Choices the Bureaucrats Make

It is generally agreed that we have 1.7 million barrels of oil per day of overproduction. Causing a 70% decline in the price of oil. So, as a bureaucrat, of course you will sit and do nothing. Is it better to give up 2% of global production, or experience price declines that lead to losses of 70% of your revenue. Well we know the answer don’t we. The U.S. production is by far the most expensive production in the world. Yet we hear that some producers will still be profitable in some of the shale areas at $23.00 / barrel. Its times like these that people should learn to read financial statements. Understand what it means to be profitable, learn what break even and marginal mean. This terminology is not interchangeable and is well defined as to what it does mean. Right now no producer anywhere is making money. That I can assure you. Their financial statements may state that they are, but when you capitalize everything, any revenue turns profitable. That is the game that is being played in the industry today. Justifying their inaction because it continues to be profitable is how they continue on. Just don’t count the cash.

And so it will continue. If you thought that the end would soon appear you have to look at the situation in the marketplace and ask yourself, how will it change? If everyone is profitable at whatever the price is, remember our discussion on “recycle costs,” there will never be any behavioral change. And even if there was a behavioral change these organizations could not change to become the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable producer that they would be under the Preliminary Specification. Organizations don’t change, but people do. And that is why we will be successful in our initiative to change the oil and gas industry. We are focused on developing the user community that will be the key lever to make the changes to the new organizational model in the Preliminary Specification, the Joint Operating Committee.

What the oil and gas producer will be configured as in this new environment will be fundamentally different than the manner in which they operate and are organized today. They will still be driven to grow their overall production numbers as they have before. The key difference will be that they must increase their profitable production numbers. Increasing your production is the easy part. Just look everyone is doing it. Increasing profitable production is hard, as we can see that no one is doing that. And what will stop the producer from producing unprofitable production in our new organizations? They simply will not be able to afford it. It drains the organization of the profits that were earned on other profitable properties. It also increases the costs of the reserves of the unprofitable property by the amount of the losses that need to be recovered from the future. Making it even more difficult to produce the property profitably. Investors who see producers who cheat and produce properties unprofitably will be dealt with by a general lack of confidence in their management and in their assets. Not something the producer wants to test.

Carrying unprofitable properties that have been shut-in will be less costly for the producer than what it is today. The configuration of the producer in the Preliminary Specification is stripped down to the C class executives, the earth science and engineering resources, some land and legal, and support staff. The administrative and accounting resources have been reorganized across the industry into service providers who are providing their services directly to the Joint Operating Committees. If there is no activity in the property, then there is nothing for the service providers to do and hence no billing from any of their service providers is sent to that Joint Operating Committee. As a result a null operation will be recorded in the months that the Joint Operating Committee is shut-in. These null operations will have the effect of neutralizing the downside risk of owning unprofitable properties. They can therefore be kept in a portfolio of shut-in properties where the focus of the producers innovations can seek to return them to profitable production.

These changes can not be made by the current bureaucracies. The accounting is not precise enough to know what is profitable and what is not! The overhead and administration costs in the industry are estimated by me to be approximately $18 / boe and most of these costs are capitalized by the producers. Today the Joint Operating Committees sees nothing of these actual costs. They are only charged for allowances which are woefully inadequate to capture the scope and scale of the true administrative and overhead burden. What we are talking about here is a complete new dynamic in terms of how the administrative and accounting of the industry is handled. Enabling the price maker strategy to be employed by all of the producers. This strategy is as simple as if the property is profitable it produces, otherwise it’s shut-in. In today’s environment there would be no profitable production, prices would therefore adjust quickly.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

How We'll Rebuild the Service Industry

In a world where I can send you, in all likelihood a stranger to me, any amount of money in as little as two hours. Why does it take an oil and gas producer six months to pay someone in the service industry? Someone who they’ve done business with many times before, and someone who has always done a stellar job! Because that’s how long it takes for next year's financing to close! That’s a statement of fact, not a joke. The six months that it took for producers to pay the service industry in the good times was the punishment that the bureaucrats felt that they deserved. So it therefore became the norm to use six months as the general rule in how vendors were paid. That was in the good times. Now there is no money to pay them and the service industry is going to have to wait for the good times to return before they see any of the cash that they are owed today.

You may recall the days when the bureaucrats called the service industry representatives lazy and greedy because of the fees they were charging for their services. Those high fees are as a result of times like these. How many companies in the service industry will be able to withstand their customers not paying them for the work they’ve done. Not many. And those that do will be financially scarred for decades and unable to invest in their businesses as if it were a normal going concern. And what about the people who worked in the service industry? These people are also being forced to look for work in other areas and in other industries to feed their families.

So the next time that the producer wants to drill a well and there is not enough drillers in the marketplace. They better not ask why. And when they do find one, they best keep their mouths shut about the amount that the driller might charge for their day rate. It's the 21st century, yet we’re still subjected to the idiotic thinking of the bureaucrats that operate the oil and gas producers. The ones who piously looked down on the service industry and called them lazy and greedy not two years ago. It is a surreal world of the oil and gas bureaucrat. One snap of the finger and you can have anything that your heart desires, and at no cost apparently.

The Preliminary Specification is designed to eliminate this boom bust cycle in the oil and gas, and service industries. First by implementing the price maker strategy the producers will be able to bank on secure earnings. And it will be because of those earnings that they can turn to innovation in the field service industries. Where they can develop the resources and capabilities that are necessary to support the oil and gas industry. Through the Resource Marketplace and Research & Capabilities modules the capabilities and development of the service industry is front and centre in the mindset of the innovative producer. This is what we should have been doing two years ago when the bureaucrats were calling people names, investing in the service industry to expand its capabilities. We’ll have a lot more difficulty in attempting to resurrect the capabilities that we’re going to need from the service industry in the future as a result of the bureaucrats actions today.

Its really frustrating to watch the industry being destroyed in the manner that it is. I also find it surprising the amount of sympathy that the press gives these bureaucrats in terms of the dilemma that they’re in. They’re the ones that have caused this disaster and they’re getting the sympathy! It won’t be too long before the press starts to realize the rebalancing story that is being told is the same as the story that was told last year and the year before that. And that it doesn’t work. Then they might begin to ask questions as to why they would continue to produce when it costs their cash and destroys the business. What fool would do such a thing?

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

No Posting Today

In recognition of Presidents Day and Alberta's Family Day holidays.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

As each week passes the destruction of the industry becomes more significant. This week was particularly dire for a number of the senior intermediates. I would have thought that they had greater staying power than what they are displaying this past week. Could it be that I have underestimated the difficulties? Give them a few more months and they will be empty shells of their former selves. The scope and scale of the devastation that is occurring at this time can not be underestimated. Producers believed their own convoluted financial statements that showed their legacy of overspending provided them with “strong balance sheets.” The problem is that no one let these capital costs flow to the income statement where they could evaluate the performance of the bureaucrats, and as such, they also believed they were making money because no capital costs were ever recognized. The fact of the matter is that even in the good times the producers were not making any money because they have never accurately accounted for their capital costs. These spend fests went to die on the balance sheet where they still reside, and today, as they did in years past, provide no value to the producer. If they would have let the capital costs flow to the income statement, these capital costs would have returned abundant cash to a healthy profitable producer. Cash that they could have used today. What we have now is an industry with sky high assets on the balance sheets, supported by debt, and no liquid resources, anywhere.

This shortage of cash is not a minor issue. It is the only issue for the foreseeable future. As it is stated by, and what I am hearing from the bureaucrats, the oil and gas production is covering the cash costs of operations. It is however not covering the costs of administration and overhead, or the payments for the money they took from investors and banks. The overhead and administration costs are not relevant to this calculation, I hear the bureaucrats state. It is too when the paychecks have to be written for all the staff. These paychecks, and the rest of the overhead, like lights and rent, have been calculated by me to approximate $18 / barrel. That’s why no one is going to be paying any dividends. Therefore your production is currently costing you approximately $15 / barrel in cold hard cash to produce! Sorry investors you just don’t count.

This is the logic that has overcome the industry since 1977 when the SEC instituted either Full Cost or Successful Efforts accounting as the methods to be followed. Everyone has been raised by the “capitalize everything” and never “recognize any depletion” attitude in the industry. I’ve been told a billion times, its cash flow stupid. And I have always responded that earnings are more important. And the bureaucrats have laughed at me for that as well. They felt as long as they could sell a property for multiples of what it cost, who needs profits? This game continued on and more competitors entered into the market seeking the “opportunities” to make “spectacular” money. Eventually with all the fools rushing in, the industry was overbuilt and the over investment lead to overproduction. Why don’t they sell a property today if they need cash! The problem is they can’t, there is no market. You could buy PennWest for $330 million. That’s 60,000 barrels per day, or $5,500.00 per barrel. Such a deal! But there is that debt, and you’d have to support that cash drain, maybe not such a good deal. And certainly not the market that PennWest thought would exist to sell assets into.

If you listen carefully the bureaucrats state there is a need for the market to rebalance only 1.7 million barrels. Imputing that the total oversupply is just the 1.7 million barrels. But it's not, that’s the overproduction per day. The amount in inventory is closer to a billion barrels of excess storage. To draw that down so that prices can recover means that we have to lose 3.4 million barrels of oil production per day for approximately 2 years. Then the prices will rebalance. We are a long way from that. Sorry investors it will be a while before you see any money.

Take for example the natural gas prices which have been depressed for the same reasons for the past six years. The Marcellus area is lucky to receive a natural gas price of $1.25 at any time in that region, the most prolific shale area. Recently the EIA reported that production in the Marcellus region was up! Rebalancing is a myth in the shale era.

When you have a destructive mechanism such as this, built within the DNA of the producer organizations and the industry itself, you will always have these difficulties. The shortage of cash is horrendous at this time. The balance sheets of the producers never had any working capital even in the good days. They always ran on high levels of negative working capital and now they’re producing significant negative gross margins. Meaning you can’t expect the service industry to extend you much more credit. And that means if there is any cash in the industry it is being tossed on the fire. What does an industry do with no cash? We are going to find out in as little as two, but no more than five months.

Expect to see a slew of bad news after the close of markets today. Everyone will want to get the bad news out before the weekend and have everyone forget about it by Monday morning. Chapter 6.2.1 of the bureaucrats 2016 handbook.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Creative Destruction and our User Community

Anyone expecting the bureaucrats to make the necessary changes within their organizations. To deal with the overproduction issues of today will be waiting a long time. The Preliminary Specification is such a fundamental change to the producer firm. Moving it from a price taker to a price maker. In order to do this we will be making changes to every element in the industry. The point here is that organizations don’t change, however, people do. The way that we are making this change is that we are using the forces of creative destruction to break down the bureaucracies. And building the user community as the replacement.

We should send a thank you note to the bureaucrats for following our script so closely. The forces of creative destruction are evident throughout the history of our western based economies. When things become too inefficient and incapable, new solutions rise to replace them. Overproduction will continue until such time as the Preliminary Specification is operational in the oil and gas industry. It is what has been done in natural gas for six years now and in oil for two years. Do we see any response to this overproduction? It was recently stated that there were globally 100,000 barrels per day of oil shut-in during 2015. That is the level of response our friends the bureaucrats can achieve to the overproduction dilemma.

Muddling along is the operating strategy of all producers in any situation involving a crisis. That is the only thing that can be done. The producer firm is a deliberate building of organizational capabilities designed to operate oil and gas facilities based in some geographical region. That is their sole purpose. These organizational capabilities are unique to the formations that they produce and explore. The accounting and administrative capabilities are developed to support an organization in the regulatory, tax and compliance environment that the corporate organization exists within. And that is their domain. To determine if a Joint Operating Committee is profitable, in absolute 100% accurate accounting terms is impossible. Most of the administrative and accounting costs are capitalized and the Joint Operating Committee is charged with overhead allowances based on industry accepted principles. All that bureaucrats know is if the property is generating cash. They only find out that they're not profitable when they publish corporate level financial statements.

And so they continue because they do not have the appropriate information and cannot make the appropriate decisions as to which property is and isn’t profitable. The decision itself, the operational decision making authority resides with the Joint Operating Committee, and even if the operator decided to shut-in an unprofitable property it would have to be put to a vote at the Joint Operating Committee. This conflict doesn’t occur because the systems and procedures within the oil and gas producer do not recognize the Joint Operating Committee or its legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, strategic or innovation frameworks. It only recognizes the corporate frameworks of compliance and governance of the tax, regulatory and the SEC requirements. Recall what we are doing in the Preliminary Specification is we are taking the compliance and governance of the hierarchy and aligning it with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. This alignment provides us with the speed, innovativeness, accountability and profitability that we seek in our in our oil and gas producers.

How we get to the point where People, Ideas & Objects is funded and the user community begins the development of the software defined as the Preliminary Specification is unknown at this time. What we do know is the producers that exist today are not going to be around for much longer. Slowly each and everyone of them will continue to lose so much money that they can no longer continue as viable going concerns. Cash is becoming a significant issue in the marketplace today. This is accelerating the demise of many producers and will make the transition to our user community that much quicker. How we get there is going to be an interesting journey. There’s plenty of room for everyone to join in our user community at this time. It's not that organizations won’t change, it's that they can’t. The people who join our user community will be the ones who are making the change in the oil and gas industry.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Task List for the User Community

As a group, the user community has some specific tasks that need to be completed in the first iteration of our development. These apply only to our initial development and will change once the software is operational in the marketplace. If we look at these tasks from a global perspective we are taking the Oracle Fusion Applications, applying the vision of the Preliminary Specification, developing and integrating that across the industry. In terms of technical risk, I assess the project as moderate, we are using proven technologies on a very large scope and scale. The vision within the Preliminary Specification is comprehensive and has the benefit of unifying the user community in the appropriate direction for successful implementation.

The first step in this initial development phase is therefore to implement the model that is the Preliminary Specification. This vision provides the broad outline of what and how the applications need in order to operate. The details of how each individual's work needs to be handled is the work of the user community to fill in, define and ensure that our developers provide you with the systems that you want and need. For example, if you are working in an area where the Material Balance Report is part of the domain of your work. You will collaborate with others to determine what is required, ensure that it is correct and iteratively develop the functions and processes that will be managed by the software and the service providers. In many ways we are capturing the manner in which the industry operates today from an operational, administrative and accounting manner and redefining it around the Joint Operating Committee and the vision of the Preliminary Specification.

What we don’t need in this first iteration is to have any innovation completed by the user community on the business models contained within the Preliminary Specification. What exists today in the vision works in terms of its global perspective. It may appear that in some small area it might be better to change an element of the model to accommodate some other condition. What we will not know is if this change will upset the global perspective and put the overall vision out of sync in terms of its operational capabilities. The first iteration is not a time in which to innovate on the business models of the Preliminary Specification.

What we can do, and what brings about the greatest value from the model is exploring and implementing the interactions and implications of our model. When we move to the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the producer. We are changing every aspect of the oil and gas producer, the industry and service industry. Not much is unchanged in terms of the effects of implementing the Preliminary Specification. The interactions and implications are where the dramatic value is generated for the various stakeholders in our targeted market. It is here that I expect to see the value of the model to be in the forefront of the user communities search for delivering on that value in the first iteration of the development.

Once we have the software fully operational in the marketplace then we will be able to innovate on the model, and determine further interactions and implications within the various domains of our operation. We are focused on providing the oil and gas industry with a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. This requires that constant change be part of the user community and service providers. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model is structured to generate revenues based on changes within the industry. That is the dynamic that keeps this community moving forward. Software has the effect of becoming concrete to an organization. Turning it into an unchangeable beast. If an organization needs to change, it is the software that needs to change first. And in order for the software to change, the user community has to be the ones that make the changes through the mechanisms they have to affect that change. And in People, Ideas & Objects that is our user community vision.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

What If the Bureaucrats Win?

You may have been distracted the previous time that I noted our value proposition. People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers provide the oil and gas industry with $45.7 trillion in incremental value over the next 25 years. We also have the added feature of putting the industry back on a profitable footing. Enabling it to reclaim much of the greater than $1 trillion in lost market capitalization over this past year. But today I think we can add to these small industry incentives to act to implement the Preliminary Specification. By adding the losses that the producers are incurring during the 2015 fiscal year to the list of things that would not otherwise happen if the Preliminary Specification existed. Some may think that this is a simple double counting of the value proposition, I as you can imagine, beg to differ.

These losses represent the incineration of the capital that the bureaucrats were entrusted with. They could have used the Preliminary Specification to ensure that they are providing their shareholders with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. However, they are not doing that and have instead chosen to destroy the industry. I see these as two separate and distinct acts. Both as a result of the deliberate carelessness that our friends the bureaucrats are becoming known for, but the losses are different than the value proposition. They are, dare I say, like the loss in market capitalization, more real.

If we calculate the losses of the producers that have been reported as of last Friday we find that the total comes to $8.043 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015. Not bad for three months work. And that is just eight producers. Anyone notice that the amount that these eight producers have lost is higher than our budget? I guess no one will be giving us any grief about our budget anymore. After all if you're willing to lose this kind of money in a quarter, you surely would not mind spending it in productive ways.

I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why any of this is acceptable. There is no bureaucrat that seems too concerned about the situation. Is it that the bureaucrats are frozen in fear, or is it that they don’t care? They’re all singing from the same hymn sheet and stating that the market will rebalance. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that happens. They’ll then need to work off the huge balances of oil in storage that has built up in the world. Rebalance that! But nothing effective is done other than to get the press off their backs! Sure they changed the oil export restrictions, but how has that worked out? I think they just stare out the window dreaming these dumb ideas up. This is the muddle along strategy in its finest hour. Shrug your shoulders and assume that nothing can be done and go on doing the paper shuffling thing that they do. Hoping that nothing bad happens to you. Absolutely brilliant!

The Preliminary Specification is designed to make the industry dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable. None of which it currently is and never has been while I’ve worked in it. The current business model was developed in the 1920’s and has had no changes to it since. In the dynamic, fast changing world we live in, we end up with a bureaucracy that is so out of tune with the times that it can’t even defend itself. Are we to expect that we’ll keep this in place for the foreseeable future. Will this be the way that the industry is managed in 2025, 2040?

Why would anyone give more money to these bureaucrats to lose. The industry has had no response to natural gas for six years. No response to oil for two. Is anyone else seeing a trend? What do we think will happen tomorrow or ten years with this bunch? That is exactly what the bureaucrats want. To ride this through with no expectations of performance and then to resume normal operations where investors line up for the next round of fleecing. Then the bureaucrats will be so established and permanent that we’ll never be able to get rid of them. I say if we don’t toss them out in this current environment, and soon, we’ll end up paying for it for a long time.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

No News Here

We should be building the oil and gas industry to address the needs of society in the next 25 years. Instead we’re hunkering down hoping that our most recent paycheck wasn’t our last. Here we are with all the intelligence and technology in the world to deal with our difficulties. And we can’t overcome the inertia of the organizational methods that were established in the 1920’s. I’ve provided so much comedic relief to the bureaucrats over this past decade. It's good to know they’ll at least have the thought that they knew better. It’s pretty obvious now, as it was in the 1980’s and 1990’s, that the lack of production discipline is with us as long as the bureaucrats exist. The news is here we sit, no change in the status of this initiative, other than the bureaucrats don’t laugh anymore. They can’t, won’t and will not ever change. We apparently have to completely destroy the industry before they're convinced they're wrong.

As far as I’m concerned the damage to the industry has and will be extreme. We have only begun to see the pain that we will need to endure. Sitting around hoping for higher prices and stating that the market will rebalance itself is sticking our heads in the sand. It appears to me that every producer is hurting except for Exxon. I think half of the industry will end up in bankruptcy. And the people who make this industry work will have had enough. What we’re talking about here is a generational time frame in order to rectify the damages being done now. I haven’t seen the rush to the door by the bureaucrats yet, but trust me that is coming, and they’ll take that aspect of the industries capabilities with them as well. Leaving us with that hole to fill on top of everything else.

We have, and will have, work to do. I have budgeted 5,000 man years of effort necessary to put out the first iteration of the Preliminary Specification. This is going to be very hard work to do and will demand a lot from the people who are involved. I guess the point is why do this hard work, disrupt the entire industry in the process, if it's not necessary. Just let the market rebalance itself as it always has. And that is the decision that is made. Muddle along and do nothing, let the forces of stupidity take hold and the good times will resume.

I don’t see that happening this time. First of all you need cash to buy the time to get there. We’re in February and there is less and less cash each day that passes. Getting there also assumes that the prolific nature of shale is somehow eliminated. That overproduction, which is systemic, unforgiving and destructive will be solved in the long term. Which it won’t and we’ll be back here at $30 for oil and $2 for gas in no time, assuming rebalancing does raise prices. Hope does spring eternal.

I can see the tombstones of some of the walking dead already. These are the firms that are no longer going to be with us. Give it a year and no one will remember them. Chesapeake, Encana, PennWest, Pengrowth and Bonavista. A lot of Canadian names in that bunch but all of them are trading at less than 10% of their all time highs. Which reflects a complete capitulation and lack of any faith in the managements or assets capabilities to be able to return to a viable company. Zombies.

It didn’t have to be this way. Disintermediation is a trend that is shaping industries across the business landscape. Technology with organizational changes are building substantial value propositions, as do we, and are the reasons that companies are moving in that direction. Why didn’t the oil and gas industry? What is the unique characteristic that caused them to oppose this initiative from the start and refuse to consider it? I don’t think we’ll ever know. But one thing is for sure, the opportunity in oil and gas is on this side of the fence. This post may seem dire, but I think I’m telling it like it is, it really is pretty sunny over here on this side.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Securitization

Securitization invokes the 2008 financial crisis with thoughts of mortgages being purchased from banks, parsed based on their credit rating, and repackaged as investments on Wall Street. Add in some sloppy accounting and poor legal work, some innovative ideas like synthetic credit derivative obligations, then you can see how a good idea can become the source of a banking crisis. Securitization, I think, has a role in the revised oil and gas industry. It could be a source of capital that is necessary to develop the industry in the future. If working interest ownership positions within various Joint Operating Committees were repackaged as securitized investments and bought and sold on exchanges. Then some of the capital necessary to fund the next leg of the industry might be available.

My concern is that the industry thinks that they’ll wait to rebalance the market. Like they’ve done so many times before. That low commodity prices are a natural part of the cycle that has to be worked through. You take the good with the bad and after all the screaming you make some money. I ask who is going to loan or invest money to anyone who has this attitude in the 21st century. If you feel that this is a good place to put your money go down and invest in an oil and gas company today. The bureaucrats in these companies are deluded to think that their vision is going to attract anything but flies. And we should make sure that these industry bureaucrats are shown the curb for thinking that this would be acceptable.

We went through the latter part of the 1980’s and the better part of the 1990’s listening to the oil and gas bureaucrat say “oh whoa is me, commodity prices will recover soon.” We’re hearing it again, and if we don’t do something about these dead beats we’ll be hearing about it in ten years from now. Just when did this become acceptable. That is all that we will ever hear if we accept this behavior today. “The market will rebalance and all will be well.” Investors are being destroyed. People’s careers are being destroyed along with their lives. The service industry, where the entrepreneurial and innovative talent in the industry exists is being destroyed. And the best that can be suggested is “the market will rebalance itself.” I think we should call an end to the muddle along strategy right here and right now.

The damage that is being done in this business is not something that’ll be fixed in the short term. The investors will not be lining up to give the people who are running this ship aground another turn at the wheel. They’re spitting mad. And they want scalps. Once they get those scalps they’ll lick their wounds for some time before they’ll venture into oil and gas again. Same with the people who are being laid off. “It was good while it lasted, but maybe we’d be better off shifting into something else” they’re thinking. The capabilities of what and how the industry does was it does can only take a big step downward in a scenario such as this. Thank your bureaucrat for all of this fun and excitement.

To the point about securitization of oil and gas properties. The Financial Marketplace module discusses this point as one of the elements of how the industry is funded in the future. This is enabled in the Preliminary Specification through the service providers detailing their work at the Joint Operating Committee level for the administrative and accounting costs. Each Joint Operating Committee will have the actual overhead costs to administer the property each month. Add these detailed overhead costs to the detailed royalty and operating costs and you have all of the Joint Operating Committees actual costs in their entirety being recognized. Actual detailed accounting each month! With the capital costs of the well known, the property can then prepare audit-able financial statements for any Joint Operating Committee for any month of the year.

Therefore the net profits of the Joint Operating Committee are something that can be calculated and determined accurately every month for every property. With the reserves data, working interests in these properties could be securitized and the producer able to generate additional capital through the process. One other aspect of the way in which the Financial Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification is different is that due to the way the accounting is done in Preliminary Specification, the operator and the working interest owners overhead costs will be the same on a working interest basis. The operator will no longer be carrying the significant administrative and accounting resources and costs necessary to operate the properties on behalf of the Joint Operating Committees. And they will not be forced to capitalize these costs in order to hide them. The actual costs incurred by the service providers will be distributed based on the working interest distribution to all the working interest owners on an equal share basis. And this is why the producers will use the service providers for their administrative and accounting needs. Otherwise they’ll be footing the bill for their administrators and accountants to the full extent, as they do now.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Rats and Sinking Ships

My apologies, I forgot to edit the title, it should read bureaucrats and sinking ships. I meant no disrespect. It gives me no pleasure in being the scorekeeper in this disintegration of the oil and gas industry. There were many opportunities for producers to act to mitigate these problems. The natural gas business has been displaying elements of overproduction since 2008 and that has been more than enough time for us to have had the Preliminary Specification developed and in the marketplace. The giggling of the bureaucrats had to carry on for the many years since then so that they could achieve the satisfaction of expressing their opinion about the Preliminary Specification. The fact of the matter is today we have an industry with no cash resources and a brick wall that will be hit in the next two to three months. The time is now in which we’ll see super human action and resolve from the bureaucrats in their abilities and capabilities to resolve the issues underlying the oil and gas industry. Maybe not.

It's time to jump ship, man what lifeboats there are and save yourself before there are two many people looking for the same thing, the bureaucratic thinking will go. The first to get out has the best chance of surviving to live another day. Everyone for themselves will be the mantra of the stellar bureaucrat! I think this is our future. And I think it will begin to happen very soon. In Canada the production month’s receipts are distributed on the 25th of each month. That means we can keep the lights on for a few more weeks, and as we all know now, make the February 1, 2016 payroll. After that it's up in the air. The other consideration is that if you wait until the next month's production distribution, the 25th of February, that gets awfully close to late April and early May when the fan ceases to operate at all. Waiting until the end of February might cause people to remember your face and name.

Whatever the bureaucrats thinking. They need to make sure that they are at least in the crowd of defections that will be announced in a hurricane of activity. Hiding out in the crowd is a good strategy but remember that it's important to be in the lifeboats early. You don’t want to get stuck with the women and children in a sinking ship. If you look closely at the behavior of the bureaucrats, they are clearing their offices of personal items, shredding the evidence, deleting the data and milling about the exits. These people are smart, they can read a cash balance. The trick will be to avoid the stampede of bureaucrats when it does occur. They are ruthless in a pack.

It will be after this that “what now” becomes the question. Will the environmentalists who fundamentally believe that powering vehicles with coal, or sorry electricity, is our future, finally be proven correct? Will solar and wind rise to save the day from dirty oil and gas. I think these, I'll call them myths, will be found to be the misguided adventures that they are. Oil and gas is the source of our societies advanced capabilities. I think we will be learning this lesson, once again, the hard way.

There has been a strong turn towards government and regulation since the Obama administration began. The bureaucrat has had their day in all aspects of societies dimensions. This was due to the 2008 financial crisis which has been blamed on Wall Street greed. The fact of the matter is that Fannie and Freddie, two government agencies, supported by regulations and legislation regarding mortgages are the reason for the financial crisis. The bureaucrat’s day has never been so entrenched and secure as it has been this past decade. Where they can go is of no one's concern at this time. We just need to ensure that we note their absolute failure and keep them off the ships that we build in the future.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

The Producers Dichotomy

Up until producers were able to develop shale based reserves their job was well defined and easily understood. Build value by finding oil and gas reserves. The ability to increase the reserves of the producer, verified by an independent engineering firm, created value for the shareholders of the producer firm. In the past this effort was conducted in an industry whose resources were scarce and the capabilities of the producer were reflected in the growth of their reserve base. Those that understood engineering and geology could win by simply applying their trade. And that is how the producer operated and built value for their shareholders.

Shale came along and turned the industry from one of scarcity to abundance in terms of the oil and gas resources. Today there are many producers that didn’t exist a decade ago that have 1, 3, or even 5 tcf of gas booked as their reserves. This is as a result of what I refer to as the prolific nature of the shale reservoirs. These producers, prior to the price collapse, were as a result, presented with handsome market capitalizations. A tcf of gas would have normally been the domain of a senior independent, now we have startups with that volume of gas available to them. What to do?

The producer can’t sit on these reserves and do nothing. They involved the deployment of significant capital resources and the costs of those resources demand interest and dividend payments. Therefore the producer must put these reserves on production. On an industry wide basis this amounts to throwing the full 2,500 tcf of natural gas in the United States on to the commodity markets. And as expected this has had the effect of pushing the commodity prices down. The producers dichotomy is the flooding of the market with shale gas has the effect of diminishing the value of their natural gas reserves and rendering their operations severely unprofitable. This all seems to be obvious and rather elementary in terms of determining what the issue is in the industry today. The real issue is that there is no restriction on the producer to restrict the volume of production in any way. It is to produce everything they have. And that is the theory behind the high throughput production model that the industry operates under. Production needs to be as high as possible in order to cover the significant overheads that exist at any production volume.

Production disciple is not something that has ever been considered in the oil and gas industry before. Producers claim to have capital discipline, however, in a zero interest rate policy environment that is a moot point. Production discipline is what is necessary to ensure that the industry doesn’t continue to throw 100% of the reserve base of the industry onto the commodity markets at once. If you hadn’t noticed, it's not working. Some might suggest that production discipline is collusion, and I fundamentally disagree. Others might suggest that the government should get involved and determine the threshold production volumes or allocate supply as they do in agriculture. This would also be a bad decision.

The means in which to attain production discipline is to appeal to the dichotomy that the producer has put themselves in. Have them operate in their best interests at all times. Their best interests could be defined as a high market capitalization for their stockholders based on the market value of their reserves. Imputing that those reserves were priced based on a commercially viable price. And that all of their production was indeed profitable. These should be the guiding principles of what a producer should be motivated by. Their best interests.

To do this. To attain production discipline requires the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model which uses the price maker strategy. This will enable a clear and precise accounting of the Joint Operating Committees performance. It will be this performance that is the determination of whether that Joint Operating Committee is profitable. And if it is profitable it will continue to produce. If it is producing a loss then it will be put in the producers shut-in inventory to determine how it can be returned to profitable production. It is this method, used across the industry, that will ensure that the producer is provided with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. The reserves of the producer will be saved for the time that they can be produced profitably. And the commodity markets will find and reflect the marginal costs based on a clear and concise accounting at each Joint Operating Committee.

There is no way in which to determine if a Joint Operating Committee is profitable using the current systems that are in use by the producers. Their methods of accounting use overhead allowances that badly estimate what the actual overhead for a property would be. They assume the costs to administer natural gas is the same as the cost to administer oil. And they are woefully inadequate in terms of what the real costs of overhead are. Overhead is a big shell game in the industry. Most of it is shuffled off to the capital assets on the balance sheet to be amortized over an infinite lifetime. The cost of a production accountant for example, is not recognized at the Joint Operating Committee, it is capitalized on the producers balance sheet. These overhead costs, which are substantial, must be brought into the determination of whether the Joint Operating Committee was profitable.

The capital costs are also needing to be brought into the equation. Leaving these to wrought on the balance sheet for eternity leaves the producer with bloated balance sheets that prove they are nothing but spendaholics. The capital costs never flow through to the income statement to evaluate the performance of the management, and generate the cash resources necessary for the business. This is why the oil and gas industry will be running out of cash in the next three months. They have useless bloated balance sheets. Already PennWest has announced that they are living from weak to weak based on their cash balance. They and a lot of other producers are finished. There are very few producers that will be left in a few months that can participate in the building of the Preliminary Specification, those that will be I would suggest act quickly.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Too Timid of Leadership

With the Preliminary Specification it is a necessary position of the leadership of the oil and gas industry to stand up and say to the consumers that yes, we will operate a profitable industry. Over several generations of congressional hearings, press beatings and general commentary that oil and gas producers are gouging consumers with windfall profits. There is no one that is currently willing to stand up and say to the consumer that they’re wrong. It’s far easier to run the business into the ground, lay people off, destroy the service industry and generally hide under the desk. This is one of the principle issues that bureaucrats see with the Preliminary Specification. It requires that they justify why they should earn a profit.

Societies need for energy is critical. It is the oxygen that fuels our economy. Without energy we are back in the stone age. Instantly. This is the message that needs to be communicated and expressed to the consumer. That the needs of society for oil and gas is paramount to our way of life and to our advanced standard of living. Energy is critical to society's needs and that is the focus of what People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers will continue to provide. We also provide the oil and gas producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Profits are a necessary element of ensuring that society is provided with the energy that it needs.

Energy is also irreplaceable. We therefore have a responsibility to ensure that the energy that remains is used in the most effective manner possible. That requires that we produce it profitably. That way we will know that nothing is wasted in the production process. Trading on “cash costs” could be argued that today’s production is being wasted because it is not being produced profitably. Secondly the appropriate price that the consumer pays for the commodity will ensure that it is used wisely. By having the price of oil so cheap ensures that decisions for its use are being made recklessly. Is this a responsible manner in which to manage our limited resource of energy?

Running the industry into the ground and destroying the lives of the people that work in the industry, and the service industry, so that consumers can get a short term discount on their energy is foolish. Show some backbone. That People, Ideas & Objects want to implement a price maker strategy for a product that displays characteristics of a price maker. Is the appropriate and responsible position that should be for every producer. Why do I find such push back and fear that they will be doing something wrong when I promote this initiative. It's time to show some initiative and start dealing with the business of the oil and gas business as a business. One that is profitable.

I don’t hold out a lot of hope that these bureaucrats are going to take any of the advice that is contained in this blog or the Preliminary Specification itself. Bureaucracies don’t change. We see the effect of disintermediation being undertaken on other industries in the marketplace and the one constant is the previous administrations are not part of the new administrations. They ride the ship to the bottom of the ocean and wonder what happened in a never ending battle in bankruptcy court. That is their very limited future, that is our promise.

The one constant in the change dynamic of the fourth industrial revolution, disintermediation or this initiative is the focus on people in the industry. Making it simpler and easier to buy music, to get somewhere or to get a room while on vacation. The old industries can’t function in the new interconnected and dynamic world where the people are empowered to make the changes they want or need. We have structured a unique organization where the user community is the center of the oil and gas industries administrative and accounting functionality and process requirements. It is also the structure of the management, direction and leadership of these domains and it is the dynamism that the oil and gas industry needs. No wonder the bureaucrats are frightened.

If it’s as the marketplace expects, that oil and gas will rebalance itself in the next 5 to 10 years. If it's willing to wait that long to earn some money on their oil and gas investments, why not try something different? I can assure them with a $45.7 trillion value proposition they won’t be disappointed with the Preliminary Specification. And besides what type of future are the bureaucrats offering us past that 10 year timeline? Are we certain that the bureaucrats, when left to their own devices, will break out of their captive thinking by then?

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

That's Two Key Trends

When potential participants in People, Ideas & Objects user community think about the future. They will have the existing oil and gas industry, with all that it offers in terms of a future, and they will have the potential of the Preliminary Specification as a choice. Our choice provides them with the opportunity to put their career in phase with two key trends that are occurring today. The contrast could not be any stronger. The oil and gas industry operated under the current bureaucracy is denying that there are any problems. Yet they have never faced such a dire situation in the history of the industry. I only see the integrateds and a handful of producers that are on the cutting edge of the business being able to survive 2016. Most of the pain is going to be realized here this spring. Such a dire prediction, but it's the bureaucrats inaction that has brought us here. Anyone seen or heard of a plan coming from them lately? The best we can hope for is to rebalance the market in 5 to 10 years.

Our two key trends are the ability to solve the industry's difficulties with the Preliminary Specification. Although it may seem to be a simple solution it took a great deal of effort to prepare. People, Ideas & Objects plan for the industry provides a user community vision of how we can build the systems our users need in a manner that will resolve the problems of the industry. Specifically initiating a price maker strategy and stopping the overproduction. This will also provide a framework for dealing with the future issues in the domains of the producers administration, accounting and operations. As the deterioration of the industry continues under our friends the bureaucrats, we can begin the rebuilding of the new oil and gas industry that will meet our needs and those of societies. This oil and gas specific trend also dovetails with another trend that we strongly resonate with.

A few days ago I mentioned the Foreign Affairs article entitled “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Information Technology with changes in organizational methods is a powerful tool in building value for everyone. Did I ever mention that we have a value proposition of $45.7 trillion. But Uber, AirBnB and other companies are remaking other industries in ways that were unheard of before. Uber, a private company, now has a market capitalization in excess of $50 billion. The impact that they have on the taxi industry and that infrastructure is devastating. The fight that Uber has had to sustain against the taxi commissions is just some of the friction that exists in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I did however notice that the largest taxi company in San Francisco has filed for bankruptcy protection. Others will be soon to follow.

People, Ideas & Objects user community vision provides the opportunity for you to participate in the marketplace of ideas as a user in the development of the Preliminary Specification. This is a particularly important role in the development of our software. The reasons are detailed here. Most specifically the users will be the ones that we will be looking too to establish the service provider organizations that will operate the software that we develop, and provide the services to the oil and gas producers. In the Preliminary Specification, the reorganization that takes place has the administrative and accounting people moved to the service providers where they focus on one process and use the entire industry as their client base. As a user community member you will establish a service provider organization that will be able to build value for your clients and yourself in that manner. It's a business opportunity that I think is significant. The amount of producers G&A expense that is expected to be shifted from the producers internal resources to payments to the service providers is estimated to be approximately $45 to $60 billion per year. We are looking to establish approximately 3,000 users in our software development initiative. Simple math will provide you with an understanding of your service providers projected revenues.

The more the bureaucrats destroy the industry the more likely our solution becomes the new standard. They will not change anything. They are too vested in the status quo and will never accept that they are the issue. It’s up to us to make the change for them. The individual decisions of the people within the industry will be the reason for the success of People, Ideas & Objects and the Preliminary Specification. Just as it is in the Fourth Industrial Revolution for all industries.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Third Friday Off

No posting today.

Cash is King!

We hear in the marketplace that producers are still covering their “cash costs” from the sale of their oil and gas production. Imputing that they are, on a cash basis, still able to generate cash by producing. Such is the optimistic outlook that bureaucrats have of the industry. Energy is a finite resource, that when used is lost forever, and can be produced for a net benefit of some cash! Welcome to the mindset of a bureaucrat. This isn’t a business, it's an activity, like daycare, someplace to take the adults to ensure that their cared for and don’t hurt themselves or get into any trouble. Let's play pretend that we’re an oil company! This will be the status quo for the next 5 to 10 years. The time that is necessary to “rebalance the market.” It will be during this time, in this pretend world that the bureaucrats create, that there are no consequences.

First let me say the producers will continue to produce until the price of oil drops to $1.00. And even then they will not stop producing. The question that should have been asked at the $75.00 oil price is why would you continue to produce unprofitably? None of this charade takes into consideration the fundamental change that has occurred in the marketplace. That shale reservoirs make oil and gas abundant and the business model that was developed to produce a scarce resource, doesn’t work in this new environment. The only way in which to deal with shale reservoirs is to change the business model of the industry. And the only manner in which to achieve that change is to use the Preliminary Specification.

If we look at these “cash costs” when oil prices are at $30.00 we see the desperate nature of the producers today. Breaking down the “cash costs” into production, royalty and overhead costs we find that producers are generating marginal cash from their operations. Let's assume production or lifting costs are $6.00, royalties are, at the minimum, of 12.5%, or $3.75 and the cash consumed in paying all of the staff. Including the C class, geologists, engineers, accountants and administration. Field, supervisory and let's not forget contract. Back when commodity prices were normal, these G&A costs were determined to be about 5% of the revenues on the financial statements. However, let's assume that 75% of the producers G&A costs were capitalized to the balance sheet. Therefore the G&A costs, back when commodity prices were “normal,” were about 20% of the revenues of the producers. This would represented approximately $18.00 / barrel in “cash costs” (20% x $90.00). We are also talking about the same amount of “cash costs” here. The money that walks out the door each day. You can’t change the makeup of the G&A in a high throughput production organization. This is not accounting or anything that would require any sophistication outside someone’s pocket. Money comes in, and money goes out for these costs. “Cash costs,” my rambling here reflects that I’m overwhelmed by the brilliance of this strategy.

Therefore the “cash costs” of the producer are in the range of approximately $27.75. Generating net cash per barrel of $2.25, a windfall by any standard. Of course none of this analysis considers the “cash costs” regarding dividends or interest and bond payments. But like profits we can probably ignore those. We now understand why the bureaucrats have traditionally focused on cash flow. It's so much easier to account for and look productive. It’s almost as easy as making a drilling rig out of Play Doh, but that’s only on Tuesday’s.

The financial statements of the producers are being published this week for the fourth quarter of 2015. It’s important to look at the extent of their retained earnings with regards to the capital structure of the firms. Notice how, in almost every case, the amount of the retained deficit exceeds the amount of the capital raised by the firm. That means they have taken all of the money from the investors and burned it. Any value that they may have made during the time that prices were $100.00, and recall our prior discussions that those profits were questionable from an accounting point of view, are also gone. It's about cash flow you fool! Profits and investors don’t matter!

So we enter our next era of the oil and gas “business” where we “rebalance the market.” What should we expect. We are still the prisoners of this daycare mentality that is running the industry. Where can I put my money! Sign me up! I want to punch some holes! In the patch! Despicable.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Glasnost Comrade!

Glasnost and perestroika were the terms used by Mikhail Gorbachev during the fall of the former Soviet Union. A form of organization that ceased to build value for anyone. One of the reasons that it failed is that people were lined up at the bakery waiting for bread. Since no one was working anywhere else, the bakery was eventually unable to make any bread. This was the phenomenon that was running throughout their system. The system eventually collapsed upon itself and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Everything is controlled by the government in a socialist system. Nowhere on earth has a socialist system prospered. Which raises the question what’s with the support for Bernie Sanders all about?

In the Preliminary Research Report I suggested that western industries would be subject to a demise similar to that which destroyed the former Soviet Union. That the method of organization used in the west was subject to similar difficulties and that it too would cease to provide value for anyone. I provide the following quote from the May 2004 report.

Of note: participants in the Japanese economy have not taken any risks, live in an environment where protection of companies mistakes is mitigated by government policies, and no innovation, failure or economic growth occurs. Conversely, why have Apple and 3M, companies built on innovation, fared better than their competitors? Apple has demonstrated resilience and has come back from near death experiences, and 3M has consistently outperformed others in value generation, on the basis of innovation, for decades.

One of the reasons cited for the former Soviet Union’s economic demise was the inability for the economic system (that propelled them to alleged greatness in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s) to accommodate change or innovation. Things were done because that was the way they were done. The lack of questioning and process inefficiencies continued until the system began to collapse upon itself. Are large organizations incapable of reforming and embracing innovation as a means of competitive survival? Enron lead the way with what was heralded as organizational innovation, only to be found criminal and eventually bankrupt. Since then the all time top three corporate bankruptcies have occurred in the United States and many CEO’s have been arrested and organizations shut down due to fraud and other inappropriate actions, a key example being the former accounting firm of Arthur Anderson. What is the cumulative effect of these occurrences, and are these parallel to the experience of the former Soviet Union?

During the past 15 years we have also seen a fundamental change and understanding in the individual’s role within organizations. The trust and commitment of people in their organizations has diminished through systemic and chronic downturns, layoffs, early retirements, pension revocations and brutal downsizing. The emergence of the superstar CEO and escalating pay scales for senior management has had the dual effect of recognizing the value of intellectual talent, and, further eroding the trust and commitment of the staff within those organizations. Today we see Disney, which was one of the greatest companies built on the basis of intellectual property, challenged by key employees and contractual relationships with suppliers and partners. Pixar Entertainment, Jeffrey Katzenberg and the Current CEO are collectively more profitable than the entire capital and intellectual property base of Disney. This dissection of value continues unabated, and essentially unidentified as a detrimental trend to the health of large organizations. Is this the beginning of the identification of this capital dissection, and the beginning of the legal remedies necessary to mitigate insidious devaluation of shareholder trust and value?

The point being that the issues have been obvious for years. Barack Obama heralded in a new era of government as the solution to the ails of society. Regulation, control and taxing alleged abhorrent behaviour is the new norm in western societies. Zero Interest Rate Policies have been implemented to remedy the 2008 financial crisis created by government funding of mortgages to unqualified candidates. In return, in a capital environment where zero is expected in return, asset prices stay at lofty heights. This facade is beginning to be dealt with by the Fed returning to normalized interest rates. We can therefore expect to see, if things progress, the Dow, half its value and the majority of house prices do the same. The quicker the government gets out of the business of trying to manage the economy, and the bureaucrats are removed from the corporate picture the better everyone will be. How will this happen?

It's already happening and in significant ways. First this article from Foreign Affairs is a must read for everyone. Secondly we see in the Republican party, and most specifically in the candidacy of Donald Trump, the anger and movement of the people against the status quo. People, Ideas & Objects are part of this movement in general. We are timely in terms of solving the oil and gas issues. And we are timely in terms of the trends of Information Technology, or the fourth industrial revolution the Foreign Affairs article speaks of. This tearing down of the Cathedral is the necessary first step to implementing the types of changes that will make society much better in the long run. And the reason that it will be successful and positive is that it is in the hands of you and me, and defined by our needs.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

"Let Them Eat Cake"

The World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland is now over and the topic of oil was ever present on the minds of the participants. It appears that this downturn in the energy industry will be followed by an upturn in the prices as a result of the shortages from the declines in capital expenditures. The participants noting on many occasions that this has been the case before. Others such as Blackstone's Stephen Schwartz felt that there were opportunities to be had if you could hang on for the next 5 to 10 years. Obviously I have misunderstood the purpose of why we are in the business of the oil and gas business. It is to suffer and survive for decades, impose pain across the people who work in the industry and lose money for decades at a time. When the leadership of the world takes a hike from any responsible point of view, I think it's time for a deep and prolonged recession. It’s as Garry Kasparov stated in his book about Vladimir Putin “If they admitted the truth, they would have to act, and nobody wants to act.”

Blackstone is supposed to be the largest money manager in the world. If they are taking this attitude regarding the oil and gas industry, I’m sure the bureaucrats are working hard to resolve the problems back home. What will almost ten years of zero interest rate policies give you. Complacency. It's good they were able to sample the fine air in Switzerland, and the camaraderie of their kind. Soon they will be faced with the fact that the oil and gas industry, as it stands today, is in a severe crisis. There just is no cash to continue beyond the April 2016 time frame. At that time they will find the banks are closed. The junk bond market might be offering, but at the interest rates that they’re offering at, it will only tell the world that you as a producer are in such deep difficulty that you’ll be run over even faster if you take their money. And of course the investors are just not interested in getting involved. Particularly if this is going to take a decade to resolve.

I think the question that will need to be answered in the April time frame is what exactly do you do when your paycheck bounces. The nonchalant response from those at Davos, that the industry will come back eventually, strikes me as we should all be happy with the cake that we have to eat. It's the people who have committed their careers to the oil and gas producers in the past decades. Who may have been educated in the unique areas of petroleum engineering or geology that will be paid to suffer, as many others will. Entering their 40’s with mortgages and kids, this is how they envisioned their career progressing.

It didn’t have to be this way. Anyone who was paying attention could have foreseen this. I did and I prepared a solution that would fix this. I’ve had enough bureaucrats call me crazy these past few years, I wonder what that makes them now. Lazy, careless, self-interested and irresponsible. No one is this stupid. Its carelessness. Simply not giving a damn. Do you hear anyone expressing a concern for the future of the people's lives they destroyed?

After all the screaming and all the yelling. We need to move on with the bigger issues ahead of us. The industries health itself. The Preliminary Specification is about building the capabilities of the industry for the next generation. The capabilities that the bureaucrats are about to destroy. We have a job to do in developing the Preliminary Specification. I don’t know how we’ll ever get funded. I have faith that one day we will. Without the oil and gas that is produced by this industry, society has a lot bigger problems than the ones that I have been ranting about on this blog. I understand that our personal situations are serious problems, we however, also have a responsibility. Who else is going to ensure that society continues on and develops in the manner that it’s able to. Without the oil and gas that we provide society, we will all have great difficulties. And that is thing we need to focus on, and maybe if we run into a bureaucrat down the road we’ll feel satisfied in giving them a swift kick.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

This is not a Short Term Issue

As much as everyone is hoping that the prices for oil and natural gas begin to reverse and rise again. We can also see how futile it is to “hope” that this will happen. Natural gas has been depressed since 2010. Those prices began their shale induced decline in 2008. Has anyone seen any response whatsoever from the natural gas producers. The pure natural gas players like Chesapeake and Encana are mere shadows of their former selves, down 89% and 82%. This is the future of oil as well. “Hoping” for a better future is not a solution. What exactly are we hearing from those that are in charge, our friends the bureaucrats. Nothing, not a word, it's as if they didn’t care that they are running the ship aground.

To think of this as a short term issue and that it will be resolved by rebalancing the market is pure fiction. Why hasn’t that occurred in natural gas? Capital expenditures have certainly been reduced. However the production profile of the various regions continues to increase. You would think that the producers would cut their most lucrative and prolific projects first! Well of course not, that would be foolish. The only thing that is happening in this rebalancing is that the producers are sharpening their pencils and achieving the same results with fewer inputs. That’s what people do at times like this. They overcome the cuts in their budget and make do. Quality instead of quantity. The fact of the matter is with shale, no amount of market rebalancing will ever occur. The shale reservoirs are too prolific and lucrative.

What is needed is a means to impose production discipline throughout the industry. When you have 300 years of natural gas reserves as in Canada, profitability is the only equitable means to determine what produces. We need a method in the industry where the property only produces if it's profitable. The only manner in which they’re going to achieve this production discipline is when the Preliminary Specification is implemented. First by determining profitability in an equitable and standard way, and ensuring that all of the producers costs are variable. That way any shut-in properties will not drag down the producers profits. It will be in that way there will be a fair and equitable means of evaluating profitability and implementing the discipline necessary.

At the rate that the bureaucrats are moving we could be here for a while. They have shown no initiative to do anything regarding these issues. What will motivate them? None of these issues in oil and gas are going to be resolved by them in the short term. And therefore nothing will happen in the mid to long term either. That is because this latter point is moot. The producers themselves have only minutes of survivability in terms of the financial means in hand. As we noted last Friday, the strong balance sheet that they thought they had were nothing but a testament to their spending. Standard & Poor’s, the bond rating agency, have a junk bond rating on over three quarters of the oil and gas industry. Hence the heavy use of the junk bond market in the past few years. The banks won’t be providing cash for much longer, if they still are. And the investors have been on a holiday in the industry for the past decade. I guess you do reap what you sow.

What happens when three quarters of an industry runs out of cash? We are going to find out in about three months. If you look at the market capitalizations of the oil and gas producers they have been hit very hard. Most of them are well below 50% of what they used to be. Household names in some cases are mere shadows of themselves. If this was the banking business the Fed would have already stepped in, taken over, and started rebuilding the industry. Such is the nature of the business we choose.

It disturbs me that I am reduced to picking off the obvious deficiencies of the bureaucrats. I have worked very hard to ensure that we would never see these days. There never will be a bureaucrat that accepts the Preliminary Specification. It takes them out of the game. They will ride the ship down if they have to. Anything but accept defeat. It is however, very soon that we will be called upon to replace these bureaucrats. Failure of this calibre has a very defined stench.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

The Business Model in Oil and Gas is Flawed

First of all I want to make a note regarding yesterday's post. We are focused on user based software developments. Some may be concerned that providing industry with an option on the shares of People, Ideas & Objects leaves the user community in a poor position regarding the future of this project. I disagree. The user community is being looked upon to provide the direction and understanding of what it is that they want from this software. The user community vision will live on irrespective of the specific ownership interests in People, Ideas & Objects. You are a separate and distinct group that is independent of People, Ideas & Objects. The user community will also be the founders of the service provider organizations that provide the People, Ideas & Objects software, with their services for the administration and accounting to the oil and gas industry. I see the user community in complete control of their future.

To the point of the blog post today. And that is the business model that is in use by the oil and gas producers today is flawed. There are three primary reasons that it is flawed. There is nothing being done about any of these three reasons for the industry failing. And like so many businesses in today’s market, technology is providing the means in which to implement new business models that are more efficient and effective. The three reasons that today’s producers business model is flawed is that they have what I call bloated balance sheets, the introduction of shale based reserves and production focused operations. Let me address each one below.

I’m the only one that is harping about bloated balance sheets in the industry at this time. I prefer to be alone. Since 1977 the SEC has permitted the use of full cost or successful efforts as the method of accounting for capital costs in the industry. Both have the effect of capitalizing everything under the sun and recording it as an asset on the balance sheet of the producer. The outer limit of what can be recorded is the amount of the reserves, based on the engineering consultant's report, times the amount of the commodities prices at the end of the year. At any point in time the producers assets are approximately equivalent to the total possible lifetime revenues of the producer based on its current reserves. A ridiculous number. What we are seeing now in the industry is write downs of the capital assets that are reflecting that the asset values recorded on the balance sheets are higher than the reserves of the engineering consultant's report times the commodities prices at year end. Which is another ridiculous number. The total assets are higher than the lifetime revenues from the reserves at current prices! These bloated balance sheets have been used to raise capital in the equity marketplace. And they have been used to raise debt with the banks and junk bond markets. What you really have is a bubble that is floated with the cash that the investors and banks are willing to provide to the producers to continue to spend money to increase the size of their balance sheet. And at no time, during the good or bad times, did the producers generate enough cashflow to fund their own capital expenditure programs. They almost always had to raise the money from the equity and debt markets. This is not a business, it's a spend fest.

What happens at year end is the production for the year is taken off the reserves on the books and recorded as the depletion expense for the current year. Usually these numbers are quite small. Leaving the balance sheets relatively untouched, especially in light of the increases from the capital expenditure program. The producer is therefore never really recognizing much of the costs of capital, in a capital intensive business. And as a result they are reporting higher profits, particularly for the years when the prices are rising. These are at best paper profits that do not generate the cash that an industry needs to fuel its growth and health. The balance sheets of the producers, if it was recording and depleting their assets appropriately would have small amounts for the capital assets remaining in the business. All of the capital costs would have been written off in a timely fashion, say three years. And significant amounts of net cash, accounts receivable, marketable investments and other financial instruments would have been generated in a healthy company. In oil and gas capital costs go to the balance sheet to die for three or four decades instead of flowing to the income statement where they can assess the performance of the management. And if that management is still capable of producing a profit after recognizing the capital costs, in a capital intensive industry, then they will be generating abundant cash. That is how a business survives and continues. The facade that is the producer today is a bloated balance sheet of capital assets with about 15 minutes of staying power from cash and other financial instruments at these commodity prices. The myth of these producers having strong balance sheets is about to explode into the next bubble of our never ending bubbly and highly managed economy.

Shale based reserves simply transformed the basis of the business from one extreme to the other. The oil and gas business has traditionally been considered an industry where the commodity is scarce. Shale makes oil and gas abundant. The business model that operated the scarce industry is wholly unsuited to operate an industry that is now abundant. This should be clearly abundant! The capital costs associated with shale are the determinate factor in their development. These can’t sit on a balance sheet for a few decades. They need to be recognized by the producer quickly and either they earn a profit or loss, prosper or go out of business. It's time that bureaucrats be evaluated on their performance based on all of their spending. Including capital. And it will soon be found that they have been using debt and equity to subsidize the consumers of oil and gas.

Lastly the business model itself is focused on the deliverability of the producer. It needs to change to the profitability of the producer. When the producer is focused on the deliverability it is expected to grow by 10% each year. If it misses its targets, its finished. This is why there are so many producers continuing to produce unprofitably and attempting to increase their deliverability. If they don’t they lose the confidence of the markets and they are toast within three months. The problem with this model is that most of them are toast now anyways. The demise of the industry is upon us. There are no financial resources to keep the lights on and the bubble is about to explode. If you never recognize your costs by leaving them on the balance sheet for decades. The company looks like its earning money. Which leads to other competitors entering the business. Who show an equal propensity to spend. Which leads to overproduction. Which after many decades after the SEC’s ill advised implementation of these guidelines leads to the downfall of the industry. And in defence of the SEC they define the outer limits of what is acceptable. That doesn’t mean that each producer hits those limits every year. What is a flawed business model will go down in history as one of the dumbest ways to run an industry, particularly in the 21st century. Good riddance.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful 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. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.