Professor Paul Romer’s “New Growth Theory,” specialization and the division of labor, markets, Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Innovation. People, Ideas & Objects aggregates the industry's resources. Making this process cost effective and valuable across the industry. And I think that the Partnership Accounting and Accounting Voucher modules of People, Ideas & Objects provide the vision and opportunity of how this software engineering solution solves these issues to ensure we provide the most profitable means of oil & gas operations, everywhere and always.

Pooling of Technical Resources

The first Partnership Accounting issue addressed in this module is related to earth science & engineering resources being finite. It is asserted here in People, Ideas & Objects that the “operator” classification may become a thing of the past as firms will find it difficult, and in fact no longer commercially viable, to staff the engineering and earth science capabilities necessary to meet all of their firm's needs. People, Ideas & Objects enables producers on a Joint Operating Committee to pool their earth science & engineering resources. This is to ensure they have the required engineering and geological needs. Pooling won't be a convenience or desirable addition to the Joint Operating Committee. Partners within a property will need to ensure adequate staffing of technical resources. That it will become commonplace that each partner contributes technical resources to the property.

People, Ideas & Objects use specialization and division of labor to address the mid- to long-term shortfall in these resources. Specialization and division of labor are the only tools that will enhance industry throughput from the same volume of resources. If a producer wanted to maintain “operator” classification the scale of their operation would demand such technical diversity that the burden would overwhelm any performance their team could attain. We believe that producer firms have unused and unusable surplus capacity today and that it cannot be deployed due to organizational constraints. Therefore, every producer should focus on high-level, value-added geotechnical and engineering capabilities. Each producer contributes their specialized skills to their Joint Operating Committees when and where they can. Lower level, or standard-fare engineering and geology can be conducted through service providers.

If partners are contributing human resources to the Joint Operating Committee then the systems that the partners use should be able to cost these resources, charge them to the joint account, and have their costs recovered by the Joint Operating Committee the resource was provided to. In addition, if the operator classification has disappeared, operator overhead charges should also cease to exist. If three different producers are providing engineers and geologists to the Joint Operating Committee each should be able to recover the direct or standard costs of these individuals for the time they spent working on the property.

Within the Preliminary Specification, Industrial Command & Control (ICC) provides a means in which the resources within the producer companies represented within the Joint Operating Committee, can organize a chain of command through these pooled resources to deal with property governance. In addition to this governance, producers can allocate finite earth science & engineering resources more efficiently. This assumes that during the building of the Preliminary Specification, our user community can determine a somewhat standard chain of command for all members of the industry, standard rates for the people in the industry, and detailed job descriptions for the work that each role within that chain of command is responsible for. Please also see the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules for the development and deployment of the firm's and Joint Operating Committee capabilities.

Today the bureaucracy builds silos of engineering and earth science capabilities that can deal with any and all contingencies their operated properties demand. This is a reasonable approach to a difficult business. With the inherent risk profile of oil & gas, safety is a priority that can be handled in this manner. The problem arises from each and every producer replicating the same capabilities within their organizations. As a result the industry has developed unused capacity that is unavailable for use at any time and at any place in the industry. At a time when engineering and earth science talent is at a premium in demand. Accessing this unused capacity, reorganizing the manner in which resources are used, and taking advantage of specialization and the division of labor are the ways that People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification has solved this problem. 

To approach the mountains of earth science & engineering work that needs to be done. Demands such as the ever increasing volume of science required for each incremental barrel of oil produced. The need to obtain and sustain true energy independence etc. These require an innovative approach based on the tried and true division of labor and specialization principles. By breaking down the work into smaller more specialized components the process can be managed in a way that is faster and more efficient. The productivity of this process would be an order of magnitude more efficient than what is done today. The business management of this process would be managed through the Partnership Accounting module. Industrial Command & Control maintains the chain of command and authority from the producer firms. What took 6 engineers and geologists full time may now be done by 35 specialized engineers and geologists. These engineers and geologists may be assigned to over 100 properties or Joint Operating Committees. As shown in People, Ideas & Objects et al Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas, management of the process falls to the software.

And there is another issue. If we use division of labor as the solution to today's limited technical resources. Without the Partnership Accounting module pooling or specialization. The enhanced productivity from the division of labor being the objective of the exercise would require that each producer hoard even more earth science & engineering resources in order to cover the entire scope of earth science & engineering effort. Causing the market for these finite resources to skew the industry's economics. This point is critical in any solution to this problem.

If we pooled the technical resources of each producer representing the Joint Operating Committee. Then we break down individual silos and technical hoarding. One of the key advantages of using the Joint Operating Committee is that all partners are financially motivated. Consensus is easily achieved because of this, and it will continue to be so.

The perception that “our” capabilities are better than “theirs” type of comparison. The problem, however, comes down to the fact that, in a hoarding situation, no one is left to do basic engineering. This should have been done two weeks ago. Life is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration. Engineering and geological tasks need to be handled. How this work gets done is the focus.

The solution to enhanced engineering and geological throughput comes from division of labor and specialization. But first let me reiterate that in this day and age, managing a process, or changing a process requires that the software to manage that process be built first. People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification builds these processes for the industry so that these changes can be made and altered as the industry requires. 

We’ve discussed the way the division of labor and specialization could increase the throughput of the engineering and geological capabilities of the oil & gas industry. How the mountains of this type of work could be approached by pooling the technical resources of the producers represented in the Joint Operating Committee. We now want to discuss how the cost of those resources would be recognized and recovered in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. This discussion is also about the multitude of equalizations each month for each producer. This is to calculate their working interest share in the property. And how the Joint Operating Committee authorizes these funding requirements.

We need to determine who charges for work done at a Joint Operating Committee and why? For that we need to revisit the Work-Order system part of the People, Ideas & Objects application modules. Work-Order charges are based on the AFE, partnership lease or overhead accounts of the producer and are therefore pre-approved, tried and tested methods of controlling costs. Without an authorized Work Order, no one can charge any work to an AFE, lease or overhead account. And with a Work Order, only work authorized through an AFE, lease or overhead account will be completed, approved and charged to the joint account.

Charges for individual engineers and geologists will be based on a factor of the Revenue Per Employee of their producer firm. Discussion regarding Revenue Per Employee can be found in the Background section of this wiki. Revenue Per Employee establishes the approximate level of capability the producer firm has taken their earth science & engineering capacities and capabilities to. It reflects their organization's value. Therefore a factor, based upon agreed upon industry standards of what percentage of Revenue Per Employee a Senior Engineer should be charged to the Joint Operating Committee at etc. Revenue Per Employee is an objective criteria calculated in the Preliminary Specification and is directly comparable among peers. 

The combination of the Work Order and Pooling of Technical Resources within the Joint Operating Committees allows industry to deal with resource constraints. Specialization and the division of labor are the only tools that can materially increase organizational productivity. It will need to be the solution. Applying this solution to the organization employed in the industry will only cause more serious consequences in terms of the economic viability of North American producers. There are many other aspects to these tools and we will discuss them here in the Partnership Accounting Module and throughout the Preliminary Specification.

OCI RFP Discussion, Part III

 Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property, research and our user community are the three competitive advantages that People, Ideas & Objects have defined and built our offering upon. The configuration is designed to accelerate the development and implementation of our software. It is also designed to achieve user-based software quality and continuously improve and enhance our software development. This community evolves and resolves issues and opportunities based on Intellectual Property. Providing a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable means of oil & gas operations everywhere and always. Setting the foundation for profitable, North American energy independence. This is the strategic position we’ve taken in this market. We have defined and resolved oil & gas industry issues and opportunities in the Preliminary Specification. This is to capture a substantial twenty five year value of $25.7 to $45.7 trillion due to our focus on profitability. We recently identified $660 billion in incremental value available to investors in the short term. The Preliminary Specification focuses on the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the oil & gas industry. Which holds the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, strategic and innovation frameworks. When we move the compliance and governance frameworks into alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee, we achieve organizational speed, innovation, and profitability in producer firms.

Commercialization of this Intellectual Property is licensed to People, Ideas & Objects. It is focused on profitability and accountability in oil & gas and resolves the issues present in the industry today. With this IP supporting our user community through its license, our software and service providers can continually adapt to oil & gas needs. This is done through Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. This created substantial conflict between our firm and the producer's officers and directors. We feel our conflict with the producers has grown and expanded to include their investors and bankers. In addition, the service industry, producers' staff and the energy consumer are all disappointed and frustrated with producers' performance. Are all disappointed in the lack of profitability, accountability, action on these issues, deprecated capacities and capabilities and the loss of North American energy independence available only a short time ago. The handful of people who personally prospered financially at the expense of all these others are now identified as the individuals who did nothing but “muddle through.” Who had the responsibility and authority to ensure these things didn’t happen but didn't care and refused to consider the criticism of People, Ideas & Objects and the Preliminary Specification. A solution they know is appropriate however eliminates their ability to personally prosper disproportionally and exclusively.

Investors expect Tier 1 ERP systems to be implemented to alleviate profitability and accountability concerns. We suspect producer officers and directors are orchestrating a move to meet investor demands. Through the implementation of SAP systems, we believe they are unprepared and inconsistent with industry needs. SAP, which lacks an oil & gas vision and specification of "what, how, and why," has been selected due to its ability to fit into the current methods of poor accountability and profitability used by these officers and directors by way of its custom implementation at each producer firm. SAP held their 11th annual oil & gas conference on September 12, 2022. Highlights of SAP's oil & gas materials include.

Companies will work together in meeting production, profitability, and safety targets (possibly as “pay for outcome.”)

Ultimately, they are shifting to core profitable and sustainable value pools and minimizing their exposure to the market volatility.

I see these as one of three potential SAP alternatives. 

• It may be an extension of their Performance Management feature set that’s been available in the marketplace. Indicating no change in the status quo of the prospective SAP users or oil & gas investors.
• To suggest that SAP is offering a solution to the oil & gas industry that caters to the definition and needs of the officers and directors, as People, Ideas & Objects allege, as the reason for this potential selection process proceeding. They are in fact offering themselves and will become blind sleepwalking agents of whomever will feed them. However, SAP also needs to walk both sides of the streets in this transaction. If they’re not promoting and providing a methodology of enhanced profitability then I would see that as problematic for many reasons. Knowing producer bureaucrats as I do, SAP would only be setting themselves up as a future viable scapegoat of the producers' officers and directors as to why they subsequently failed, post SAP integration. For example, the viable scapegoat of “SAP did not implement appropriate profitability and accountability methods, they failed.” (By mentioning this alternative one can see how much I’ve personally enjoyed the interactions and the experience I've gained from the officers and directors of these producer firms.)
• Or, someone devised a method of oil & gas profitability that “borrows” heavily from the Intellectual Property being commercialized by People, Ideas & Objects. Under the name of “pay for outcome” or “sustainable value pools” and “minimizing their exposure to the market volatility.” 

Regarding the last option, as a software company People, Ideas & Objects would never violate any Intellectual Property of any other software or service-oriented company. When software firms depend on the pristine nature of their Intellectual Property, they are above reproach and maintain a historical legacy evident throughout. An example of this is the legacy on our blog and wiki. We know that those dependent on IP for their revenue streams are of the same mindset. 

I am also convinced that the officers and directors of the producer firms are wise to the needs of innovation and development in the software field. They also need IP to succeed in the marketplace as a science-based business. That producers would evaluate software offerings on the basis of the origins and pedigree of the IP proposed to be employed in their organization. To ensure that it does not infringe upon others' Intellectual Property. And can therefore continue to use those products through their appropriate life cycles. Ensuring that their reputation of being upstanding, law abiding citizens that would never use others' property would not need to be mentioned here. This may be seen as a feature of the producers today. Their inability to access People, Ideas & Objects Intellectual Property by ignoring it is another viable scapegoat as to why they can’t attain that desired accountability and profitability. 

Why "Just" a Preliminary Specification

We noted earlier that the eight-year-long cash and working capital crisis in oil & gas led to the cannibalization of producer business processes. Oil & gas producers and service industry deal with layoffs at the beginning of the business development process to avoid disrupting production. However, eight years of officer and director inactivity have cut into these industries' capabilities and capacities. There’s been a proliferation of advanced processes as noted in this World Oil article. This trend won't end there either. The move to the Internet of Things will open new opportunities for capabilities that would have seemed impossible and unimaginable eight years ago. For example, Elon Musk's Swarm network. Which enables access and control of oil & gas remote facilities via the Internet of Things (IoT).

The first advantage of having a Preliminary Specification is that we can set the direction we’re headed with a vision and viable business model. However, we cannot lock that into the 2012 environment that existed at the time of the initial specifications publication. And this is why People, Ideas & Objects, our user community, their service provider organizations and Oracle Cloud ERP are configured to provide the industry with permanent software development capability for oil & gas through our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas service to ensure a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable industry.

Within producer firms today, officers and directors expect investors to provide the financial resources to “build balance sheets.” Similar assumptions were made with respect to business in general, the service industry and other vendors providing producers with market solutions that spontaneously appear on command. As a participant in the ERP market space I am witness to these assumptions and methods used throughout the producer population. It’s incumbent upon producer firms to ensure that any competitive advantage that a supplier had, would be extracted and distributed to their competitors in order to sponsor price competition in that product or service. This is a well known fact and is now one of the impediments to the industry standing on its own two feet and innovating. It is why it can’t, won’t and will not ever under the current administration. We’ve seen the game played too many times to know the outcome. It is for this reason that People, Ideas & Objects depend on Intellectual Property to safeguard and protect our efforts against this behavior. This is in the short to long term. 

The long and short of it is that nothing will be done while this culture exists. It must be ripped and replaced by a culture with the following characteristics. 

• It needs to respect the participation of others in order to secure a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil & gas economy. 
• Everyone in the industry now knows and understands why “real” profitability in the industry is such a critical necessity, everywhere and always. Profits fuel growth and prosperity for all throughout the greater oil & gas economy.
• Provide generic, aggregate producer information to vendors in terms of the anticipated capital expenditures by region, product or service classification as detailed in producer reserves reports. 
• It needs to pay its suppliers as if they were business partners and not extend accounts payable schedules to the ridiculous levels we’ve seen recently. All to provide officers and directors with the chance to continue their foolish endeavors.

These are just a few of the functions of the Preliminary Specification as it stands today. I could go on but the point is that it's just basic business and culture! Everyone points to the producer's responsibility and undertaking. The current culture fosters a behavior where officers and directors sit atop a primary industry and hand out the pennies to those that will beg the loudest and provide the greatest (personal) favors. A culture where “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Coil tubing providers and Packers Plus are exemplary examples of another phenomenon in their struggle for producer acceptance. Being denied entry into the industry for decades due to their ground breaking technologies. A lack of funding has prevented ERP development over the past few decades. The protracted argument over People, Ideas & Objects over the ideas contained here. Which began with enhanced profitability and accountability, which were consistently argued against as if profits didn’t matter. That is why there’s been nothing beyond a Preliminary Specification developed. Therefore, Intellectual Property is all that’s needed to seize the higher ground from those who thought profits were irrelevant. Imagine an industry that utters the words “profits don’t matter!” In ERP you’ll only get what you’ve paid for and producers have paid for nothing and therefore achieved their objective of abysmal accountability ensuring their unprofitability. 

There’s no capacity and capabilities in the oil & gas ERP tier 1 marketplace. Producers are left with two development choices that meet investors' basic demands, SAP or People, Ideas & Objects et al. Only we have an oil & gas vision, understanding, plan and Preliminary Specification. Most significant of all, is our nine years (as of 2023) of user community development based on a compelling and powerful user community vision. A product offering that may be jeopardized due to producers' "compliance" with investors' demands for tier 1 ERP providers by selecting SAP. Eliminating People, Ideas & Objects and our user community from the market due to our pursuit of accountability and profitability for producer firms. Which is the primary point of friction between us and the producer's officers and directors.

What will happen in oil & gas when SAP needs replacement in ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty two years? Who will provide solutions at that time? Will they have spent the time and effort necessary to solve the industry's issues? Regardless of who it is, their IP will need to be spectacular to avoid the Preliminary Specifications and its derivative works, while also building value for the industry as a whole. Just as SAP is expected to do at the moment. Will that person or group focus on accountability, profitability and energy independence in North American oil & gas? Or follow SAP’s lead by providing producer officers and directors with exactly what they want, unacceptable levels of accountability and continued specious profitability. Producers can make their own ERP selection decisions and I’m pleased with my actions over these years in taking the fight to them. I’ll leave you with these quotes from Joseph Schumpeter and Milton Friedman about the importance of “just” a Preliminary Specification. 

The first thing to go is the traditional conception of the modus operandi of competition … in capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not that type of competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization … which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives … It is hardly necessary to point out that competition of the kind we now have in mind acts not only when in being but also when it is merely an ever-present threat. It disciplines before it attacks. The businessman feels himself to be in a competitive situation even if he is alone in his field. 

Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: 84–85.

And

Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can … Its very success undermines the social institutions which protect it, and “inevitably” creates conditions in which it will not be able to live and which strongly point to socialism as the heir apparent. 

Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy: 61.

Milton Friedman stated.

Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.