The Cost of Inaction, Part II
Metaphorically running around the internet, screaming about the sky falling, is easy to belittle in hindsight. The truth of the matter didn't seem to matter; the harder I tried, the crazier I appeared both within and outside the industry. It was complicated. The spreadsheet is messy and filled with volumes of data, including production volumes by field and prices for the 21st century. It was a losing battle.
However, if there was truly nothing to our claims, why did Shell, BP, and others sue Venture Global to reclaim what People, Ideas & Objects were asserting? I would assume that if there was nothing there, then there is nothing there. The contradictory nature of these judgments, with money being awarded to both Venture Global and BP in multi-billion dollar amounts, does not confuse the situation from our perspective. Therefore, our "crazy" hypothesis regarding officers' and directors' willful misconduct and negligence concerning these material revenue losses is proven true.
The question remains: what has been happening? Officers and directors called someone crazy, ghost-banned his X account, and attempted to reclaim revenues through litigation. Outside of this, oil trades at 19 times the price of natural gas, which may seem like an improvement. However, the September 2024 oil price of $70.24 was higher than Sunday's $58.90, possibly indicating the officers' and directors' method of resolving the distorted gas:oil factor.
We have been on quite an adventure these past decades, and "we" in this context refers to all those involved in oil and gas. Some actions did occur, but most were ultimately just words. The record of producer officers and directors during this period is nothing short of shameful. A trip down memory lane provides an understanding of the depth and quality of their thinking. I am unaware of any redeeming quality that could be attributed to this list:
- "Profits don’t matter, it's cash flow."
- "The fix for low prices is low prices."
- "Praying for a cold winter."
- "Microsoft Windows v. 8 will solve it."
- "Oil & gas prices have to stay below alternative energy prices to keep them out of the business."
- "The service industry is greedy and lazy."
- "New found commitment to production discipline."
- "Market rebalancing."
- "We’re innovative."
- Included historical accounting innovations such as declarations of "profitability at $70, $60, $50, $40 and $25," as commodity prices declined. These are impossible, inappropriate, and fraudulent claims.
- "Artificial Intelligence is being used to …"
- People, Ideas & Objects' July 4, 2019, white paper noted that producers could achieve energy independence through shale commercialization. Producers responded by stating that our decentralized production model or price maker strategy "is collusion and unworkable."
- Unworkable as “production can't be shut-in.” Producers claimed it's damaging to the formation to shut production in and costly to restart.
- The global pandemic forced 25% of oil production to be shut-in.
- "No formation damage or production deliverability declines" were reported globally.
- "Shale will never be commercial."
- Officers and directors took oil & gas revenues away from the business without authority to invest in clean energy.
- Declarations of "clean energy is the future."
- Realizing their mistake, if they want to be in clean energy, they should start from the beginning. Officers and directors cannot take the proceeds of shareholders' investments in oil & gas and use them in other lines of business!
- "Shale is the future."
- Declarations that "small producers are the problem to shale profitability. Corporate consolidation is the solution."
- Producers anticipate declining production deliverability, execute large layoffs, and record poor performance. Overproduction in both oil & gas increased, leading to further commodity price declines. We await the inevitable declaration of consolidation strategies' failure.
- What's next? What's the vision? How could the industry in its current configuration, with incumbent leadership, resolve performance issues?
- People, Ideas & Objects provide oil & gas producers with the most profitable means of oil & gas operations.
- It’s time for each individual and organization to decide if this is meaningful or not.
- Leadership for the next generation needs to stand up.
- Producers would have all the cash they need if they ran profitable operations.
- Producers would gain independence and be able to pursue opportunities.
- Oil & gas reserves NPV are worthless if they can’t produce profitably.
- Profits are the only resource large enough to satisfy this industry's long-term capital needs.
- Investors and governments only reallocate resources.
- Why would producers not invest in their organizations' profitability and performance? Investors have demanded performance and accountability as a precondition to their return since 2015.
- People, Ideas & Objects points to investors' inability to motivate officers and directors this past decade as partial justification for our Preliminary Specification's poor performance since 2012.
- The industry has a leadership team that is trash.
- Producer organizations hold no inherent structural value. They are old, slow, and incapable of managing today’s complexity or changing dynamics.
- They are cash-poor, unable to make money, don’t know how profitable operations are conducted, and are culturally incapable.
- They have unsupported capital structures.
- The service industry is operating at 25% capacity.
- It is financially ruined with capital structures also unsupported.
- After decades of abuse at the hands of producers, they are unmotivated; they don’t trust, have faith, or any goodwill to extend to producers.
- They expect producers to philanthropically fund the service industries' rebuild.
- Producers broke it; they can fix it.
- With some skin in the game, producers may then think twice about their actions.
- Maximized Profitability: Producers maximize profits by eliminating losses from unprofitable properties.
- Strategic Reserve Management: Holding reserves until production is profitable avoids incurring any incremental costs associated with losses.
- Cost Reduction: Keeping oil & gas as reserves reduces production and storage costs tied to excess, unprofitable output.
- Market Stability: Removing unprofitable production allows commodity markets to determine the marginal cost, establishing fair prices for all production.
- Reserves Valuations: Market prices accurately reflect the value of petroleum reserves and expand proven recoverable reserves to fulfill fiduciary duties.
- Innovation Opportunities: While properties are shut in, producers can explore innovative ways to increase production, reduce costs, or expand reserves to restore profitability and return the property to production.
- Replacement Value: Market prices must reflect current exploration and development costs, representing the true cost of energy produced today.
- Production Discipline: Profitability is the only fair and reasonable criterion for production discipline.
- Innovation as a Foundation: Higher commodity prices finance greater innovation, providing financial resources for future industry challenges.
