"That Jarring Gong," Part IX

 Enough is Enough!

This thought has been lingering in my mind for a few months, and the final catalyst was an article by former United States Attorney General Bill Barr in the Wall Street Journal. His thoughts resonated with me, supporting a decision I wasn't sure would find much backing. However, it's clear that there are others who share this sentiment. Recently, Elon Musk made a similar move by banning Apple devices at his companies due to Apple's use of OpenAI. Inspired by this, I’ve decided to implement a new policy within People, Ideas & Objects: no Microsoft software, hardware, or services will be used in any capacity within our organization, our user community, their service provider organizations, or among our developers. This strict avoidance is rooted in a longstanding concern I’ve had about Microsoft. Those who know me understand that I’ve never purchased their products and never will. Now is the time to take a stand and say enough is enough. Security has never been a priority for Microsoft, and this cultural flaw is something they seem to neither recognize nor address.

The Issues

I've long questioned Microsoft's contribution to the market. Where is the "innovation" that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer claimed to bring to their products? The only notable attempt I recall is "Bob the Human Interface." Since its inception, Microsoft has stifled original market innovators by underselling and overinvesting in their marketed product capabilities, eventually overpowering and outperforming competitors. The first significant instance of this was with Lotus 1-2-3, the pioneering spreadsheet software. Similarly, several word processors like WordStar and WordPerfect were pushed out by the eventual dominance of Word and Office. Microsoft also set its sights on the operating system interface, trying to emulate Apple's 1984 innovations. Windows eventually became usable with the release of Windows 97, setting the industry standard. Another example is the IBM OS/2, a joint initiative with Microsoft, which was abandoned by Microsoft, leaving it to fade into obscurity.

The time has come to acknowledge these issues and take a definitive stand. We will move forward without reliance on Microsoft, focusing instead on technologies and partners that prioritize security, innovation, and integrity.

One Man’s Opinion

After Steve Jobs returned to Apple, it became the only firm I’m aware of that has come back from a near-death experience to once again prosper. Microsoft, on the other hand, has faced challenges with its product innovations, such as the Zune, Internet Explorer, Nokia smartphones, and Bing, indicating that the game has changed for them. However, Microsoft’s Windows operating system remains the only OS that users continue to pay for, including upgrades, while Linux and Mac have been free for at least a decade. Despite this, Microsoft has a sufficient number of customers willing to pay, enabling the company to acquire promising startup technologies and large companies like Nokia, LinkedIn, and GitHub, thereby maintaining a significant market presence.

Today, Windows and Office continue to sell well enough for Microsoft to position itself as a leader in the Information Technology marketplace, or so they believe. None of their current products were initiated internally or developed through their own initiative. Recently, they purchased a $10 billion interest in OpenAI and announced their own AI service, which will apparently use Microsoft cloud installations exclusively. Microsoft is investing heavily in this capability, despite their AI efforts already lagging behind competitors.

If we critically examine Microsoft's history and ask what is uniquely theirs, it's challenging to pinpoint anything significant. C# was intended to replace Java, but security issues have plagued their products. Windows is notorious for viruses, and .Net's basic security model is fundamentally flawed. Security is certainly not their forte unless Microsoft's competitive advantage lies in security breaches.

Three Examples of Behaviors

Example 1: Amicus Curiae in Supreme Court Case #18-956

Microsoft's behavior often reveals intentions that may not align with fostering innovation. For instance, their Amicus Curiae brief in support of the petitioner in the Supreme Court case #18-956, Google vs. Oracle, demonstrates a stance that might seem counterproductive if Microsoft were truly innovative. They argue that the Federal Circuit's decision threatens innovation by impeding fair use in software, crucial for collaborative processes and the development of new technologies like cloud computing and the Internet of Things. However, their position may primarily protect their own interests in maintaining control over software elements rather than genuinely promoting progress in the software industry.

The Federal Circuit’s decision threatens disastrous consequences for innovation. Software production today is often a highly collaborative process in which many different players participate. The industry’s current practices developed in reliance on decades of court decisions permitting robust fair use of functional software elements. Those cases accommodate the practical need for third parties to access and reuse functional code—like the software interfaces at issue here—to ensure the availability of programmers and to facilitate interoperability across myriad software platforms and hardware devices. Innovations in hardware (such as the “Internet of Things”) and software (such as cloud computing) have made that once-stable body of law increasingly critical. After hearing the evidence, the jury understood those considerations and concluded that Google’s fair-use defense was valid. The Federal Circuit’s reversal of that verdict as a matter of law threatens fair use’s vitality and extinguishes the necessary “breathing room” for the ecosystem of innovation it protects. This Court should grant review to ensure that copyright does not impede, rather than “promote,” “the Progress of Science and useful Arts” in the software context. U.S. Const. art. I, §8, cl. 8.

Example 2: Java and Intellectual Property

The purpose of object-oriented programming, exemplified by Java, is to reuse objects instead of rewriting them, addressing the inefficiencies of procedural programming. Java's framework allows developers to leverage pre-existing code, enhancing efficiency. However, Google have utilized this framework without compensating Oracle/Sun, the creators of Java. Google's use of 11,500 lines of code to access the Java API in Android highlights this issue, exploiting Java's efficiencies without adhering to fair use principles intended for minor, personal purposes, not for generating billions in revenue. This undermines the incentive for creating such reusable objects and frameworks, as the original developers are not compensated for their intellectual property.

Access through GitHub (a Microsoft 2018 $7.5 billion acquisition.) to all the world developers code is the purpose of what Microsoft were after and friend of the court comment regarded. This has been repackaged as “Co-Pilot” taking others IP and selling the derivative product as an AI feature that allows Co-Pilot to write software code based on the understanding of the Large Language Model learned from GitHub. 

In a screenshot shared on X, Kukoff highlighted detailed allegations concerning the development of GPT-4, suggesting that its closed-source nature primarily serves Microsoft's proprietary commercial interests. The screenshot included a quote attributed to Nadella, made during the November 2023 controversy surrounding OpenAI.

Nadella reportedly remarked that it would not matter if OpenAI ceased to exist, emphasizing Microsoft's possession of intellectual property rights, computational resources, and data necessary for AI development. “We have all the IP rights and all the capability. We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything. We are below them, above them, around them," stated Nadella, as per Kukoff’s post.

Example 3: Concerns About Big Tech Dominance

Some may argue that Microsoft is in it to win it, however their behavior has become an issue in my mind. Secondly this article of two time United States Attorney General Bill Barr’s raises similar concerns to People, Ideas & Objects however on a much larger scale.  

Big Tech’s playbook for expanding its dominance is familiar. Once these platforms establish monopoly or near-monopoly power in their primary markets, they enter and gain competitive advantages in adjacent markets. As a House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee report found, Big Tech companies have frequently “invested” in emerging firms and technologies in adjacent markets, integrated or bundled these products with their dominant platforms, and then provided a leg up to their offerings by giving them superior access to their platforms.

Big Tech companies can thus pre-empt the normal evolution of emerging markets. Rather than evolve into their own solar systems, adjacent markets become mere satellites of the dominant firms. This not only allows tech giants to absorb new domains but also prevents the emergence of new rivals with technologies capable of disrupting the platforms’ dominance.

The strategy is intentional. Internal deliberations at dominant companies have sometimes shown that a significant reason for investing in adjacent technologies is to throttle threats to the companies’ core platforms and instead turn them into “improvements” that can insulate the firms from competitive challenges.

Microsoft had a policy that captured this in the phrase “embrace and extend” which appropriately some are adding the term “extinguish” to. The warm embrace that OpenAI is feeling these days will soon have their “innovations” meet the same demise as Mitch Kapor’s did. From the WSJ article.

One reason Big Tech companies have become so powerful is that regulators have been asleep at the switch over the past 25 years and allowed them to gobble up emerging firms before they posed a competitive threat. We can’t repeat these mistakes and must carefully scrutinize investments by dominant platforms on the front end so that governments aren’t left trying to undo the harms when it isn’t feasible.

Google’s Android

Eric Schmidt was Chairman and CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. In August 2006, he was elected to Apple’s board of directors but resigned in August 2009 due to conflicts of interest. The first iPhone was released on January 9, 2007, and the first Android phone was released in September 2008. Notably, both Sergey Brin and Larry Page were mentored by Steve Jobs. As mentioned in Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs, Jobs felt betrayed by these three and referred to the Android phone as a product that "stole from Apple’s iPhone."

These events are part of a broader trend in the tech industry where large IT companies preempt competition. This behavior is highlighted in Bill Barr's Wall Street Journal article. Steve Jobs' ability to bring the iPhone to market was rooted in work he began at NeXT after separating from Apple in 1985. This work involved the Objective-C programming language, an object-oriented language based on C. From 1985 to the iPhone's release in 2007 and continuing, Jobs and his team built the objects and frameworks necessary for Apple's phones, which remain proprietary to Apple and cannot be copied.

Java, which began in the early 1990s on the other hand, is a programming language available to anyone who signs a license agreement, which includes paying royalties on commercially derived products. For Google to compete with Android against Apple's Objective-C framework, Sun Microsystems developed Java in 2007 would have demanded that a comparable framework be well-established. For Google to build a competitive framework from scratch would have taken at least a decade, as did Apple’s and Sun’s, making Google's Android not timely or viable in the market. Thus, Google opted to use Java, signing the license but never paying for it. Oracle sued and initially won, but Google won on appeal in the Supreme Court.

Adobe

Adobe has also been making controversial moves regarding the licensing and ownership of creative works. Their revised “End User License Agreement” grants Adobe an unlimited use license to all creative works produced with their software. While users retain ownership, Adobe claims unlimited usage rights. This means that if your work appears across the web, it’s because Adobe has the rights to use it.

In contrast, People, Ideas & Objects compensates its user community members for their work during development. We purchase the Intellectual Property rights from each user, ensuring all IP is centralized and can be licensed back to the community for further derivative works. This approach is vastly different from poaching user content for AI or other purposes.

The Other Alternative

As People, Ideas & Objects are eliminating Microsoft's software, hardware and services from any use in the People, Ideas & Objects domain of the Preliminary Specifications development. We feel we reduce the risk of introducing security risks that are unnecessary. Linux and Macs as Unix systems don’t have virus protection needed. If a user authorizes software that does damage, then they’re responsible. However nothing will enter unknowingly as an executable and begin causing havoc without the authority of the administrative level user first. 

Conclusion

If AI is as dangerous as some predict, it is important to recognize that these technologies are essentially advanced algorithms with increased speed and impact on society, making their rise inevitable. Their potential impact is significant due to these capabilities. Former Attorney General Bill Barr's article raises valid concerns, particularly about the culture at Microsoft. Microsoft's culture has historically not fostered an internal drive to develop innovations and products independently. This trend is unlikely to change, and they may continue to leverage their cash and strategic methods for their own benefit in substantial ways. It is not the AI technology itself that is concerning, but rather the corporate culture, as highlighted in Barr's article.

"That Jarring Gong," Part VIII

 When OPEC, as announced, returns 2 million BOE/day to the market in 2025, the potential losses for North America could be substantial if they do not compensate for this increased production. We can make some assumptions based on the recent behavior of natural gas prices. In the short term, producers' alleged voluntary production cuts totaling approximately 5% led to a 91% price increase. This raises the question: will officers and directors aim for a new low in oil prices, perhaps even below the negative $37 record? We also have this century's record of overproduction of natural gas and the $4.1 trillion revenue loss we documented in late 2023. Matching that may be a worthwhile target.

North American producers are high-cost, swing producers, with the obligation to ensure "real" profitability in their oil & gas production. In contrast, the Middle East's conventional reserves benefit from much lower capital costs and significantly higher daily well productivity. Their investments are profitable based on vastly different economics compared to North America. Middle Eastern conventional fields can sustain high production levels for decades, exemplified by Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field, which has been the world's largest since 1948 and whose capital costs were retired long ago. Meanwhile, North American producers face substantial capital costs that are yet to be expended. 

Before any forward progress can be made, accountability for past actions and the industry's failures must be addressed. People, Ideas & Objects foresee a convergence of several aggravating factors making the conflicts and contradictions in 2025 difficult for the "muddle through" crowd to manage.

2025

Replacement Costs

As with natural gas production, People, Ideas & Objects contend that the replacement cost of each barrel of oil in North America is around $150. Consequently, natural gas, on a 6-to-1 basis, should command a price of $25. These figures are what I derived from the financial statements of the producers; I didn’t spend the money. It has always been our claim that oil and gas have been unprofitable. Comparing these replacement cost values to their selling prices clearly illustrates the industry's destitute state today. These are the replacement cost values that we believe oil and gas should sell for. They represent the costs for oil and gas sold today, which must generate the financial resources to replace the commodity. This is the minimum necessary in my opinion, as it doesn’t contribute to the expansion of reserves, only replacement. It will cover the costs of exploration and production, but not discovery.

The State of Affairs

What condition is the North American oil and gas industry in? It could be that it's in the eye of the beholder. In my view, it’s in absolute shambles. I don't think any other industry has managed to carry itself this far without being forced to take radical, remedial action and rebuild itself. It being one of the most capital-intensive industries in the business world, it therefore generates ample cash flow to continue basic operations. Fumes have fueled the service industry and suppliers. Producers, as a primary industry, have played every game on those honest, hardworking people who were subject to their mischief.

There used to be a willing supply of investors who believed the financial statements that producers were issuing. Financial statements that, for all intents and purposes, have not changed in any form or fashion since investors realized they were being deceived in 2015 and suspended all further equity investments. "Muddle through" has not been able to remedy the shortfall in terms of what investors brought to the table and to keep the appearance of prosperity continuing. The best example and most dire consequence of this “muddle through” approach is the impact on the service industry.

Who Needs the Service Industry?

Field operational capacity has plummeted to 30% of what was available before 2015. There was a brief resurgence, pushing capacity to 50% between 2017 and 2020. This was when producers discovered the true meaning of accounts payable, and the service industry worked for free. Not paying bills for 18 months is not standard business practice, but that’s what North American producers did. Then COVID-19 hit, exacerbating the situation and leaving the service industry in desperate need of help. Unwilling to part with any primary revenues they controlled, producers abandoned the service industry to fend for themselves. Cutting up equipment for scrap metal and selling horsepower to other industries became necessary, though unprofitable. Service industry investors watched in amazement as producers failed to realize the long-term consequences of their actions. Producers fooled the investors in the service industry for sure. I wonder how they'll fool them next time?

Nothing has been done to mitigate the damage from investors walking away from supporting the industry. Nothing has been done to mitigate the damage to the service industry. Oil and gas producers remain insulated and isolated from immediate cash needs. However, the second half of 2024 reveals a troubling trend in the oil and gas industry: capitulation is running through the service industry. The writing on the wall has the distinct producer grammar, font, and writing style. This history since 2015, when new investor dollars to oil and gas producers were cut off, shows that producers passed down this burden to the service industry. Let's call that the service industry's short and mid-term history. Producers' long-term history reflects a boom and bust mentality that detrimentally affects the service industry.

The capitulation within the service industry is evident. It's not about the loss of the capital structure of service firms, which were damaged beyond recognition post-2020. The capitulation I’m seeing is that the industry has never been truly prosperous for operators. Any money made in good years is quickly eroded during bust years. The capitulation I’m seeing is of the going concern.

The producers' solution to the problem of the day: consolidation is causing the concern I believe. The number of customers, in terms of oil and gas producers in your geographical area, is dwindling. A 300-mile drive in every direction may contain only ten producers, soon to be fewer. Dealing with producers who knew everything about your billing practices and doled out work on the basis of throwing bits of food to the hungriest competitors was already difficult. Now, there'll be markedly fewer producers. One supplier will gain the business of the consolidator, while another loses it. The culture of treating service industry providers as "greedy and lazy," only taking a producer's cash, reflects a lack of business knowledge regarding "free on board," "building balance sheets," and "putting cash in the ground." This foolishness stems from a culture beginning in the seventies that hasn't accepted a single challenging argument. You reap what you sow, gentlemen. Repeated warnings of this day’s arrival if action was not taken. And now in 2024, actions are being taken by others. 

The Endowment of Shale

There is no question that shale is the abundant energy source needed to drive the economic and political needs of the 21st century for North America. However, many issues are associated with this new resource. As with all oil and gas, the easy and least expensive reserves are gone. What remains will require more effort and ingenuity with each incremental barrel. In a rapidly increasing cost environment, wouldn't it be prudent to have good control and understanding of how and where real profitability is earned? The innovation and drive leaving the service industry is, therefore, a tragedy of unique proportions. But I repeat myself. 

The production and reserves are prolific, but the decline in deliverability is quick and unforgiving in shale, measured in months, not decades. Measured on a logarithmic scale, they point straight down when they turn. It's not an overall reserves issue of concern; there are ample petroleum reserves remaining to be sourced. However, it demands the same volume of capital that was used to complete the first wells. Whether you extend and frac the lateral, drill and frac a new one, or simply re-frac the old lateral at different positions, each of these operations costs millions of dollars and will expose as much production as the initial drilling did, for the same period of time. The issue is that the service industry and the necessary capital are not as they were. With capacity at 30%, any guess is probably appropriate regarding the quality of their capabilities.

If, as claimed by OPEC and proven in last year's calculations by People, Ideas & Objects, there were $4.1 trillion in natural gas revenue losses, oil production may face additional short-term overproduction of both commodities throughout 2025. Prices may be severely affected on the downside, further eroding the service industry due to lost time and declining revenues of producers from both volume and price declines. Stating this shows it's a fundamental principle in business that a firm would do what is necessary not to experience price and production volume decline concurrently. At the hands of producer officers and directors, this 2025 prediction seems accurate and therefore futile.

What the service industry realized in the immediate post-COVID period, when producers were not paying their bills, was not only the cutting up of equipment or selling of horsepower but also the loss of labor needed to drill a lateral for a shale well. These workers left to find steady employment in other industries, where they are probably now firmly entrenched. How they come back to an industry with less equipment, investors burnt by producers, and the capitulation of the brain trust and entrepreneurial drive remains uncertain. Excuses, blaming, and the creative generation of scapegoats by officers and directors should be seen as cause and effect.

If you read the Preliminary Specification completed in August 2012, it details my concerns for the industry if chronic oil and gas overproduction continued. The discussion centered around the fact that these commodities are price makers, not price takers, as officers and directors assumed. It clearly indicated that overproduction was causing prices to fall below the marginal price. If producer officers and directors had been open to criticism and had not ostracized me from the industry, this could have been effectively avoided. In retrospect, it's obvious that these are general business principles beyond their comprehension.

The Post-it note, pen, telephone, receptionist's time, and receptions square footage are all capital items found in property, plant, and equipment in every oil and gas producer. My offer still stands: if any producer wants to refute my claims, I’ll conduct an audit of their overhead costs to determine the truth, and I'll do the audit for free. Hardly anything is capital in oil and gas. PennWest is no longer a firm because when the SEC investigated, they found it was capitalizing operating costs. Such is the passion for avoiding any cost ever hitting the income statement.

Overstated assets generate equal amounts of overstated profitability. Overstated profitability draws in overinvestment from investors looking to capture those profits, leading to overbuilding the productive capacity of the industry which results in overproduction, which is fatal to pricing in a price-maker product. These arguments precipitated my drive to begin this journey back in 1991. Sparked by a Calgary Herald newspaper article that I can't reproduce due to copyright. On page 33 of the July 26, 1986 issue, there are two related articles: "OPEC Minister Can See Economic Destruction" and "Return to Glory Days Unlikely." These articles responded to the initial overproduction-induced oil price collapse from $30 to $10. The issue was known and understood globally at that time. The consequences were well-documented, and the long-term economic destruction was predicted. It’s 2024, and after a valiant effort by investors to defy gravity and keep the industry afloat, what has been made of North American oil & gas.

Conclusion

2025 may be the year when officers and directors begin to realize the damage they've done. They'll need to formulate new viable scapegoats for themselves and find a way to cover their exit out the back. This has gone on too long and the damage will soon take on a permanence that will roll over our economic and political performance. It was unnecessary and will be unnecessary tomorrow.

"That Jarring Gong," Part VII

 Profitable Production Rights Framework

“Frameworks” in People, Ideas & Objects context, represent software applications that enable developers to access advanced capabilities through various methods. These frameworks are offered as a service, allowing developers to inherit the capabilities, capacities, and reputation of the framework provider for a fee. While "framework" may not be the perfect term, we use it in the Preliminary Specification to describe our approach, including Oracle Cloud ERP.

Since 2020, a new framework has been under development, now generally available, that focuses on blockchain technology. People, Ideas & Objects intend to use this framework, called “Onyx”, developed and operated by J.P. Morgan Chase, to manage our Profitable Production Rights blockchain.

Please watch this video overview of Onyx. At 7:10 Keerthi Moudgal states the pertinent point of how blockchain, J.P. Morgan Onyx and People, Ideas & Objects will be able to operate. It’s not a means to raise capital. It's a facility in which investors will be able to use to trade and transact.

Tokenization of Real Assets: Insights from JP Morgan's Onyx Digital Assets | Business of Blockchain

Attributes of Onyx by J.P. Morgan for Profitable Production Rights Holders

• Enhanced Liquidity: Provides a trading platform for both Flexible and Profitable Production Rights.
• Independent Technology: An independent third-party blockchain technology and platform developed and managed by the largest bank in the world. [Learn more](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/122315/worlds-top-10-banks-jpm-wfc.asp).
• Smart Contracts: Utilizes smart contract-based blockchain technology to manage the Profitable Production Right licenses on behalf of the holders. [More on smart contracts](https://www.ibm.com/topics/smart-contracts).
• License Revenue Management: Captures license revenue and pays the costs to process Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software once operational.
• Leverages Intangible Value: Enhances the value proposition from the Preliminary Specifications' decentralized production model. Profitable Production Rights licenses are assessed as a percentage of oil & gas revenue.
• Intrinsic Value of IT: Realizes the intrinsic value of Information Technology when applied to disintermediate an industry's business model.
• Transferable Licenses: Licenses are transferable to any North American oil & gas production and remain valid as long as the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas facility operates.
• SEC Compliance: Will comply with SEC Form D. 

These highlights outline our first-year budget to establish this framework as an operational capability. Once operational, People, Ideas & Objects will load the Profitable Production Rights licenses onto the Onyx framework. The first year's budget of $10 million U.S. aims to make these rights fully operational, serving as our funding source for subsequent development costs of the Preliminary Specification. As development progresses, we will sell the necessary rights at the trading value of the product to realize the required proceeds.

Producers Competitive Structure

People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification offers a compelling value proposition that is based on a number of methods in which to provide for the most profitable means of oil & gas operations, everywhere and always. The highlights include.

• Commodity Pricing Structure: Implements a pricing model that ensures timely and accurate recovery of all exploration and production costs, passing these costs to consumers.
• Hyperspecialization and the division of labor: to enhance the industry throughput and performance from the same resource base.
• Shared Accounting and Administrative Infrastructure: Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas shares these functions across the industry, eliminating redundant costs associated with individual producers building and maintaining their own capabilities.
• Joint Operating Committee Costs: Ensures that Joint Operating Committee costs, including overhead are variable, based on profitable production. If production is shut-in, all costs are variable, thus no profit but also no loss.
• Cash Management: Returns cash incurred in overhead to the producer/Joint Operating Committee to cover the subsequent month’s overhead costs. Currently, overhead is capitalized to property, plant, and equipment and depleted over decades, necessitating new sources of fresh capital be sourced each month.
• Capital Cost Recognition: Aligns the recognition of capital costs with capital market expectations, avoiding outdated practices like “putting cash in the ground” and “building balance sheets,” which reflect poor business understanding. Instead, the return of capital is used to fuel capital expenditures, preparing the industry for its most complex and challenging future.

Key benefits and outcomes include disintermediation through Information Technology: Leveraging IT to streamline operations, reduce inefficiencies, and create a more direct connection between production and profit.

People, Ideas & Objects propose a reimagined industry structure emphasizing dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable producers. Advocates for a comprehensive cultural change within the industry to embrace new operational models that prioritize profitability. Recognizes the need for a comprehensive industry effort to overcome the challenges and risks associated with transitioning to these new models.

Our strategy is ambitious and seeks to address the challenges facing the oil & gas industry by fundamentally rethinking how it operates. By engaging a broad spectrum of stakeholders through the Profitable Production Rights License, our approach aims to transform the industry into a more profitable and innovative sector. A transformation that is not only necessary for the industry's survival but also for its ability to compete and thrive in a global market that increasingly values these attributes.  

Implementation Summary

People, Ideas & Objects include a blockchain module as one of the 14 modules in the Preliminary Specification. This module is designed specifically for the producers and will not be associated with the operation of Profitable Production Rights. However, Profitable Production Rights, operated on J.P. Morgan’s Onyx, will be the essential gateway producers need to secure each barrel of oil equivalent per day they produce. This access will be crucial for utilizing the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and services provided.

The proceeds from the sale of Profitable Production Rights will be used to build the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas facility. The development costs of the Preliminary Specification include expenses for developers and our user community, who contribute to the project and earn specific rights through their involvement. These include a license to establish independent service provider organizations for conducting service, support, implementation, accounting, and administration on behalf of producer firms. Access to these service provider organizations will only be available through the Profitable Production Rights gateway access to Onyx.

Service providers, being independent, will bill producers directly for their service fees and are responsible for their own costs. Reorganizing, building, and maintaining the industry's accounting and administration would be unreasonable for anything other than the market to manage, making this structure the preferred and chosen method. 

The fees generated by Profitable Production Rights will not include any inherent direct value from the service providers; they will cover only the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas. Negotiations for the Profitable Production Rights licenses will be determined by their rights holders.

As the cryptocurrency and digital asset spaces evolve, barriers to entry and scale are gradually falling away, says Massey. The global economy is moving closer to widespread adoption of these new ways of doing business. When cryptocurrency and digital assets become easier to access and transact than fiat currencies and traditional processes allow, organizations may witness a groundswell of adoption that transforms the way value is exchanged.

 —by Tammy Whitehouse, senior writer, Executive Perspectives in The Wall Street Journal, Deloitte Services LP. 

Strategy for Industry Transformation

A core component of our strategy is to incentivize stakeholders of the oil and gas industry to adopt new practices that ensure profitability and sustainability. This involves transitioning from traditional methods to more innovative and accountable approaches, facilitated by the Profitable Production Rights License. This license not only generates revenue for People, Ideas & Objects but also acts as a catalyst for industry-wide change.

Target Audiences:

• Oil & Gas Investors: Our strategy aims to re-engage investors who have been disillusioned by past producer practices. By offering them a stake in a transformed, dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable industry, we seek to renew their interest and confidence.
• Oil & Gas Employees: Direct participation in the production process is attractive and promises a safer, more rewarding future during this transition. Focusing their interest on profitability, everywhere and always.
• Service Industry Representatives: Addressing the oil & gas boom/bust cycle, our strategy advocates for a more stable and trustworthy relationship between producers and the service industry. This approach aims to rebuild trust and ensure mutual profitability.
• Producers (North American and Worldwide): By encouraging the direct purchase of Profitable Production Rights Licenses, our strategy seeks to secure production rights and promote a performance-based culture across the industry.
• Our User Community and Their Service Provider Organizations: Their participation in software development demonstrates their commitment to profitability. Our user community and service provider organizations come from the broader oil and gas community, and their direct financial participation in the production process is highly complimentary.

Our target audience for Profitable Production Rights licenses provides these holders with incremental value, securing license revenues directly from the production of profitable oil and gas. Producers pay the Profitable Production Rights license holders a percentage of revenue as the fee to access Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas.

Our Response: To a Request for Proposal (RFP)

In 2021, in anticipation of receiving Requests for Proposals (RFP’s) we wrote a response and published it to our wiki to provide an understanding of the benefits of the Preliminary Specification. It details the seven Organizational Constructs we’ve defined within the 14 modules of our software to create a new culture in the industry. Explaining the choices we made in terms of the areas we felt we could be best employed in the industry to build the most value. 

Our competitive advantages are unique and highly relevant to the current state of the oil and gas industry. People, Ideas & Objects is structured to ensure the delivery of high-quality ERP systems to North American oil and gas producers, enhancing their operational efficiency and profitability.

Conclusion

The Profitable Production Rights strategy is ambitious, aiming to address the multifaceted challenges in the oil and gas industry by fundamentally rethinking its operations. By focusing on innovation, accountability, and profitability, and engaging a broad spectrum of stakeholders through the Profitable Production Rights License, this approach seeks to transform the industry into a more profitable, sustainable, and innovative sector. This transformation is crucial not only for the industry's survival but also for its ability to compete and thrive in a global market that increasingly values these attributes.

The oil and gas sector generates 10 to 25 thousand man-hours of mechanical labor per barrel of oil equivalent, translating to 23 to 59 times the number of man-days produced by the world's entire population. North America, particularly sensitive to political and economic disruptions in fuel supply, has seen its oil and gas producers squander the substantial endowment of shale, earning nothing but destruction from it. This mismanagement may be leading to an accelerated decline in production deliverability that may be irreversible, potentially jeopardizing our way of life. Despite this, the producers remain unaffected and complacent, they will “muddle through.”

"That Jarring Gong," Part VI

 At this point, I want to expand on the implications and consequences for People, Ideas & Objects, the industry, and the broader oil & gas economy if we experience our fourth funding failure. Initially, when I began the “That Jarring Gong” series, I noted it would be our third development funding failure, incorrectly excluding our original 1996 initiative, which led to our market failure in early 1997.

Facing a fourth failure is daunting for anyone. Despite significant sunk costs, my actions today are not guided by past investments but by a continuous evaluation of our offering's deficiencies. Each funding failure prompts me to ask why it did not proceed and what improvements are needed.

I have been fortunate to foresee the current oil & gas issues, predict their impact on producers and the industry, and design our Preliminary Specification to resolve them. This foresight has enabled me to make recent attempts to initiate developments over the past seven years. If these efforts prove inadequate to provide a solution to the oil & gas marketplace, I am uncertain what standard would be acceptable.

My Issue

I struggle to see what more I can do to improve the Preliminary Specification as it stands today. While I am pleased with the current state of our work, I worry that further development by myself could erode its quality rather than enhance it. There is little more I can contribute in terms of vision. Our 2023 update primarily addressed Oracle initiatives in automation and Generative Artificial Intelligence. The scope and scale of our project now require input from many people who understand each aspect of the industry in far greater detail than I or any one person ever could. This is the source of quality in user-based ERP systems.

Developers know how to write software, but expecting them to build an accounting and administrative system for the oil & gas industry without guidance is unrealistic. They need to be guided by the users who will work with these systems, sitting side by side in development. This is the point we have reached today.

Failing to seize this opportunity could be a defining moment for the industry. If we don’t act now, it may lead to a collective resignation: "If 34 years wasn’t enough for the Preliminary Specification, I’m not the person to try next." This sentiment was echoed in the service industry for decades, leading to prolonged inaction. The issues we seek to resolve are systemic and cultural, deeply embedded within the industry. The scope and scale of the damage and destruction to date are tragic, with two key aspects often overlooked:

• The elapsed time during which intervention should have occurred.
• The detrimental and now irreversible causes of the decline.

The hidden, hollowed-out capacities and capabilities of both the oil & gas and service industries may have profound effects on North America's production profile. What if production begins to decline and people realize that the cupboards are bare? This scenario underscores the urgency and importance of our efforts.

Innovation and Initiative

In recent years, the oil and gas industry has shown signs of activity and evolution through various significant decisions. Initially, there was a shift from shale to clean energy, only to pivot away from clean energy later. Now, the focus is on consolidation, with substantial acquisitions aimed at achieving "efficiencies" within the industry. However, these decisions are primarily made at the executive level, while the rest of the industry experiences a troubling paralysis. Reflecting a "muddle through" mentality, the industry seems to be waiting for a miracle—a resurgence of investor cash, full capacity operation of the service sector, and a return to being seen as heroes. This approach requires no action or decisions, just a belief that past successes will repeat, benefiting from the primary revenues of the industry. The service sector, crucial in generating these revenues, is left to fend for itself, despite being wholly dependent on producers. Today, producers are only learning now they too are wholly dependent on the service industry.

Moreover, the industry faces an unprecedented level of obstruction. According to executives, factors such as President Biden, OPEC, weather, pipeline companies, greedy investors, the service industry, consumers, and even the Easter Bunny, have all conspired to create a constant crisis. This mindset dates back to the 1986 oil price crash, fostering an addiction to making excuses, blaming others, and finding scapegoats. This culture of excuse-making has become deeply ingrained, with consolidation now justified by blaming small producers for flooding the market with excess production.

Addressing this cultural issue is evident in this blog's persistence in tackling the industry's profitability challenges. Initially, the idea of prioritizing profitability was met with ridicule. The industry's pervasive "muddle through" mentality is evident in daily frustrations, such as the lack of basic business knowledge in areas like the LNG market, as documented last year. The systemic nature of this issue across organizations results in an inability to make decisions or provide clear answers, reinforcing the culture that People, Ideas & Objects argue has been in place since at least 1986.

Motivation

The oil and gas industry is hurtling towards a crisis, yet many within it are content, convinced that a career in this sector is as secure and lucrative as ever. They believe that simply holding on will guarantee substantial financial rewards and pension benefits. This complacency is pervasive, driven by the leadership exemplified by current officers and directors. It is a despicable yet understandable reality, making any dissenting voice a rarity. For anyone to even raise an eyebrow will soon be forced to pull up a keyboard in the cubicle next to me. 

Reflecting on my own experience, after a significant setback in 1997, I was reminded of why I started this journey in 1991. I foresaw the industry's downfall due to rampant overproduction, leading to price crashes in 1986 and beyond. The solution seemed simple: identify unprofitable properties and shut-in their production. However, producers' accounting systems were and are woefully inadequate for this task. I couldn't be part of a flawed system, knowing I had a solution and doing nothing about it.

A recent post by James O'Keefe, a controversial figure known for undercover video reporting, resonated deeply with me. It highlights a broader societal decline and poses a critical question we all may face in the coming years:

We’re all going to be tested over the next few years with a terrible choice.

Preserve your livelihood and lose your soul.

Or preserve your soul and lose your livelihood.

Will you live a lie in order to survive? 

Or will you live the truth and face ruin?

People, Ideas & Objects do not seek to motivate through fear. We have seen our governments use fear—through climate change and COVID-19—to control behavior. They resort to fear because, in North America, they can't use force. My point is to draw parallels between the decisions I had to make and those that may soon confront everyone. The upside, of course, is that chaos also brings opportunity.

Decisions, Decisions

If we fail to secure funding in 2024, how can People, Ideas & Objects refine the Preliminary Specification to make it more appealing to the market? What additional steps are necessary to move forward again, potentially for the fifth time? We must determine these steps and incorporate them into our strategy. 

And who would be so wise to attempt an alternative to the Preliminary Specification, recognizing our Intellectual Property needs to be avoided and extend to the greater oil & gas economy what the “muddle through” impact is. 

It's crucial to consider whether anyone could successfully propose an alternative to the Preliminary Specification while avoiding our Intellectual Property and addressing the broader oil & gas economy's challenges. Demonstrating yet another failure, such as the industry's consolidation, seems redundant and unproductive. How many times have officers and directors evaded the consequences of their actions? It's naive to assume that the outcome would be different next time. Conversely, those who believed in the Preliminary Specification as the solution have been disappointed by the lack of response. They understand the actions and consequences and recognize that People, Ideas & Objects has made a commendable effort despite persistent cultural pushback. These individuals will question what can be done beyond merely surviving for the sake of their families and careers. Particularly when what is being asked here is to carry the weight of the industry's destruction on the personal budget of one individual these past 20 years. 

The stigma of a failed initiative is unavoidable, and that's where the Preliminary Specification stands if we fail to secure funding again. We face constraints from investors and bankers due to several factors:

• The scope and scale of the issues.
• The producers' behavior towards ERP providers in the 1990s, which demonstrated to ERP investors that they were the target or mark.
• Our inability to provide returns to investors using the standard software business model.

The cultural and disintermediation forces against producers participating in our developments.

Our only viable source of funds is the primary revenues of the industry, with our Profitable Production Rights being the only, albeit unattractive, means to access them.

How would this failure impact the industry? Within the oil & gas ERP marketplace, it would have minimal effect. Most vendors have been in the market as long as I have and have experienced similar challenges. IBM and Oracle exited decades ago, and while SAP offers ERP solutions, they do not have a specific oil & gas ERP solution.

Outside the ERP marketplace, the situation is more intriguing. Consolidation is already causing concerns, as seen with Nitro, a service industry provider that declared bankruptcy after losing half its revenues overnight due to a primary customer's consolidation. Chesapeake announced layoffs despite their consolidation with Southwestern being on hold. Our failure might simply reinforce the existing issues.

Our intellectual property represents 20 years of research and publication. If this isn't sufficient for producers, the next individual attempting to develop a new solution will need to invest a decade in research to at least match the Preliminary Specifications. Since this has been deemed inadequate, they will need to go further, though we have no idea what that would entail. We wish them luck, as we do anyone in the industry seeking to address the officers' and directors' firm grip on primary oil & gas production revenues. As the saying goes, "Who needs profits?" Perhaps we should start calling them "Czars." One thing People, Ideas & Objects knows for sure is that our research legacy and the Preliminary Specification stand alone—there are no other fools or solutions.

"That Jarring-Gong." Part V

 Clarifying Our Budget and Profitable Production Rights

In this post, People, Ideas & Objects aims to clear up some confusion regarding our budget and the motivation behind raising our first year's funds. Despite our efforts to address questions in writing, we recognize that not all concerns may be fully addressed. Unfortunately, our blog stopped accepting comments in 2010—not for the reasons some might assume, but because valuable contributions were being made by unlicensed contributors, posing a risk to our Intellectual Property. Nonetheless, we remain open to communication and have provided my email address and two phone numbers for direct contact. Please feel free to reach out at any time.

The two topics of concern are:

• Our Budget Demands:Some have questioned whether we are capitulating on our budget demands or if we have given up on securing the upfront budget proceeds before starting. The answer is no, we have not abandoned these demands. Securing the upfront budget remains critical to our user community and overall project's success.
• Profitable Production Rights: There is a misunderstanding about the connection between the Profitable Production Rights and their purpose. These rights are not just about providing People, Ideas & Objects with the necessary financial resources. They hold intrinsic value and are crucial for the project's long-term success. Profitable Production Rights holders are the exclusive providers of access for producers to realize a substantial value proposition.

We understand the need for better communication on these points and are committed to providing the necessary clarity. Your questions and feedback are invaluable, and we appreciate your engagement.

The Budget

The budget outlined in the Preliminary SpecificationPreliminary Specification stands at $25 billion U.S. which doesn’t include the fully subscribed Flexible Profitable Production Rights. Why is it so high? The extensive costs are attributed to the comprehensive scope and scale required to rebuild the oil & gas industry based on the vision presented in the Preliminary Specification. The justification for this substantial budget lies in the documented incompetence of producer officers and directors, who have allowed the industry to decline into its current state.

Since the onset of the shale era, the industry has incurred $4.1 trillion in lost natural gas revenues by late 2023. This immense financial loss, resulting in over $40 billion U.S. in revenue losses each month in early 2024, highlights shale may be the greatest endowment of enrichment known to man, administered in the most inept and incompetent manner by these producer officers and directors. People, Ideas & Objects argue that attributing this scale of loss to "opportunity costs" or the justification that "natural gas is a byproduct" is unreasonable.

A staggering 764 TCF of gas was wasted to create this financial disaster. The industry's missteps include declaring that shale will never be commercial and pursuing clean energy, which has yet to produce a profit without substantial government subsidies. After realizing their misguided clean energy ventures, officers and directors returned to shale, now hoping that consolidation will resolve the issues that led to these losses.

These problems are deeply rooted in the industry's culture, beginning with the existence of the current officers and directors. Meaningful change can only occur when this culture is eradicated and replaced with a new one focused on preservation, performance, and profits, as advocated by People, Ideas & Objects. Only then can the industry move past this legacy of destruction.

I have no reservations about asking for our budget. I believe the value has been established and proven through the seven Organizational Constructs supporting dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable oil & gas producers. These issues are real and existential for the industry, the service sector, and the economic and political performance of North America. Whether asking for $5 or $25 billion, the producers' mindset would remain unchanged. Implementing the Preliminary Specification is seen as self-destructive due to disintermediation.

The Timing Issue

Delaying our project only prolongs the industry's suffering. Conceding on the budget might seem like a way to move forward, but I believe it's neither necessary nor prudent at this stage. However, we can strategically buy some time. The first year's development costs are relatively small, estimated at $10 million, and we could start in September 2024. This approach avoids the long wait to secure the entire budget.

If we halt after the first year, the impact would be minimal. It wouldn't disrupt a large workforce or jeopardize the careers and credibility of our user community members. Therefore, we propose starting developments in September on this basis, allowing us to tackle subsequent budget challenges as they arise.

This proposal is a straightforward step toward what should have been initiated long ago. People, Ideas & Objects aim to expedite the product's delivery to the market and implement the necessary changes. To facilitate this, we have discounted the price of the Profitable Production Rights to 10%. This enables rights holders to process 100,000 BOE/day when our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and service becomes operational. The resulting $10 million in revenue will jumpstart our development efforts, providing us the ability to develop the software and technical infrastructure to establish the blockchain and smart contracts for Profitable Production Rights holders, based on their agreements with producers.

The overall budget and completion date of the Preliminary Specification is a task that currently exceeds the capacity and capabilities of People, Ideas & Objects to determine. We will complete this within our first year.

Profitable Production Rights Value Proposition

People, Ideas & Objects have consistently highlighted our value proposition, estimating it to range from $25.7 to $45.7 trillion over the next 25 years. We validated this figure in 2023, demonstrating $4.1 trillion in revenue losses during the shale era. These losses resulted from the collapse of the natural gas pricing structure, which shifted from its heating value equivalent of 6 to 1, to as high as 50 to 1 by early 2024. Contrary to the claims of producer officers and directors, these losses are not mere opportunity costs; they are real and substantial, reflecting a deeper industry crisis. Disenchanted investors, recruitment challenges, and a decimated service industry operating at just 30% capacity are stark indicators of this turmoil. The industry's current state is dire, with petroleum reserves requiring cash to produce, rendering the net present value of the industry negative.

A crucial point we may not have communicated effectively is that this value proposition becomes accessible to producers only by adopting the Preliminary Specification to manage their organizations. This approach enables producers to define their costs as variable within the Joint Operating Committee. Each Joint Operating Committee would receive monthly detailed financial statements, including actual, factual, detailed, objective, and standard overhead costs, along with appropriate depletion charges. This transparency helps determine the true profitability of properties. If a property is unprofitable, it can be shut in, thereby implementing a fair and reasonable method of production discipline. Profitable Production Rights holders are the exclusive providers of access for producers to realize this value proposition.

Officers and directors often dismiss our method as "collusion," yet today they engage in actual collusion. They fail to acknowledge that a firm producing unprofitable products is unsustainable and must cease such production for its own good. The Preliminary Specification ensures overhead costs are variable and tied to profitable production. Consequently, any shut-in production results in a null operation—neither profit nor loss. By posting actual overhead costs to the Joint Operating Committee for performance and pricing purposes, these costs can be passed to the consumer in the current period. This practice ensures that overhead costs are returned as a cash float to fund the following month's expenses. Currently, producers capitalize overhead and recover these costs over periods extending up to twenty years, leading to a chronic demand for capital.

By shutting in unprofitable production, producers 

• Can maximize corporate profits by eliminating losses that dilute profitable properties. 
• They can preserve reserves for profitable production in the future. 
• Reduce production and storage costs. 
• Lower reserves costs by not having to recover prior losses. 
• Removing marginal production from the market helps establish the marginal price, benefiting their entire production profile. 
• Marginal prices reflect today's replacement cost value of a barrel of oil equivalent.
• Shut-in properties can be innovatively worked back to profitable production. 

This method of production discipline is fair and reasonable: if it produces profits, it produces.

The Value in Profitable Production Rights

To operate any production in North America using our Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas facility, producers must license the appropriate volume of Profitable Production Rights. These rights grant access to the comprehensive Oracle Cloud ERP-based Preliminary Specification system being built from the proceeds of Profitable Production Rights. Without these rights, whether through direct ownership or lease, producers cannot access the facility or its benefits. The owner of the Profitable Production Rights holds the leverage, as they control the essential access that producers need to manage their production profitably. Owners of these rights, each equating to the processing of one BOE/day, will negotiate, bargain, and lease their access rights to producers.

A common argument is that consolidated producers may choose not to participate in the development and use of the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and service. This is a valid concern, and it raises questions about the future sustainability of these consolidated producers. Critical questions include: What industry will they ultimately focus on? What business insights will they gain moving forward? How will they handle recruitment when individuals have opportunities to establish their own oil & gas firms, join our user community, or hold Profitable Production Rights? As markets mature and consolidation becomes less viable, as seen in other disintermediated industries, these considerations become increasingly pertinent.

A fitting example is the music industry, which has undergone a complete transformation over the past 24 years. Artists like Taylor Swift and Kanye West now operate independently, making hundreds of millions of dollars without relying on traditional industry infrastructure. This stands in stark contrast to past superstars who depended on agents, managers, producers and recording labels to earn significantly less. 

The ultimate fate of North American oil & gas producers is uncertain. It will be shaped by individuals who engage with our user community members, small and start-up producers, and those who own the Profitable Production Rights to process barrels of oil using the Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas software and service. Those with the foresight to purchase People, Ideas & Objects' hybrid oil & gas and technology product will play a crucial role. They will hold transferable access rights in perpetuity for as long as the software remains relevant, enabling producers to operate their firms within a culture of preservation, performance, and profitability. I’ll reiterate, Profitable Production Rights holders are the exclusive providers of access for producers to realize the $25.7 to $45.7 trillion value proposition.

"That Jarring Gong," Part IV

 People, Ideas & Objects are the licensed commercial developers of the Intellectual Property presented in this blog, wiki, and other platforms. Moving forward requires licensing this IP to our user community and their service provider organizations. This will also be a crucial consideration in what we anticipate to be a comprehensive Oracle agreement.

My initial negotiations with Oracle in 1991 took a year to complete. People, Ideas & Objects have unique and specific needs that Oracle may or may not have encountered before. However, we have always found Oracle's organization to be performance-oriented and highly motivated. What we sought to accomplish in 1991 pales in comparison to the complexity of our current implementation.

We approach this endeavor with open eyes and the benefit of our experience from our Oracle relationship between 1991 and 1997. That relationship ended in failure due to the lack of market performance and the inability to get oil & gas producers to commit to participation. We now attribute this failure to producers' reluctance to embrace accountability within their organizations. This is the same type of failure Oracle experienced with their Oracle Energy initiative, which was removed from the market in 2000, and the same issue IBM faced when they exited the market in 2005. These market failures, driven by the actions of producers' officers and directors, have been documented in detail on this blog over the past few decades.

Groundwork

Repeating the same actions and expecting different results might question my mental fitness, but the persistent issue is the lack of producer participation. This has been evident in our 2017, 2021, and now fourth attempt to fund the development of oil & gas ERP systems. Given the industry's current level of destruction and the urgent need for a rebuild, the avoidance of accountability by producer officers and directors has become untenable. Is it my persistence that’s at issue here, or is it the obstinance of producer officers and directors?

In the first year of our development, we must focus on organizational groundwork. People, Ideas & Objects have operated on a bare-bones budget for decades, and it shows. Discretionary funds are virtually nonexistent. Consequently, many tasks beyond our Intellectual Property still need to be addressed. The advantage of this situation is that the configuration is yet to be written, allowing us to seek input and foster a collaborative environment. This collaboration will be essential in determining the appropriate methods to resolve difficulties as part of the overall vision of the Preliminary Specification.

My Role

When I began, my sole ambition was to write software. Those days are behind me, and the scope and scale of our work have expanded to the point where no single person can claim credit. Instead, our initiative will be the collective effort of thousands. Our user community is the driving force behind this initiative, as detailed in our user community vision. User communities are essential for building and implementing quality ERP systems. Our user community is licensed to create derivative works of the Preliminary Specification, and our developers are licensed to seek input exclusively from our user community, which also has absolute control over its budget. 

Our user community wields the power to effect change and build the Preliminary Specification within the rebuilt oil & gas industry culture of preservation, performance, and profitability. People, Ideas & Objects, our user community, and their service providers are dedicated to providing the most profitable means of oil & gas operations. Producers will have a single point of contact to address their software configuration and development issues. In today's ERP systems landscape, who has the authority or financial resources to adapt to the industry's evolving needs?

My contributions are embedded in the current Preliminary Specification. In 2003, recognizing the potential of the Joint Operating Committee as a solution, I embarked on a decade-long research journey to determine what, how and why producers and the industry should operate if the Joint Operating Committee were the key organizational construct. This involved answering critical questions, exploring every possibility, and learning from failures. The work was arduous, especially during the 2008 financial crisis, when I felt I was failing to deliver timely solutions. However, the research culminated in the completion and publication of the Preliminary Specification in August 2012.

Our User Community 

People, Ideas & Objects are built upon three distinct competitive advantages: Intellectual Property, research, and our user community. At the start of 2024, we focused on developing our research capabilities and initiated three unannounced projects. One of these projects involves the compensation structure for our user community. Currently, user community members are compensated on an hourly basis. Their individual contributions will be analyzed using AI to determine the service provider organization they have earned, its function, and the corresponding assignment to a user community member. This performance metric serves as a strong incentive based on their overall contribution.

However, we are concerned that this might not be sufficient. The task ahead for our user community is as challenging as the research that identified the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct. While designing the details will be easier and less time-consuming, the conflicts and contradictions will be more intense. Our current hourly rate does not incentivize the rigorous work required to navigate these difficulties. It does not, in my opinion, set the appropriate tone to attract those with the sense of urgency, motivation, and incentive needed to resolve these industry issues. We are researching a new compensation method for our user community that is incentive-based and more lucrative for high performers while still providing adequate hourly compensation to meet their needs.

The hourly component will be used to acquire or purchase Intellectual Property from our user community members. We will buy it from them. Additionally, we will implement an AI algorithm to determine the allocation of service provider organizations for user community members when the application is deployed. We expect our user community members to hold part-time independent roles, otherwise leading their service provider organizations and to continue in these roles throughout the software's lifecycle. Our compensation system will consider these foundational aspects and include the following attributes:

• Budget Control. Our user community will control its budget, with a clearly defined process for its operation, that will be developed in these first year's budget requirements.
• AI Algorithm Development. The AI algorithm for assigning service providers will be developed by our user community in the first year, ensuring it is available when needed.
• Work Identification and Compensation. The process for identifying, budgeting, and approving user community members' work will be defined, with a significant portion of compensation coming from bonuses upon successful completion.
• Performance Criteria. The process will be developed by each user community member and will emphasize performance, represented by quality and features at the expense of cost.
• Decision-Making Authority. Each user community member will have decision-making authority over their domain of involvement as users and within their service provider organizations. 

We are also exploring additional performance-based incentives for our user community members. Our compensation research project is expected to be completed by December 2024, ensuring that our user community has the means to make the Preliminary Specification successful. They will have the power to effect change, allocate financial resources to priorities, and incentivize performance to ensure both personal and professional success.

User Community Defined Quality

Developing and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is a complex and challenging task. The proven method to enhance system quality, implementation, and value is to align development with user needs. People, Ideas & Objects leverage our user community as one of our three competitive advantages. After publishing the Preliminary Specification in August 2012, we prioritized developing our user community, starting with the publication of our user community vision in March 2014.

The failure of most ERP systems today lies not in focusing on user-based systems but in their implementation. Typically, a user committee is formed to identify surface-level needs, leading to conflicts and contradictions that quickly inflate the budget. Consequently, the user committee is disbanded, a generic ERP system is implemented, and users must adapt to the system as is until the next implementation cycle.

Quality can only be achieved through an empowered user community, like that of People, Ideas & Objects. Although it may seem that this approach slows down development, we know otherwise. By publishing our user community vision in March 2014, we have sparked a shift in the minds of users within the oil & gas industry. They recognize the difference and understand how the industry should operate with the Preliminary Specification. Many have envisioned their roles in making this a reality, with ideas evolving in potential users' minds for a decade.

This long-standing engagement presents an opportunity to accelerate our quality-driven user developments. Empowered by a clear vision, our user community is poised to drive meaningful, user-centered enhancements in the Preliminary Specifications development, ensuring it meets the true needs of the industry.

Our User Community Conclusion, For Now

Our goal is to ensure that our user community members are empowered individuals, equipped with the right incentives and tools to drive the success of People, Ideas & Objects, the oil & gas and service industries. We aim to foster an industry culture centered on preservation, performance, and profitability, where dynamic, innovative, accountable, and profitable oil & gas producers are provided with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations, everywhere and always.

To achieve this, our user community must have the authority to effect these changes, control their own budget, be the sole source for software developer input, and be the exclusive point of contact for anyone seeking input on the developments of the Preliminary Specification. Governed by the Preliminary Specifications Intellectual Property license, each user community member will have decision-making authority over their domain. They will select an area of the application where they have skills, experience, understanding, and knowledge, but most importantly, where they have ideas. This will create a collaborative environment where like-minded individuals with different approaches and contributions can find each other and add value. Their processes and features will overlap and interact with others', creating a synergistic effect.

"That Jarring Gong," Part III

 Start-ups and Small Producers

People, Ideas & Objects developed the Preliminary Specification to support all producers in the North American oil & gas industry. This was done for three key reasons:

• To address and resolve issues of overproduction or unprofitable production wherever they occur.
• To ensure that all producer members of the Joint Operating Committee align with this crucial Organizational Construct.
• To encourage small and start-up producers to revive the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit necessary for rebuilding the industry.

The conflict between the Joint Operating Committee and the producer corporation is unsustainable in the Internet age. This ongoing conflict has caused numerous industry-wide difficulties. It becomes unnecessary when the operational side of the business remains detached and unconcerned with corporate workings. The current division between administrative and accounting functions, focusing on the corporation's SEC, tax, and regulatory requirements, drives the firm to concentrate on these areas, leaving the operational side oblivious to the business's actual financial performance. This disjointed approach must be addressed to resolve significant issues like overproduction, degraded business understanding, and the misconception that all is well based on corporate profitability linked to spending as the sole competitive advantage. Since 2015, investors have been disillusioned and stopped supporting the industry's capital needs. Producers either do not understand the gravity of this or believe they can secure capital from other sources.

People, Ideas & Objects argue that the industry's exposure to shale formations has placed it at risk if any potential decline in oil & gas deliverability occurs—a scenario never experienced before and challenging to overcome. Currently, the lack of capital, the "muddle through" approach of producer firms, and the damage caused by producers to the service industry have stifled innovation and initiative across the broader oil & gas economy. Producers anticipate a return to normalcy and a rush for profits, but we do not share this optimism. We believe that the faith, trust, and goodwill in the current producer officers and directors have been irreparably damaged.

A Rebuild

The Preliminary Specification offers a comprehensive solution to address the multitude of issues facing the industry. This involves establishing a revised culture centered on preservation, performance, and profitability. The goal is to transform the industry into one that is dynamic, innovative, accountable, and consistently profitable. This new culture aims to provide producers with the most profitable methods of oil & gas operations, everywhere and always.

Retrofitting this renewed culture within the current industry configuration is impractical due to time and resource constraints. Such an effort would lead to arduous battles and, ultimately, failure. We propose a rebuild as the industry is fundamentally broken and requires a fresh vision for reconstruction.

The Technical Challenge For Small and Start-up Producers

Oracle Cloud ERP leverages a multitude of technologies provided by Oracle, designed to meet business needs through generic and standard methods. These applications can be customized for specific industries, which is precisely what People, Ideas & Objects are doing for oil & gas with our user community and their service provider organizations. All these applications run on Oracle’s state-of-the-art database, the most advanced in the market, and the Java Programming Language. Oracle Cloud ERP is recognized as the number one ERP solution by Gartner and is rated as one of the few tier 1 solutions alongside SAP.

However, the challenge lies in delivering Oracle technologies to small and start-up producers. Despite its technical size, breadth and depth, a user could engage with a fully functional ERP solution for years without accomplishing a single constructive task. This highlights the difficulty in effectively implementing these sophisticated technologies for smaller producers, who will lack the resources and expertise to leverage Oracle's full potential.

The Preliminary Specifications Implementation

To achieve enhanced performance and profitability in the industry, we have based our solution on several assumptions, addressed through our seven distinct Organizational Constructs. These constructs define and support the culture of the rebuilt oil & gas industry.

By adopting the Joint Operating Committee, we emphasize the partnership defined by the specific property owners. Corporate reporting will naturally follow the management of the property, unlike the current practice where accounting and administration drive the process, often ignored by operations. The Joint Operating Committee serves as the key Organizational Construct, encompassing legal, financial, operational decision-making, cultural, communication, innovation, and strategic frameworks.

Other Organizational Constructs include hyper-specialization and the division of labor, which enable greater output from the same resource base. We also apply Professor Paul Romer’s concept of non-rival costs, where critical infrastructure such as Information Technology, Oracle, accounting, and administration is shared across the industry. This approach relieves individual producers from redundantly building and maintaining these capabilities within their own firms.

The Preliminary Specification includes specific modules like Petroleum Lease, Financial, and Resource Marketplaces, which identify the main markets producers operate in and provide market-supporting institutions throughout the industry. Innovation is explicitly supported to control costs and reduce redundancies.

Information Technology is an essential Organizational Construct, defining and supporting the organization while also constraining it. People, Ideas & Objects offer a permanent software development capacity to ensure that software does not trap the industry in future failed activities.

Intellectual Property is crucial for an industry like oil & gas to tackle its challenging future. Respect for intellectual property laws motivates individuals to undertake difficult work, validate their ideas, bring them to market, and market them effectively.

Cloud Administration & Accounting for Oil & Gas 

Reorganizing the industry’s accounting and administrative resources is essential for this rebuild. These resources will be removed from individual producers and reallocated to our user community members, who will organize into service provider organizations. These providers will focus on specific processes across the industry, leveraging their competitive advantages in leadership, issue identification and resolution, creativity, collaboration, research, ideas, design, planning, thinking, negotiating, compromising, innovating, financing, observing, reasoning, judging, and automating. Computers will handle storage and process management, while service providers conduct work more effectively and efficiently based on objective, standard methods determined by our user community during the Preliminary Specifications development.

Small and start-up producers will have access to the same wealth of knowledge as larger producers for each Joint Operating Committee they participate in with the Preliminary Specification. This solution includes explicit knowledge captured by our user community during software development and tacit knowledge delivered through service providers owned and operated by our individual user community members.

The Work Order

The Work Order is a new document introduced to address two unique and critical needs in the oil & gas industry. 

First, it supports higher levels of innovation by enabling producers to sponsor and participate in ad-hoc working groups. These groups can be formed to capture and manage the costs, payments, and rebilling of expenses among participants who may have no prior business history or future relationship. Producers can contribute funds, time, resources, or facilities to assist the working group in completing research projects, with the results and costs distributed equitably among participants. Establishing these working groups is crucial, as innovation is essential for overcoming the industry's future challenges. Traditional working groups have declined due to bureaucratic bookkeeping complexities, a situation unacceptable given the immense challenges the industry faces over the next 25 years.

Second, the Work Order establishes a new revenue stream for producer firms. The assumption is that earth science and engineering resources will soon be insufficient to meet industry needs due to retirements and a shortage of university graduates. Specialization and division of labor are necessary to enhance resource performance. However, maintaining the required scientific capabilities may become financially unviable for producers. We believe this point has been reached, prompting the elimination of the “operator” status where one producer manages the Joint Operating Committee. Instead, our Pooling concept allows Joint Operating Committee members to contribute their specialized earth science or engineering skills to fulfill resource requirements, potentially supplemented by external assistance.

The Work Order facilitates the billing and recovery of these resources' costs to various Joint Operating Committees. This creates an opportunity for small and start-up producers to generate revenue, offsetting initial overhead costs and allowing time for their oil & gas investments to mature. With work-from-home arrangements, initial costs are minimal compared to the past. The demand for consulting engineers and geologists may be high due to resource shortages, providing significant revenue opportunities. Consolidated producers may struggle to maintain the scientific basis of their organizations, creating a market for entrepreneurial individuals to start new oil & gas firms.

The Work Order enables charging an individual's hourly rate to the Joint Operating Committee, working group, overhead, or other cost centers, monitoring both time and rate. The rate is either an industry minimum or a factor based on the revenue per employee, whichever is higher. Billing and payment are electronic, leveraging advanced systems. Unlike current operational claims by producers, the Work Order operates on an industry-wide basis, serving as a primary revenue source for consulting firms or a secondary source for all producers.

The CFO’s Role

I envision the accounting and administrative staff for start-up and small producers being limited to the CFO, even for much larger producers than what is feasible today. With the implementation of the Preliminary Specification, our user community and their service providers, preparation of comprehensive information to understand producer firms in great detail. This includes actual, factual, objective, and standardized accounting for each Joint Operating Committee. Through the Oracle Redwood interface, our user community can develop the reports, screens, and information producers need to understand their performance and profitability. This clean slate approach should be embraced by the entire industry, providing ERP systems capable of supporting the industry for the next 25 years.

Where the data is captured at the lowest basic level. An example would be the production and revenue processes. IoT will be capturing and reporting the production data and the Material Balance Report will be balanced across the industry by the service providers. Then the fallout financial calculations, based on the agreements the firm has signed, will post the transactions and report them. Amendments and accruals are handled the same. Automation of the business processes of both oil & gas and generic business by Oracle. 

Service providers will bill each transaction processing cost based on the hundreds of thousands of transactions processed monthly across the industry. With automation, standardization, specialization, and division of labor, transactions will be processed efficiently, and infrastructure costs will be incurred once and shared among all producers, reducing individual transaction costs significantly.

The reporting focus will be on the Joint Operating Committee, with standardization and comprehensive analysis by our user community during development for tax, royalty, SEC, and other regulatory requirements. Small and start-up producers will be full and contributing members of any Joint Operating Committee, equipped with the same systems capabilities and capacities. They will seamlessly offer their skills as contributing engineers or geologists and provide tier 1 ERP systems and support for SEC and other regulatory reporting needs.

These producers will have the legitimacy to engage in capital markets and function effectively in the complex mid-21st-century oil & gas environment. The initial overhead subsidy of $3 million per year will not be necessary, and secondary revenue sources will sustain start-ups beyond what used to be their initial capital demands, allowing them to become profitable immediately. A distinct competitive advantage for these sectors is their ability to implement their ideas within their preferred time frame, potentially reversing the decline in shale deliverability and ensuring long-term profitable energy independence in North America.

The assumption by consolidated producers that only they can achieve oil & gas industry economics due to their size is a fallacy. The adage "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" holds true. People, Ideas & Objects et al. address many issues, enabling small and start-up producers to gain advantages. We believe the industry's rebuild will begin with these producers. The failure of consolidation is becoming evident. Without the financial resources we requested by August 12, 2024, People, Ideas & Objects may not be able to reconfigure and restart this initiative for another three to four years, just enough time for engineers and geologists to have transitioned to new careers in other industries.

"That Jarring Gong," Part II

 The Opportunity in 2025

Just as our 2023-2024 campaign focused on the $4.1 trillion in revenue losses from overproduction of natural gas and the mishandling of LNG developments by producers, we now turn our attention to oil pricing. We have yet to determine an objective means of establishing a reasonable oil price and calculating the revenue lost by producers. 2025 may provide us with the evidence needed to understand the absolute floor for oil prices. Currently, the $75 to $90 range covers some costs, but we continue to see producers' balance sheets grow significantly. This indicates a failure to recognize the appropriate level of capital costs in a capital-intensive industry.

People, Ideas & Objects believe that in a capital-intensive industry, the bulk of costs passed on to consumers should be capital costs. This is not the case in oil and gas, resulting in flawed pricing and overstated profitability due to the overstatement of property, plant, and equipment.

On June 3, 2024, OPEC+ announced plans to reduce their production curtailments in 2025, which had been in place since the COVID-19 pandemic, cutting approximately 2 million barrels per day. This announcement led to a slight decline in oil prices, highlighting two key points: a) oil and gas are subject to the principles of price makers, and b) selling oil at negative prices is fundamentally wrong.

The oil industry is seeing major consolidations at play as Hess (HES) shareholders approved a $53 billion merger with Chevron (CVX), and ConocoPhillips (COP) will acquire Marathon Oil (MRO) in a $17.1 billion all-stock deal. TD Cowen Analyst Jason Gabelman joins Morning Brief to discuss how these M&A moves should be viewed from a shareholder perspective. "We think it creates a more healthy environment for our shareholders," Gabelman explains. He says that the mergers will lead larger companies to have more control of the oil (CL=F, BZ=F) in the US, which will ultimately allow them to execute "moderate, low-to-mid single-digit oil production growth that should result in a healthier commodity backdrop where there will be less responsive to spikes in oil prices and support higher and more stable oil prices." He adds that more stable oil prices will be a relief to consumers as they grapple with tighter budgets amid high inflation. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief. This post was written by Melanie Riehl of Yahoo Finance. 

Consolidated producers need to review their announcements with legal counsel to better express their intentions. The narrative of prioritizing a “healthy environment” over profitability is misleading. Producers have ignored shareholder demands for real profitability since 2015, resulting in no new capital being advanced to the industry until these demands are acknowledged and addressed. Claiming they are responding to shareholders is as false as ExxonMobil's adoption of a climate change policy in “‘The Vote’ (A Play In Three Acts By ExxonMobil Productions).”

Consolidation is a sham. Larger, less responsive, and slower entities will be even less responsive to market forces, leading to higher and supposedly more stable prices. Consumers will face less price variability but at the cost of innovation and new production capabilities. This narrative is fundamentally flawed and highlights the dire state of the oil and gas industry. It is clear that those making these statements are out of touch with the real issues.

An Assumption

If People, Ideas & Objects are unsuccessful in raising our $10 million for our first-year development budget by August 12, 2024, what will the consequences be? This assumption focuses first on the impact on People, Ideas & Objects and then on innovation across the industry.

People, Ideas & Objects have managed to cobble together opportunities every 3 to 4 years: in 2017, 2021, and now. If we fail this time, we foresee another opportunity arising only after the consolidation theme has played out to its full and inevitable failure, which could take up to four years. This also assumes that the market does not dismiss the possibility of People, Ideas & Objects putting this together again, deeming any future attempts as fruitless. However, who can say for sure?

What is not an assumption is that I’ll be 70 years old by then, and reassembling the team would be, quite literally, old school. My commitment to this project and the increasing validation of our perspectives each day is irrelevant unless we succeed now. Success is crucial to avoid the severe contingencies North Americans may face if the industry continues to fail. Should producers fail, it will lead to a rapid decline in overall economic performance and political influence, and the responsibility will lie squarely with the consolidated producer officers and directors.

Culture?

The prevailing culture in the oil and gas industry stifles any initiative. If this isn't clear from the industry's inaction, a closer look is necessary. The industry operates on a "muddle through" basis, where anyone proposing a new idea is quickly sidelined. People, Ideas & Objects recognized this cultural issue early in our software development efforts for the industry. This toxic environment is experienced daily by the service industry and anyone else providing products or services to producers, regardless of the sector, for the past number of decades. Large firms with diverse portfolios, like Oracle, IBM, Halliburton, and SLB, can weather the storm by relying on other markets or geographical locations. But who really suffers from these failures and changes?

Smaller product and service firms left to work with these producers face an impossible situation. Producers, the primary industry participants, see them as leeches, wondering why suppliers don't just raise capital to meet their needs. This perspective reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of basic business concepts such as "profits," "free on board," "net back pricing," and the $4.1 trillion in revenue losses they’ve incurred. Producers attempt to address these issues with "consolidation," "greater control over production," and "less responsiveness to spikes in oil prices," resulting in a more lethargic and less responsive industry.

Is this a corporate culture or personal greed? It seems evident. Doing nothing, getting paid well for it, avoiding accountability, and having an easy exit strategy has become the norm. Meanwhile, the landscape is littered with the ruins of decades of mismanagement and abuse. The industry has created a divide where those in power thrive at the expense of shareholders, service industry firms, and those striving to build value. The employees of producer firms, caught in the middle, are powerless, burdened with responsibility but no authority. This is far from the utopia officers and directors experience.

The Beginning of the Beginning

What if there was a better way? A way that showed promise and followed a logical business model proven successful in other industries. We've seen record stores, travel agencies, book stores, and even giants like Kodak and Polaroid in digital photography get disintermediated. Initially, resistance to disintermediation is strong, but as damage and destruction overwhelm the status quo, alternatives emerge with better products. Who could provide a better product than a mega-consolidated North American producer? It's the person who started a new oil & gas producer firm at their kitchen table this morning. Here’s how they’ll succeed.

The industry has known about the disintermediating solution in the form of the Preliminary Specification for more than a decade. It holds promise but lacks traction due to funding shortages, similar to other service industries and supplier-based products and services in the broader oil & gas economy.

People, Ideas & Objects consider all sectors of the North American oil & gas producer population as potential customers of the Preliminary Specification. Whether consolidated, intermediate, small, or start-up producers, they all gain advantages from using our product and our user communities service provider services. The greatest advantage is experienced by small and start-up producers, who today struggle to compete in an environment where investors no longer trust the accountability and financial credibility of producers. Although these new producers were not part of the integrity breach, they bear the brunt of its consequences.

We see the small producer unable to compete on two fronts outside of this inability to access capital. The first is the overwhelming level of capital, let's call it a subsidy during its formidable years, of up to $3 million a year for a publicly traded producer, to cover its overhead. This can be offset once the firm attains the point where free cash flow contributes to reducing and eliminating the amount of capital needed for the subsidy. In the past this task relied more on talents in raising capital than it did on the talents of finding and producing oil & gas. Second, small producers lack access to patient capital necessary for the long development process of oil & gas. The pressures of business conflict with the long lead time required which do not accommodate the appropriate development unless the firm can quickly overcome their high overhead needs and eliminate their capital subsidy. 

Producers relying on their earth science & engineering capacities & capabilities and their land & asset base as competitive advantages need time to do so. How does the Preliminary Specification from People, Ideas & Objects make this viable? How does it provide distinct competitive advantages above and beyond those of consolidated and other oil & gas industry sectors?

This is a correct assumption and the difficulty we face in addressing these marketplace challenges. We take the most complex, detailed, sophisticated, and difficult ERP system known—Oracle Cloud ERP—and implement it for small producers and start-ups who may lack the capabilities to operate it for decades unless they achieve significant success. This challenge is one we address head-on.

The Preliminary Specification is designed around fostering innovation throughout oil & gas. The innovation undertaken by small and start-up producers is what society will rely upon for the future. Small and start-up producers inability to function in existing capital markets precludes them from competing unless they acquire these necessary capabilities from the outset. This is what People, Ideas & Objects aims to provide. The only way to solve the industry's difficulties is for oil men and women to break down the barriers they face. In an industry facing its most difficult challenges, where consolidated producers are ineffective, small and start-up producers need a way to thrive in a capital environment demanding immediate profitability—in the true sense of the term.

Tomorrow, we’ll detail how the Preliminary Specification offers these distinct competitive advantages to each sector of the oil & gas industry. And at the same time provides the critical small and start-up producers with additional advantages over any of the other sectors.