Oil Prices, Again
I have been highly critical and sarcastic towards the oil and gas producers throughout the last decade on this blog. The tone has been consistent and establishes a level of conflict between People, Ideas & Objects and the producers. It’s never wise to criticize your customers publicly. Based on the producers past behavior towards ERP providers I don’t think I ever saw them as customers. I’ve been told a hundred times that they’ll never get involved in this project, something that I agreed to quietly. I think I always knew the producers weren’t customers but were more the source of the issue and that was how they were treated here. Our customers were the investors in the oil and gas producers who we share a frustration and anger with. They now have the opportunity to participate in the transformation of the industry, and their interests in oil and gas, by participating in the ICO we are preparing. Choosing to invest in the coins as opposed to the producer firms themselves.
What we need to do now is to prove that the oil and gas producers, during a period of rising oil prices, have a flawed business model that is the source of low oil and gas commodity prices. We certainly don’t see any investors or bankers stepping over each other financing any of the producers. This should be relatively easy for us to prove that the overproduction and oversupply is inherent in the business model and nothing has changed since the late 1980’s and 1990’s when I first began to study and resolve why producers don’t just shut-in some of their production to raise prices to the level where their profitable.
That the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model’s price maker strategy resolves low commodity prices is irrelevant to the producers. They see it as collusion and will not be involved in it. They prefer to spend decades where they lose money as a result of a fundamental change in their business, driven by prolific shale reservoirs. Ending up losing the investors, banks, service industries, their employees and all the others interests instead. Where a common understanding of business would dictate that the market provides one thing and that is the price it is willing to pay. If they as a producer can earn a profit at that price then they should produce, if not they should shut-in their production. That is not collusion as they suggest but good business practice. Producers will allege that this is what they’re doing.
One look at the disjointed nature of their financial statements will find that none of the capital costs of past production has been recognized. And the real costs of oil and gas exploration and production are fundamentally unknown. By capitalizing everything including the receptionists Post-it-Notes and the service charges for the phone they use. Only to be recognized over a twenty year period. One mans profits are another mans accounting fraud. Producers have ignored our commentary about this point. Primarily I think because it’s something that has formed a cornerstone of their legacy of destruction. You can’t profitably retire these balances in the short or mid term, therefore why admit it’s an issue. It is the albatross around their neck that makes investors unwilling to dilute their future investments against past costs of a questionable nature that have never performed. That goes for banks too. And the outsized nature of these balances can only be reduced through long term profitable operations. Something that these organizations were never structured to provide. They were spending machines. The money comes in and then goes out. Only to be replenished next year by newer, more naive investors. As an oil and gas investor it's the continuous, annual dilution of your interests that’s the prize!
We see today that the Saudi’s and Russia are committed to extending their production sharing agreement throughout 2018. This is having upward pressure on the price of oil. This is also good for the Saudi IPO of Saudi Aramco which will also occur in 2018. What happens when that is complete? As the low cost producer they will have a number of different strategies to chose from. Elimination of the high cost producers through low commodity prices is the most probable one that I see them employing. Already in the 12% increase in prices during 2017’s third quarter and the 5% increase in October 2017 producers are found to be racing to get more production on line to secure more cash. The U.S. is projected to be producing over 9.9 million barrels of oil per day in 2018. A record volume that was previously established in 1970, in comparison to the approximately 8.9 million barrels per day when OPEC first put their production sharing agreement into place.
How many times are we to believe the “market rebalancing” story? It is just the cover story for a complacent and satisfied bureaucracy. It also reflects the lack of thinking in the industry as “market rebalancing” has been the only commentary since the decline in natural gas prices in 2008. I am very satisfied that I have a decade or more of critical commentary about the producer's business. Their business is flawed and has no future. That will soon be proven again as they overwhelm the market with surplus production. We now have our customers clearly defined and are able to provide them with substantial business value. And just to show the trend is our friend, the CME Group are experimenting with BitCoin to see if they are able to begin trading in cryptocurrencies. Establishing a possibility that our coin holders could trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.