Agreement to Withhold Capacity

One area that has been difficult for the oil and gas producer to deal with is the volatile energy prices. With the costs of production and reserve replacement increasing and the reserve depletion on such a rapid pace, the decline in energy prices can have a material effect on the value captured from an oil and gas field. With every producer producing at capacity, this risk of price declines comes into play more frequently than maybe needs to be realized. The question is therefore asked, what if, there was agreement in the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module and implementation in the Accounting Vouchers Material Balance Report of the Preliminary Specification, to limit the production at certain thresholds based on predetermined commodity prices?

We can accurately tell what the costs of reserves and production costs are and there are many times when these exceed the prices that are received in the marketplace. The North American natural gas marketplace is a very good example of this situation. Selling at a loss may fuel the short term cash flow situation however, it is at the long term expense of reserve replacements. In a highly innovative oil and gas marketplace, the costs of innovation are being funded by the commodity prices. However, these costs may exceed the temporary fluctuations in the market prices for the commodities. Is it wise for the producer to continue to produce at capacity?

What if the agreement that governs the Joint Operating Committee has the partnership agreeing to shut-in production when the price of the commodity drops below x value. The situation would help to mitigate the loss of earnings on the reserves and not materially affect the cash flow of the producer if they were using the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model. The global implications of many producers implementing this type of price based production profile would put a floor on the commodity prices. A floor based on the marginal costs of reserve replacement.

Recall the decentralized production model was best defined by Professor Richard Langlois as.

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

In the Preliminary Specification the typical producer is reduced to the C class executives, the earth science and engineering resources, the land and legal, and some support staff. The remainder of the producers resources are reorganized across the industry into service providers that are focused on a process and who use the industry as their client base. Therefore resources such as production accountants might be located within a geographic region where there are a number of gas plants, and provide production accounting to the Joint Operating Committees that have production at those facilities. That way each month the Joint Operating Committee will receive a billing from the production accounting service provider for their services. If however there is no production, there is no production accounting service provider billings, or any billings from any of the other service providers, and as a result those Joint Operating Committees will have no revenues, no operating costs, no administration or accounting costs, and as a result report no profits and no losses on operations.

The decentralized production model moves the fixed administrative and accounting capabilities of the producer to be the variable administrative and accounting capabilities of the industry. Charging the Joint Operating Committee directly for the service fees of the service providers ensures the industry gets an exact accounting of the costs of operations. No more administrative overheads will be charged to the Joint Operating Committees. By employing the decentralized production model the industry, the producer and the Joint Operating Committee gain a number of key advantages. First it enables producers to match costs to revenues on a monthly basis. Second it eliminates all losses on operations in oil and gas, and these losses are not added to the costs of the reserves. Third it saves the reserves that have been shut-in for a time in which they can be produced profitably. And fourth, it removes the marginal production from the marketplace, putting a floor on commodity prices. For the 2012 calendar year People, Ideas & Objects calculated the opportunity costs of not using the decentralized production model at $94 billion.

The Accounting Voucher’s Material Balance Report, the Marginal Production Threshold Interface of the Petroleum Lease Marketplace and the performance reporting in the Partnership Accounting module work together to ensure that no marginal production is produced. That production is withheld for the full month, as the entire months overhead associated with production will be incurred with just one day of production. And the producer remains profitable and innovative throughout their production profile. That is to say a producer may be producing 100,000 boe / day today, and tomorrow be producing 80,000 boe / day and be profitable and innovative in doing so. The value generated from the reserves under the decentralized production model would be materially higher than under the current environment. The producers share of the annual opportunity costs over the life of the reserves is what is being lost today. All to a bureaucracy that is too self absorbed to concern themselves with anything outside of their pay-check.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Two Distinct Sources of Revenue

Professor Giovanni Dosi’s paper discusses the role of innovation in the market economy and assumes companies in a free market are willing to invest in science and technologies to advance the competitive nature of their product offering or internal processes. The key aspects of Professor Dosi’s theories that make them directly applicable to oil and gas are the innovation theories application to earth science and engineering disciplines. These disciplines are key to the capability and success of oil and gas firms search, and production of hydrocarbons. The investment in science and technologies is with the implicit expectation of a return on these investments, but also, to provide the firm with additional structural competitive advantages by moving their products costs and / or capabilities beyond that of the competition. Professor Dosi notes:

Thus, I shall discuss the sources of innovation opportunities, the role of markets in allocating resources to the exploration of these opportunities and in determining the rates and directions of technological advances, the characteristics of the processes of innovative search, and the nature of the incentives driving private agents to commit themselves to innovation.

The producer firm is committed to developing their capabilities with the understanding that they advance their competitive advantages, and, earn a return on their investment. How within the People, Ideas & Objects application does the producer earn a return on their investment in their capabilities? Through direct charges to the joint account. That is to say that the people (representing the producers capabilities) who are pooled into a Joint Operating Committee, have been assigned a role within the Military Command & Control Metaphor and whose costs are captured in the Partnership Accounting module are producing a “revenue” stream for the producers capabilities.

The question then becomes what is the charge for the individual during the time that they are working in the Joint Operating Committee. It will be easy to determine the hours that have been worked in the various JOC’s. Whether through the Work Order or through other means, the ability to capture the time spent will be available and accurate in the People, Ideas & Objects system. The hourly rate would need to include a number of factors. The skills of the individual, the technical resources of the producer firm that is at the disposal of the individual, and also a measure of the level of innovativeness of the producer firm, say something like Revenue Per Employee that reflects the overall productivity of the firm.

The net result of this is that the revenues should exceed the costs and the producer will have captured a return on their investment in the capabilities that they have developed within their firm. To proceed on any other basis would, I think, be unreasonable.

It comes down to the question of what business is it that the producer is in? Are they in the business of generating profits from producing oil and gas, or are they in the business of generating profits from providing geologists and engineers to the operations they have an interest in? If we look at the competitive advantages of the producer it is the land and asset base, and the earth science and engineering capabilities that they apply to that asset base. Clearly both production and capabilities development are within the scope of the competitive advantages of the oil and gas producer. And to a large extent the costing of the technical resources is not fundamentally different from what occurs today. In today’s market, the operator is provided with “overhead allowances” for the capture of some of these costs. The difference from today and what is proposed here is that the elimination of the concept of an operator by “pooling” the technical resources of the Joint Operating Committee participants to acquire the necessary capabilities. The direct costing of these technical resources is in some ways a replacement to the operator overhead allowances.

To take this opportunity to charge the costs of the capabilities of the producer firm and earn a return on investment may be the issue that some people will have with the concept. In a world where the market for engineers and geologists is highly competitive. And you as a producer are assessed on your performance based on Revenue Per Employee. The acquisition of additional technical resources is a difficult process that has investment performance implications to your firm. The ability to offset some of the overall costs of your technical resources helps to mitigate the costs of these investments in the short term. This is the purpose for enabling the direct billing of technical resources to the joint account in the Accounting Voucher.

When we get to the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules. We will see the development of these capabilities from an innovative point of view will take on a different perspective. The ability to capture this development of a firm's technical resources as an investment, and have them as a source of revenue here in the Accounting Voucher is what I want to establish. Looking at the development of the producer, it is somewhat of a paradox as to which is developed first, the land base or the capabilities. With the ability to have the capabilities generate their own revenue stream the paradox is resolved in the short term, in that capabilities development is expected to earn a return on investment.

Some may suggest that these costs offset the production revenues of the Joint Operating Committee that would have gone to the producer anyways. And that may be true. However, in a world where the demands for the technical resources are expected to be as significant as some suggest. The need to deal with the problem on a wholesale basis, as People, Ideas & Objects pooling concept does, is a requirement, and secondly, the assumption that everyone else will develop their technical capabilities may be false.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Purchase Order Systems

Its very 1970’s ish to be thinking of a Purchase Order system. The 1970’s is the last time that I can think of anyone ever using one. (It certainly might be used in the larger firms, however, I am unaware of this.) The practicality and usefulness of these systems seemed to have receded in the 1980’s and no one has considered their existence since. Now we talk in terms of Supply-Chains, however oil and gas doesn't have a “supply-chain” as the term is used. Supply chains are for retail and manufacturing. Purchasing is for oil and gas.

I would reiterate that the use of a Purchase Order system is something that the user community needs to determine if it wants one. I see substantial value in building one and have attempted to document how that value can be realized.

The Purchase Order system is part of the Accounting Voucher in that it is a necessary part of the processing of any large capital item. The use and application of the AFE, Cost Centre or Lease charge code remains the same irrespective of the Purchase Orders existence or not. There is no change in the coding structure as a result of the inclusion of the purchase order number. The Accounting Voucher relies on the Purchase Order for further approval of the specific contract dealing with a particular vendor on a specific project.

There are a number of cases where the management of the vendor relationship needs to have special considerations. Particularly in oil and gas where the details of the project are specific and large. Engineering contracts for the building of gas plants, pipelines and facilities are some of the examples. Situations where the contract must meet certain criteria and the vendor must qualify to meet those criteria during a bidding process. Its of concern to the producers that the firm that is chosen is capable of undertaking the work that is described. It is not just a lowest cost and the bid wins type of contract bidding process. This overall bidding process falls under the larger Purchase Order process of the Preliminary Specifications Accounting Voucher.

Once the vendor has been selected then the approval of the invoices is subject to the terms and conditions of the contract. Any prepayments or partial payments can be processed on the basis of the strength of the Purchase Order document and the final payment is subject to the satisfactory completion of the contract. If the contract is subject to any holdbacks and other conditions, then those would be applied within the Accounting Vouchers payments.

The Purchase Order system is designed to provide the producer(s) with a level of control over large contracts. Something that is done frequently in oil and gas. By managing the bidding process and providing a level of control over the contract in terms of making and controlling the payment process. The Purchase Order, I think is a valuable tool in any producers system. Having these contained within the Accounting Voucher of the Preliminary Specification is the natural placement of these control processes. See also the Resource Marketplace module for discussion of the Oracle Purchasing and Procurement module that has been included in the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

The Material Balance Report

The Material Balance Report is an Accounting Voucher that is unique and has the following characteristics. It is designed to deal with the automation of the production, revenue and royalties of the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee. It is this type of specialized use of an Accounting Voucher that the user community should consider applying to other situations when contributing to the Preliminary Specification.

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

The Joint Operating Committee is a thing that exists as a result of legal agreements and in the minds of oil men and women. It therefore doesn’t “own” anything or incur any costs. All of the charges to the joint account must clear in the month they are incurred to the producers. It is the same situation for the volumetric information. The Joint Operating Committee "Accounting Voucher" balances to zero in terms of costs and volumes each month by clearing its charges to the partnership and royalty owners of the property.

Note that the clearing is done after the balance. That does not guarantee that the facility will remain in balance. Adjustments and amendments to the Accounting Voucher may occur. These may happen and they can be subsequently cleared to the partnership accounts.

The point of the exercise is that you have the business of the Joint Operating Committee being captured in the Material Balance Report which is an integral part of the Accounting Voucher. Essentially all three are the same thing, the Joint Operating Committee, Accounting Voucher, and Material Balance Report. An integrity of reporting that is embedded within the accounting systems that is as rigid as debits must equal credits.

We now want to talk about the contracts that the products produced may have associated with that Joint Operating Committee. Contracts that would include marketing for gas, oil, natural gas liquids, or contracts for charges for gathering, processing etc. I don’t know what the correct term that should be used, but stream seems to me to be the most intuitive. If a stream of product was flowing through a facility, then a contract for processing or sale could be attached to it. The ability to attach a contract to a stream would enable the Accounting Voucher to establish the billing of gathering or processing charges / sale for that stream. These charges (invoices) or sales (receipts) being generated in an automated fashion by the People, Ideas & Objects software.

The Accounting Voucher is a for lack of a better term a template that is built upon as time passes. Each month as the property changes, these changes are captured within each Accounting Voucher and the template is renewed each month with the accumulation of the properties history. If a new contract was added for the production from a new well, then that contract stream and the new well would be represented in the next month's Accounting Vouchers. The Accounting Voucher template documents the changes in the property over time.

Critical to the “definition and design” of transactions is the fact that these transactions are balancing themselves out. If the debits and credits were not in balance at the end of the day, then the automation of the systems and the accountants would not be doing their jobs. The same could be said for the volumetric reporting. If in the Material Balance Reports, they were out of balance (call this material balance), or were not balancing the inputs and outputs to other Material Balance Reports (call this system balance), or the internal accounting of those volumes to the partners, royalty holders and others were out of balance (call this partnership balance) the accountants and systems would not be doing their jobs. Simply the process of closing the Accounting Voucher will need to consider not only the balancing of the debits and credits from a financial point of view. They will also need to ensure that the material, system and partnership volumes reported in the Material Balance Report are also in balance. Without these systems in balance, the Accounting Voucher will not close.

This imposes another rather strict provision on the quality of the information that is accepted into the People, Ideas & Objects Accounting Voucher module. Precluding the acceptance of a voucher due to the inability to balance a volumetric requirement holds the system up for what could be a fairly common occurrence. What if the volumetric information is unavailable in a timely fashion? What if the information is part of the normal amendment process? Then we are left with the traditional accounting methods of dealing with these types of issues. An accrual of the volumes in order to achieve the balancing necessary should be able to be processed in the current month. These accruals would then be automatically reversed in the following months Material Balance Report. What is different from existing systems is that we are enforcing the systems to volumetrically balance. Not just inputting key variables, imposing the facts of what actually happened at the facility, or if the facility is subject to a comprehensive Construction, Ownership and Operation agreement, what is agreed to.

The difference may be subtle but the implication is significant. Locking the volumetric balancing, over the long term, into the Accounting Voucher itself enforces the system to follow the volumes as produced and processed. Once this is achieved a certain level of unimpeachable integrity is achieved and then the automation of detailed processes based on those volumes can begin and be assured to be based on the facts of the facilities and assets.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Vouchers, Open to all Within the Partnership

One of the implications of using the People, Ideas & Objects system is that each partner will have access to the Accounting Voucher during the time that a Voucher is either open or closed. Each of the producers involved in the Joint Operating Committee are therefore able to access the Accounting Voucher and have costs / revenues distributed to the other partners involved in the Joint Operating Committee. This is one of the key differences that we had discussed in the Petroleum Lease, and Resource Marketplace modules. Partners are all contributing to the joint account as equal participants with the role of “operator” being relegated to a thing of the past. (Note too of course, that each participant is able to charge their own account with their own 100% charges. These charges are to their private accounts and therefore not seen by any of the other participants.)

Cost control becomes an issue when everyone is able to charge freely to the joint account. A careful reading of the previous paragraph reflects that I didn't state “charge freely." Cost control comes about as a result of the traditional budgetary control of AFE and the Work Order system that we have discussed in the Partnership Accounting module. Without pre-approval by the partnership nothing is able to be processed by the People, Ideas & Objects software applications. And as we have seen in the discussion of the Security & Access Control module, few will have the authorization to “charge freely” to the joint account in any form or fashion.

With the traditional ability to charge to an AFE or Cost Center, and possibly during the development of the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification, the user community determines the need to have a purchase order system, ensuring that an appropriate bidding and contracting process is in place, no unauthorized amount will be accepted in the system. There is also the fact that each voucher needs to be approved for payment before any money is expended and that approval would need to consider the authority of the Joint Operating Committee.

As one can envision these Joint Operating Committee - Accounting Vouchers can become large as they include all of the business of the property. Accountants would be frustrated at month-end trying to get these Vouchers closed if they had to seek approvals and close each of the transactions within the appropriate small window of time of their month end. Needless to say that each transaction within the Accounting Voucher is a small subset of the larger Accounting Voucher and can be dealt with as a stand alone individual item. Seeking its own approvals and authorizations that deal with just the domain of the specific transaction.

What is different in People, Ideas & Objects Accounting Voucher system vs what exist today is the elimination of the designation of operator. The capabilities for each producer to house the state of the art earth science and engineering resources necessary to run all of their properties within one oil and gas firm is believed to be beyond the scope of what is possible in the future. The solution in the Preliminary Specification is the further specialization and division of labor of the earth science and engineering capabilities of each producer firm and the pooling of these resources of the partnership within the Joint Operating Committee.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Introduction to the Accounting Voucher

We now shift our attention to the Accounting Voucher module. The interactions between the Accounting Voucher and the Partnership Accounting modules of the Preliminary Specification are naturally quite significant. They both being accounting modules, it is natural that they have high levels of integration. The Accounting Voucher is unique in that it brings to the producer the ability to design transactions and specific accounting vouchers such as the Material Balance Report. These are not innovations that the producer will use to become more innovative but are provided to ensure that the innovative producers processes are actively defined and supported throughout the People, Ideas & Objects application modules.  When the business is a science, as it is in oil and gas, it would be in the producers interest to remain open and flexible in both its scientific and business approach. The Accounting Voucher and Partnership Accounting modules provide that organizational flexibility.

The manner in which these two modules operate is as follows. The Accounting Voucher captures the transactions. Partnership Accounting reports on the transactions. Accounting Vouchers remain open for one accounting period and are subject to the same closing process that is familiar and traditional in the accounting world.

We noted in the Partnership Accounting module how the Work Order enabled the producer with the ability to form and participate in working groups. Providing a flexibility in participating and accounting for these working groups. This flexibility is what is being sought after in the rest of the producer firm and Joint Operating Committee from these accounting modules. Elimination of the bureaucratic inertia that impedes these activities today makes these modules critical to a producers innovation as much as the Research & Capabilities or Knowledge & Learning modules do.

The People, Ideas & Objects Accounting Voucher Module will provide the means for the application to “manage the disparate inter-dependencies of modularity theory and Transaction Cost Economics.” That is a summary application of Professor Baldwin's comments and theories. And therefore this Accounting Voucher is one of the key cross roads to all other modules in the People, Ideas & Objects application. What this means is it’s necessary for people to cease in processing transactions, by way of automation, and move toward the definition and design of transactions to optimize the business of the producer and Joint Operating Committees performance.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Conclusion to Partnership Accounting

We should note that the Partnership Accounting module is the source of all accounting information for both the producer and Joint Operating Committees. This includes General Ledger detail, Trial Balance and anything and everything accounting related for producers and Joint Operating Committees. It is the source for all accounting related information. The key difference between the Partnership Accounting and Accounting Voucher modules is the difference between “what” and “how” of accounting.

Our discussion in the Partnership Accounting module included the following topics.

• Generic Reporting
• Material Balance Report
• Pooling of Technical Resources
• Decentralized Production Model
• Work Order
• Specialization and the Division of Labor
• Accounting Cutoffs and Differences
• Oracle Fusion Application Modules

Additional topics will be added by the user community. One of the key objectives of the Preliminary Specification is achieved within this module. By using the Joint Operating Committee we are able to align the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks into alignment with the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy. This alignment provides the oil and gas producer with the speed, innovativeness, accountability and profitability that is necessary in this new era of oil and gas that we find ourselves in.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

People, Ideas & Objects and Oracle Corporation

It’s the accountant in me that gets excited when I look at the Oracle technologies that will be used in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. Under the Oracle Fusion Application Financial Management Suite there are the following six modules that are included in the Preliminary Specification. General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Asset Management, Payments & Collections and Cash & Expense Management. It is unknown at this time if the last three modules will provide any value to the oil and gas producer, and therefore will leave it to the larger community to determine whether they remain.

What we need is a solid mission critical, as they used to describe it, general ledger for the innovative oil and gas producer, Joint Operating Committee and service providers. Oracle has competed in this arena since the late 1980’s with their own technologies. They have also focused their energies outside of their core database technologies on ERP systems by acquiring a number of the top vendors in the business. When it comes to the business of ERP systems there are SAP and Oracle as the two titans in the industry. 

When it comes to the technologies that these systems are built upon Oracle, in my opinion, wins out in a very big way. Their new strategy is hardware and software engineered together. And they have the industry leading products to do just that. With Oracle Servers, Oracle Operating Systems, Oracle Database, Java, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications all being industry leading proprietary technologies. SAP is only able to compete on the application layer. And Oracle’s technologies are new. All of the Fusion products have been written within the last five years as a result of a significant investment in Java and their database technologies. 

When we developed the Preliminary Specification we used modularity theory extensively. Both for the organizations involving the firm, the market and the Joint Operating Committee; and the technology as defined in the modular definitions of the Preliminary Specification. Oracle has also used modularity theory in the development of their Fusion products. Enabling us to build industry specific functionality that works seamlessly with their technologies. Everything that we need to build from scratch will be built from their Oracle Fusion Middleware layer. Which is exactly the same point where Oracle started in the development of their Oracle Fusion Application modules. 

So when we begin to write the code for the Material Balance Report we will be standing on the shoulders of giants by using the Oracle Fusion Middleware as the basis of where we start. And we will be using the General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, as a minimum to provide the innovative oil and gas producer, Joint Operating Committee and service providers, no matter their size, with the mission critical capabilities of the industry leader in all of these product categories. 

Let's turn now to the comprehensive nature of the accounting that is done in the Partnership Accounting module of the Preliminary Specification. Whatever kind of accounting that is done in the Preliminary Specification, whether it be for the producer firm, the Joint Operating Committee or the service provider, the Partnership Accounting and Accounting Voucher are the two modules that capture everything the accountant will need. From the General Ledger to the Financial Statements of the producer and Joint Operating Committees everything a user needs, from management accounting to financial accounting will be here. 

To provide for this we will be using the Oracle Fusion Application Financial Management Suite of modules as the base of the Preliminary Specification. Included within that are the General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable modules that will be used extensively. It will be here in the Partnership Accounting module that the People, Ideas & Objects user community will determine the need for the other Oracle Financial Management Suite modules of Payments & Collections, Asset Management and Cash & Expense Management. 

It is important to stress the users involvement in determining the input, process management, function and output of the Partnership Accounting module. As with all of the modules within the Preliminary Specification this is your opportunity to define what it is that you need and want in terms of Information Technology in your firm. This should be looked upon as a once in a lifetime opportunity and there will be little opportunity to join the community once the Preliminary Specification begins. The time to participate is now, if you can see value in the development of the People, Ideas & Objects systems then you should begin the process and start to participate as soon as possible. 

Outside of the core Oracle modules we will be doing a significant amount of development that will be key to the oil and gas industry. This will require us to drop down into the Oracle Fusion Middleware layer and access what is a very elaborate Java EE server. This will be used to provide the revenue and royalties systems that will build off of the Material Balance Report. Recall that the Material Balance Report is also being crafted at this layer. Management of the firm and Joint Operating Committees capital and operating costs. And of course the revenues, royalties, capital and operating will all have the capacity to be reported in gross and net values. Users may have extensive ideas as to how they want their data to be displayed, and they may want the traditional formats like the Statement of Operations and Statement of Expenditures. This of course being just a small example of the feature set of the Preliminary Specification.

As we will see in the Compliance & Governance module there are extensive capabilities in the Oracle Fusion Applications that enable the Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Statement of Changes in Financial Position to automate the process of compliance. Updates to the regulations are done through Oracle and affect the Financial Statements that are submitted to the regulators. Such is the nature of dealing with automated systems. All in all providing the producer with an automated system from field data capture to financial statement is as broad a scope, and one that should motivate everyone to participate in this worthwhile endeavor.

In addition to the Oracle Fusion Application Financial Management Suite General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable modules we will be using the Oracle Fusion Application Human Capital Management Global H & R Payroll module. There the costs of the resources can be billed out to the joint account at their actual costs. Technically it will need to be worked out by the user community how each producer is able to charge the joint account for these costs. However, that does not present too difficult a task when we have the control being handled through the Joint Operating Committee and the Security & Access Control modules Military Command & Control Metaphor. 

There is another assumption that is made in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification regarding specialization and the division of labor. And that is the division of labor between computers and humans. I suggest we cease operating in large part, from an accounting point of view, as quasi computers and let the computers handle the work that computers do best. Storage and process management are their domain and the sooner we leave these tasks to computers I think the better off we will be. The things that we are better at are the decisions, the ideas, the innovations, the change management, the planning, the creative process among many other things. These are the elements of our work that we should be focusing on and leave the computers to do the work that they do best.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Costs Like Strategies Are Different

We should note that the cost structures of each producer within a Joint Operating Committee could be unique and mutually exclusive to each of the other producers in the property. When we expand the geographical view of the facilities owned in the area we see that the ownership of associated infrastructure by producers can be remarkably different. This cost situation provides us with an opportunity to discuss the strategic choices that producers have within a Joint Operating Committee -- and adjoining facilities which are their own JOC’s -- and how each producer can maintain their own unique strategy.

In addition, since each Joint Operating Committee is autonomous to each other, a producer is able to choose unique strategies for each JOC they have an interest in. That is not to suggest that each JOC within a facility would have their own strategy. They could, however that would be unproductive. What is suggested is that a producer could have each of their major properties operated under their own unique strategies that are developed to optimize the assets unique character. To reiterate, each producer within a Joint Operating Committee within a major area pursuing their own unique strategy irrespective of each other's strategy.

Lastly we most recently noted that the Joint Operating Committee was the strategic framework of the producer and it joined the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication and innovation frameworks within the JOC. This framework alignment has been unrecognized in any existing ERP systems that operates in the oil and gas industry today. People, Ideas & Objects is the only system to recognize, identify and support the Joint Operating Committee’s frameworks. In addition, People, Ideas & Objects aligns the hierarchies compliance and governance frameworks into alignment with the seven frameworks of the JOC. This alignment provides the innovative oil and gas producer with the speed, innovativeness, accountability and profitability necessary to compete in the insatiable energy era of oil and gas exploration and production.

Application of global or generic corporate strategies are what companies did in the twentieth century. Today producers need to respond at the asset level in order to ensure the optimal value is realized. These findings are based on the extensive research that has been conducted here at People, Ideas & Objects.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.

Accounting Differences

In Canada at least, there is the accounting month and production month to deal with the delay in reporting of production volumes. The logistics of reporting volumetric information creates a lag of one month in the data so that July’s production data will be reported in the August accounting month. And I'm sure that everyone is familiar with the much loved amendment process for that volumetric data. The adjustment process never seems to end, I wonder if we'll ever find a solution to it.

I think we have an interesting solution in People, Ideas & Objects. We have talked briefly about the Material Balance Report. While we noted the need to balance each report, and each input and output with the input and output of other Material Balance Reports. And that each Material Balance Report essentially represented a Joint Operating Committee. We should note that there are some problems that need to be addressed in the Partnership Accounting module that are a result of the adjustments to the Material Balance Reports. That is that these Material Balance Reports do shift and amend volumes of products around as time goes by and things are found to be incorrect. When the physical world is found to be inconsistent with the reporting, the reporting must change.

I want to add to the discussion of the Material Balance Report by detailing the scope of the engineering problem that we have to solve. The first area of concern is that there are both daily and monthly volumes defining a period of time. Some of these volumes are “spec” vs. raw, products and by-products. Volumes are processed and gathered based on ownership and non-ownership of the processing facilities. There are in North America two, units of measure, British vs. metric reporting standards. How gas is nominated (daily) and marketed (annually). Finally the royalty holders and the ownership of the properties expect to earn something for their efforts. And each of these variables could generate their own amendment processes.

The myriad combinations of possibilities that happen within oil and gas have to be captured and handled within the systems that are used in oil and gas. That has not happened in any of the existing ERP systems as of this date. The first aspect of solving this problem is to engineer the solution. Many have tried and have found their budgets to be too small for the job. Approaching this from the one producer perspective may seem like adequate funding, however, no one today is declaring success. If, as we have proposed in People, Ideas & Objects, aggregate the resources of the industry towards engineering the solution, this scope can be scaled, the costs to each producer will be incidental, and the results will be that each producer will realize the full scale of that software development effort.

The second aspect of the solution of this issue is to limit the scope of it. That is what we have done in People, Ideas & Objects. First by using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative and profitable oil and gas producer. What we are doing is adopting the Material Balance Report as a function of the Joint Operating Committee. Which in reality it is. If however we separate it from other Joint Operating Committee’s from an accounting perspective then we can begin to deal within just that JOC as its own autonomous legal entity, which it is. This simplifies the solution from an accounting perspective and helps to deal with the complexity of the business. This discussion may initially not make sense until we get into the Accounting Voucher module, and we get into the final aspect of this solution which is where we encapsulate all of this reporting within the accounting system itself.

In a globalized oil and gas industry we have to deal with currency conversions in the modern era. And these are not your regular currency issues. The example I have used in the past is that a producer based in Texas (U.S. Dollar) with partners in Britain (British Pound) and Canada (Canadian Dollar) share an interest in facilities and production in Turkey (Lira). Transactions through the joint account will be in the Turkish Lira and recorded in the producers native currencies based on the exchange rate at the time.

Another aspect of this problem is the currency conversions have different treatments for asset & liabilities than they do for revenues & costs. Revenues & costs are converted at the time they occur and require no further action. Whereas asset & liability accounts maintain a balance over a longer period of time and may need further specific treatment to ensure they are recognized and recorded correctly. If, for example, a producer has finished inventory in a country with a volatile currency, what subsequent value should be assigned to the inventory? This may possibly be answered by the ability to record the finished inventory in US$. But the operational costs may be valued in the domestic currency. And what about items that are of a capital nature? These currency issues are predominantly producer related as they are cleared out of the Joint Operating Committees accounts each month. Therefore the accounting for each producer in this scenario is unique.

I would however caution users in the community that the oil and gas industries use of the Joint Operating Committee is unique, and these currency issues are not something that are realized in other industries. And although I believe it is a fair assumption that the Oracle Fusion Applications management of currencies would be state of the art. That state of the art would be for other industries like retail and other industries that would not have the scenario that is noted in this discussion. That because of the oil and gas industries use of the Joint Operating Committee, currencies are an area that can be built upon substantially from the point of view of what and how the community could contribute. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the currency issues that are experienced daily in the oil and gas industry. These issues are what this community is after in terms of engineering solutions that identify and support innovative and profitable oil and gas producers.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy.