Pipelines, Producers and Pacifiers

Contrary to what my readers would think, I did hold off writing this post for 10 minutes in an attempt to cool my rabid frustration with the Canadian oil and gas producers. The news that the Canadian government is taking over Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline and will build it happened yesterday. Some may consider this good news for the Canadian producers as they will now be able to deliver their heavy oil production to a secondary Asian market. That being the stated purpose all along. I think from my point of view this is maybe the worst development that could have happened at this time. What we know for certain is that the Canadian oil and gas producers bureaucrats dogged pursuit of this pipeline. Their late nights of suffering and sacrificing to get this done. Their outstanding leadership in showing the way in which they are the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producers in the Canadian economy. My sarcasm is ripe today, what we know is that they did absolutely nothing and now they’ve accomplished nothing. Big bonuses all around to the bureaucrats.

From what I can tell Kinder Morgan was never supported in their fight to get this pipeline built. Producers were nowhere to be seen. This might open the argument to the criticism that I’m not aware of what’s happening behind the scenes. The fact is this inability of producers to do anything is typical of the argument made in the Preliminary Specification that they’re not considering the broader scope of their operation. The service industry and pipelines need to be supported by the producers as those companies revenues are dependent on the primary industry revenues of the oil and gas industry. To leave the service industry and pipeline companies to fend for themselves is what the oil and gas producers do. The one thing the producers do however is call these service industry companies lazy and greedy so there is a high level of cheerleading that has and does go on. We also see throughout the oil and gas industry the issues with takeaway capacity, field operations are having difficulty sourcing the field resources that are necessary, items like water and hauling, and of course the Canadian natural gas producers pay their customers to take their gas. Yes it’s these points that are indicative that I am fully unaware of what’s going on behind the scenes.

The issue for Kinder Morgan was the government in British Columbia was denying them the right to build the fully approved pipeline. This was contrary to all the laws that are in the Canadian Constitution and would not hold up in court. Interprovincial trade can not be held up at the border by other provinces. Imagine if someone needed to negotiate with each state government in order to get shale oil production from the Dakota’s down to the Gulf Coast. Canada is a country where one does not interrupt the other part of the countries operations or economic livelihood. We have a Prime Minister who is a former snowboard instructor and bar bouncer. A decided step down from a community organizer. His capacity to understand things has severely diminished, I think, as a result of the drugs he admittedly consumes. However legal drug consumption begins next month in Canada as a result of his efforts. Taking the easy route to solve this problem is probably the way it was going to end anyway, dude. This fight that Kinder Morgan needed to undertake was after full approval and an already unnecessary and long protracted battle with the environmentalists and native rights issues. Kinder Morgan had had enough and cancelled the project.

What this shows investors is all that they need to know. The oil and gas producers bureaucrats are lazy, incompetent, uncaring and only riding the train as long as they’re compensated. Allowing things to become so difficult for the service and pipeline industries who are battling it out for the producers on their own. Trying to open secondary markets for them that they now determine the best business decision is to walk away. I’m sure when investors see that producers allow the government to take the lead in the industry, there’s not much to be gained. What is the next step for the Canadian oil and gas producers? Full government ownership? Government subsidies? Or government authorized pacifiers for the bureaucrats. What they have shown is that they are incapable of managing the business profitably for the past four decades. They must have a constant flow of new capital from shareholders to keep the doors open. New capital based on specious profitability that doesn’t consider the capital costs of the products produced, in a capital intensive industry. They are incapable of building pipelines on their own. It’s just too hard for them to do. Supporting the pipeline companies who have such a broad and diverse group of industries in which to generate revenue from, just as the service industry does, doesn’t seem to be a thought in the bureaucrats mind. They are selfish and uncaring, I therefore vote for the pacifiers as the first stage of the remedy for the oil and gas industry.

This is a fundamental failure of the Canadian oil and gas producers. What is the next step in this never ending destruction? The slow insidious acceptance of things that would have never been considered before, happens daily. There are no plans, no understanding that there is an issue and no one cares who could begin to correct the issues. Shareholders were fundamentally rebuked during the proxy fights at the annual general meetings last month. Is the next shoe to drop the investors join Kinder Morgan on the sidelines? Meaning they dump the shares they own and get out of town for good. What is the argument against the use of the Preliminary Specification in oil and gas? Are profits such a bad word that they dare not be spoken. The $1.6 trillion in property, plant and equipment that sits on the producers “stellar” balance sheets and represent the amount of the subsidy that investors were forced to provide energy consumers. This amount of money is probably also the equivalent amount of societal costs incurred by others in this downturn. That is any other group other than the bureaucrats. The Preliminary Specification addresses these issues specifically in the Resource Marketplace and Research & Capabilities modules. It’s been available and could have been built years ago. Why wasn’t it?

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 profitable 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.

More Updates

Maybe the producers have the oil and gas price difficulties behind them. As I’ve stated before I’ve been at this for a while. As soon as things become somewhat reasonable in terms of the price of oil or natural gas the excessive drilling and chronic overproduction begins. These cycles of destruction seem to be getting shorter as time passes. Last week we learned that OPEC exceeded their production limits by a substantial percentage. Over 2.5 million barrels of oil were removed from the marketplace each day. On this side of the Atlantic we saw a 5.8 million barrel build in oil inventories. Drilling activity is also up to 1044 active rigs. It’s the nature of the bureaucrats business model that it’s culturally ingrained in the oil and gas industry to continue in their ways of overdrilling and overproduction, because that’s where the cash is. What’s to stop the producers from overproducing to the point where oil and gas prices fall into the territory that is lower than their recent history. Nothing. I’ll give it a 75% probability that’ll happen in the next couple of years, and a 25% probability that we’ll continue with at least what we have now. That leaves 0% of any upside from here. Either way this is clearly unacceptable to everyone other than the oil and gas bureaucrats. They’re fine by the way. Organizations in every industry are moving away from the manner in which they’ve functioned for the past number of decades. Now is the time for action in terms of developing the Preliminary Specification.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. - T. S. Eliot. 

Action is necessary to defy the slow, steady and inevitable destruction of the oil and gas industry as a result of the issues that we see present here today. Creative destruction is the method of industrial renewal which is how People, Ideas & Objects seeks to change oil and gas.

OPEC and Russia to the rescue! Highlighting their concerns for the consumers pocketbook, particularly in China and India, Saudi Arabia and Russia are openly discussing curtailing much of their production cutbacks in their upcoming June meeting. They feel that they’re currently highly prosperous and can sit on these prices. We see trends in the industry reverse this quickly. If North American producers had been recognizing their capital costs in a more appropriate manner for the past number of decades. And had reduced their property, plant and equipment balances down to the appropriate sizes for viable producers then they too would be satisfied with today’s prices and be truly profitable. But they haven’t done that. Their balance sheets are stuffed full of the unrecognized capital costs of past production and therefore need the $141 we’ve calculated as necessary to capture these past costs and return the firms to “healthy” and “profitable” operations.

The decision is therefore necessary to be made by the investors. Are the unrecognized capital cost of past production a sunk cost that should be ignored in any future decision? If so the current producers can be written off as failed and defunct organizations. People, Ideas & Objects provide the alternative means in which to rebuild the industry in the vision of the Preliminary Specification. If the investors want to recapture that $1.6 trillion investment that sits on these producers “stellar” balance sheets, then the development of the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production models price maker strategy is required. The current producers only value rests in their unrecognized capital costs of past production. The rest of the organization is trash as it builds no value and incinerates cash. These past capital costs can be used to defer the reporting of future profits and justify the higher commodity prices needed from the consumers to recapture the amount that investors have had to subsidize consumers energy costs these past number of years.

People, Ideas & Objects maintain that the North American oil and gas producers have lost control of the financial, operational and political foundations of the industry. We see the political foundation being expertly handled by OPEC et al in their noted expression of concern for the consumer. They’re able to read the North American producers financial statements and have seen that their foundations have so eroded that they are not repairable at $60.00 or $70.00 or even $80.00. North American producers love to suggest that Saudi’s costs include the cost of their society and the Kingdom. However, Saudi’s oil and gas costs are as low as $10 / barrel and if we’re including the societal costs then the North American producers costs are far more significant than the $141.00 we’ve calculated them to be.

A few years ago it seemed that North American producers were catching on to the fact they were becoming the global swing producer. However with anything business related their attention span is counted in days and not years. The role of the high cost producer in business is appropriately the swing producer. Swing producers would entail the capacity flexibility to meet the market demands in terms of its surplus and deficit. Pulling production off and putting production on as required to maintain the prices necessary to support their profitable operations. With all the other global producers cost structures being lower they will always be profitable. This requires the North American producers to maintain a business perspective with respect to their operations and only produce what’s profitable. This is obtainable through People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specifications decentralized production models price maker strategy. We hear a variety of excuses as to why this can’t be done. “It’s operationally too difficult to do.” Recently we saw Ford shut down the production of all F-150’s. Which unquestionably must be easier than determining which wells are unprofitable and shutting the valves and pump jacks off.

Another great excuse is that the nature of the price maker strategy is illegal. It’s not illegal. We call it our price maker strategy based on the fact that oil and gas commodities are defined as “price makers” in terms of the economic terminology of price maker characteristics. The proof of which is in the OPEC production sharing agreement which saw 1.5% of the production removed from the marketplace that led to exactly 50% of Friday’s 11:00 am oil price in terms of increases. Price makers! If you took 1.5% of a price takers product off the market, such as bottled water, it would have exactly 0% difference on the price. What is needed is for the North American producer to get their head out of the sand frac and learn a few business principles. And do so before their investors make the decision that they’re sunk costs.

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 profitable 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.

Memorial Day

Our 12th Module, Part XII

Partnership Accounting

It is the Partnership Accounting module that captures what is traditionally known as oil and gas accounting. It is a comprehensive module that includes the Material Balance Report, accounted for elsewhere in this Blockchain module description. One of the unique attributes of the Partnership Accounting module over what is offered in the marketplace today is the Gas Cost Allowance functionality and process management. These features make for a unique cost to each and every producer within the Joint Operating Committee depending on the makeup of their investment in associated properties. If they have an interest in the Joint Operating Committees of the gas gathering and gas plants, compression or other facilities then their costs will be unique. The complexity of these calculations make for the manual manner in which they are calculated. Most are subjected to an annual, but sometimes monthly, equalizations and therefore use Gas Cost Allowance estimates for each month of the year where they are corrected and filed at the end of the year.

Gas Cost Allowance being a predominately manual process, the Preliminary Specification seeks to automate it with the Material Balance Report capturing the data and information within the blockchain in order to build off of that the automation, specialization, division of labor, innovation and quality of the various processes dependent on that data. The Gas Cost Allowance calculations should fall under the process of the user community developing the process to a highly automated level. If that still requires estimates to be used during the year than that will have to be done, however the level of automation that can still be done outside of these, I believe, is comprehensive and adds substantial value to the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer.

Once we’ve obtained an understanding of the blockchain’s features and capabilities we begin to see the value that it provides society. People, Ideas & Objects concern is with the greater issues associated with society and not just the oil and gas producer. We see in this down turn the cost that society has incurred as a result of the bureaucrats not paying attention to their business and leaving the overproduction and overcapitalization to fester and metastasize. Oil and gas is the primary industry that drives more than the producers profitability. The follow on effects of their actions, and mostly lack of actions these days, is catastrophic. There are more than the producers at stake in this situation. The investors were the first to experience the difficulties and what I think we can see is that the methodologies of today’s organizations are inadequate for societies needs. New ways are needed in which to deal with the issues and opportunities that are presented in the business, as the existing organizations are too slow and conflicted.

Blockchain is described as the Internet of Value. Augmenting the Internet of Information that we’ve had for the past decades. Anything of value can be secured virtually and securely through the blockchain. Business in terms of the organizational structure no longer has to be constrained by the physical and intellectual constraints of yesterday. People acting in their, and hence societies best interest will ensure that progress is achieved everywhere and always. Sounds to good to be true however the difficulty is that the failing rate of our current organizations is something that we can no longer sustain. They are dragging us under at a faster rate each and every year. How much longer will it take for the operational, political and financial degradation that we’ve experienced begins to affect the capabilities of the industry in ways that are irreversible? The question I think that is on most people’s minds is why is this even necessary?

People, Ideas & Objects provides oil and gas producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Why is the oil and gas industry unprofitable today? Clearly the producer organizations involved in the oil and gas industry are unconcerned and uncaring of these larger societal issues. The bureaucrats themselves are fine. What we can conclude today is that those who are facing the consequences of oil and gas unprofitability outside of the oil and gas industry, the investors, royalty holders, service industry, taxing authorities, and the people involved in those groups don’t have a say in the manner in which the industry is operated. An alternative methodology is needed. I am proposing the Preliminary Specification as that methodology and with the blockchain module that is being included as our 12th module, society achieves the capability of managing the “value” that is inherent in the primary industry we know as oil and gas.

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 profitable 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.

Our 12th Module, Part XI

Within the Petroleum Lease, Resource and Financial Marketplace modules there is a common interface known as the Marketplace Interface. When first proposed it was quite controversial but since that time things have settled down, somewhat. It is a virtual representation of the marketplaces that exist within the industry and Preliminary Specification. Users, vendors, service industry representatives, producers and others will have avatars within the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specifications Marketplace Interface that enable them to interact within this virtual marketplace. Organizations may want to establish virtual real estate to house a representation of their commercial offerings. The ability to invoke components of all of the Preliminary Specifications modules functionality and process management, and conduct transactions, interactions and connect through the interfaces elements through “tiles,” or the right click of a mouse to engage others in the business of the oil and gas business. It is intended to be a new medium of communication and capability positioned between the undocumented yet highly available telephone and the well documented yet difficult to arrange in a timely manner meeting. With implementation of blockchain technologies within the Preliminary Specification the documentary elements of these exchanges, transactions and interactions become immutable and secure. More importantly, as noted in the two TED Talks below, trust becomes the commodity that is available between parties.

The following two TED Talks are highly informative in the sense that they provide an understanding of the implications of blockchains technology on trust and how blockchain will replace people’s trust that they have in organizations and institutions with a trust that they’ll have in strangers. The implications of the shift in trust are dramatic, and when you view these videos please consider them from the point of view of their integration within the Marketplace Interface as described above and in the Financial, Petroleum Lease and Resource Marketplace modules definition.

Within Bettina Warburg’s presentation she mentions that “Institutions are a tool to lower uncertainty to connect, interact and transact within society.” With Rachel Botsmans presentation providing the example of AirBnB where a visitor would not leave the place in anything but great condition because otherwise they’ll be rated poorly. Noting that distributed trust which is defined as transparent, inclusive, decentralized, accountable and bottom up is replacing institutional trust that was opaque, closed, centralized, licensed and top down. Ms. Botsman also introduces her “Trust Stack” concept which includes three steps. First is to trust in the idea, second to trust in the platform and third to trust the other user. It is these elements of trust that help people earn the trust they need to begin to take the “leap of trust” or “leap of faith” from the known to the unknown.

It is the integration of blockchain within the Marketplace Interface that makes for what I believe to be a new environment of what and how business will be conducted in oil and gas. I see great potential for the ability of people, and organizations to interact at a much greater speed with less issues regarding what level of trust should be given and an understanding of the level of capabilities being offered. If the user of the Marketplace Interface is able to review the blockchain history of a potential party they may be choosing to interact with. See that they are who and what they represent and that they have the history of delivering that capability into the marketplace. Then the confidence in those transactions may be higher than what can be attained in today’s organizational structures.

Included within the Preliminary Specification softwares writing to the block of the blockchain that documents the transaction will be a video or screen capture of the sessions of all of the users in the transaction and of course the documents that are produced as a result of the interactions. These will be secure and captured within that block of the blockchain. Blockchain will make the work that is conducted in the Marketplace Interface highly secure, the data immutable and the documentary value unimpeachable.

Within the Financial Marketplace module we briefly discuss the concept of securitization of the oil and gas properties. The blockchain makes this a reality. The ability to secure the title through the Petroleum Lease Marketplace, enable the funding through the Financial Marketplace module, both facilitated by the Marketplace Interface. And to have the properties administrative and accounting conducted on behalf of the working interest owners through the service providers enables the investor to deal directly within the oil and gas industry as a producer. They may have little in the way of oil and gas earth science and engineering capabilities, however the second business model of the Preliminary Specification is the trading of these capabilities between producers both within the Joint Operating Committee and throughout the industry. The investors would therefore obtain these capabilities through their Joint Operating Committee. The blockchain provides the investor with the trust model necessary to ensure that the title interest is theirs, and their property is producing profitably at all times.

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 profitable 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.

Our 12th Module, Part X

The U.S. dollar is expected to be the monetary means in which the oil and gas producers are operated. Our use of blockchain within the Preliminary Specification is to secure transactions within the distributed ledger technologies that are available. Coins or tokens are not the purpose of implementing blockchain as a replacement to cash as this provides no value and there is no compelling reason to challenge the use of U.S. or Canadian currencies. Within the Financial Marketplace module the shift to the Joint Operating Committee benefits from the use of the blockchain technologies. Having an immutable ledger of the transactions within the Joint Operating Committee provides an assurance that only authorized transactions are completed. When there are what is expected to be 3,000 individual service providers providing the administrative and accounting services to each of the potential several hundred thousand Joint Operating Committees. Only those authorized public / private keys of the service providers and Joint Operating Committees will be used to write to the specific Preliminary Specifications blockchains. Eliminating the opportunity for other non authorized organizations from billing the Joint Operating Committees as part of a larger fraud.

The level of automation that is introduced throughout the Preliminary Specification is one of the many features of our product. People, Ideas & Objects software development capability, our user community and service providers seek to enhance automation, specialization, the division of labor, quality, innovation and having the computers working for us throughout the oil and gas, and service industries. Seeking to secure the Preliminary Specifications data within the blockchain itself enables us to ensure that the data that is captured is the precise data that is needed. Saving the time of redundant checking. Securing that data and reporting that data to the appropriate producers, Joint Operating Committees and users. Once this data is as it should be we can then automate the processes that are possible. Not only the automation that is mentioned in the Preliminary Specification, but that which will be developed and included by the user community during initial development and the subsequent iterations prepared by the user community and the application of our software development capability. If we have a reliance on the immutable and unimpeachable quality of the data and are secure in its origins and integrity then the automation can alleviate us humans from the menial tasks we are somewhat consumed by today of checking data, entering data and processing data. Activities that are best left to computers which would then provide us with the time to approach the higher level tasks of leadership, problem solving, decision making, creativity, collaboration, research, ideas, design, planning, thinking, negotiating, compromising, innovating, sensing emotions and financing. A specialization and division of labor between people and computers for the 21st century.

The Financial Marketplace module will be where this vision hits the proverbial road of reality. That is the cash balance. Automation of the checking, verification, validation and audit processes on the data but also on the automation itself is necessary. This is where a level of sophistication and understanding of the entire Preliminary Specification is necessary in order to make the appropriate changes to the industry and producer structures so as to ensure that any leakage or opportunities for those without a kind heart are not provided with entrance for their fraudulent ways. In addition to the implementation of internal controls, our budget for the Preliminary Specification includes in the Compliance & Governance module a budget of $114 million for the Public Accounting firms to review these processes on behalf of the oil and gas industry. The purpose of these funds is to ensure compliance, review the code of the Preliminary Specification and provide an understanding that it does not violate any Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. It will also ensure that the producers annual audits that are undertaken by the Public Accountants have as there base this overall systems review as a foundation of their annual audit.

Speed and control are some of the objectives that are included in the Financial Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. The ability of a producer to turn capital over quicker is determined to be a competitive advantage over today’s business model. The ability for a producer to therefore be self funding would be realized if they were able to maintain a minimal or even zero balance of property, plant and equipment. The capacity to fund their capital projects must be done quicker and easier, and as a business that should be a given. Shifting the focus to the Joint Operating Committee where the operational decision making, financial and legal frameworks of the Committees nine frameworks exist will also speed up the process. Having the participants of each Joint Operating Committee come to a consensus on the issues and opportunities of the specific property provides a clearer strategy and focus without the constraints of the operator becoming the impediment to progress. At the same time, as the Financial Marketplace mentions, speed is nothing without control. It will be understood, I would assume, that if a property is not profitable, or a subsequent investment takes the property into unprofitable territory then it will be shut-in which will impose a new capital discipline within the producer. Also, with the Financial Marketplace modules ability to enable the banks to deal with only the Joint Operating Committee, the ability to leverage the returns of the producers interest in the property becomes a reality.

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 profitable 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.

Some Updates

If you haven’t been paying attention to the “crypto” market you may have been missing the developments in that area. The Wall Street Journal calls this market “frenzied” and what I’m seeing is the beginning of a wholesale shift away from corporate equities to crypto currencies or tokens as the replacement. This is just in the small business arena at this time, however, that may be as a result of the size of the crypto market’s capacity for funding. There are investment groups shifting all of their new business to crypto and away from equities. The advantage that I see is the tokens provide the liquidity that facilitate an exit for investors at anytime. And enable the innovators to ride out their visions to their ultimate destinations without having them cut short by selling the business when it realizes its initial successful run. Enhancing the speed and availability of capital to the highly innovative areas of the North American economy.

Therefore People, Ideas & Objects will be changing priorities to move our Initial Coin Offering (ICO) into our second priority behind our user communities development. This crypto marketplace is developing quickly with its capacity for financing growing at a remarkable rate. Our demands are too large at this time however there are new blockchains such as Cardano that are under development. With Cardano we can use its treasury function to get a start on development by issuing $100 million in tokens with the rest of our budget coming in as needed. The $100 million will be used for the initial eighteen months in preparation for full development. I’ve set our timing for raising these funds for October 2019. Establishing April 2021 when we would begin full development. If producers feel that our timelines are not in their best interests then they could mitigate this time by funding the Preliminary Specification by participating in our ICO. What I expect will happen throughout this period is the systemic overproduction of oil will collapse its price again and the bureaucrats flee like rats.

What we have to offer through our ICO is the exclusive rights to use the software built from the Preliminary Specification. With these exclusive rights held by our coin holders they are the people that the oil and gas producers will need to negotiate for their access to the People, Ideas & Objects software which includes the decentralized production models price maker strategy. We have proposed that the producers fee to the coin holder be one third of the net incremental value that the Preliminary Specification provides in comparison to the pricing model in use by the current producers. For the month of March 2018 our pricing for oil is $141.20, natural gas would therefore be $23.53 and the amount payable per boe to the coin holder would be $13.20 which is included in those quoted prices. I have calculated North American oil and gas production at 33.9 million boe / day. If producers are unhappy with those prices then they should have spent less. If they are unhappy with the value leaking to the coin holders they should think instead of their investors money they’re wasting today. These high oil and gas prices reflect the excessive buildup of property, plant and equipment that is stored on the producers balance sheets. Clearing these amounts is what these prices will achieve.

The Wall Street Journal also reported last week that producers spent $1.13 for every $1.00 they brought in during the first quarter. Clearly what the Wall Street Journal doesn’t understand is that if you never recognize the $0.80 in capital costs of that $1.13 then you’re profitable and your cash flow is high. If they think this spending is outsized they should have seen when producers had investors and bankers backing them. These bureaucrats spent like no one could ever have imagined. A minor imbalance of $0.13 in the first quarter of 2018 is not significant, what is difficult for the producers is that they now have no cash and no working capital and they can’t stop this systemic bleeding, particularly of cash that no one will give them anymore. Show me an investor or banker who will provide a company with cash to augment their working capital and I’ll show you a fool.

Producers are all giddy with themselves over the price of oil these days. Having also survived the annual general meetings in most instances, with some having challenges from their investors, they feel they have another year of partying and the good times are owed to them, once again. My advice would be to be careful. The media and analysts are certainly promoting the return of the good old days for oil and gas. If this should turn out to be another false dawn, as we’ve witnessed so many times in the past decade, what credibility will the bureaucrats have then. Giving the investors the stiff arm during this year’s AGM was successful from the bureaucrats point of view, ignoring their disgruntled shareholders at this point is not going to earn them any sympathy if their credibility plumbs the depths of negative territory such as those negative Canadian natural gas prices.

What we learned from the producers first quarter of 2018’s financial performance is that they’re damaged. Unable to deal with the legacy issues of overproduction of their commodities, for over a decade in natural gas, has left them with the financial resources that enable them to put up a good fight for about five minutes. The other legacy issue that has been discussed here at People, Ideas & Objects is of course bloated balance sheets. Although our arguments have been stated here many times. The issue appears to be one that is inert to the oil and gas bureaucrat in that it’s an “accounting issue” that doesn’t affect cash. Except in reality it’s the money that was raised from investors and bankers and the bureaucrats will never account for their former lavish spending. These bloated balances are a long term issue that does’t get and can’t be resolved through any actions of management. Bloated balance sheets are an albatross around their necks and they are incapable of addressing it as reporting massive, chronic losses might be considered contrary to their best interests. The unrecognized capital costs of past production will haunt these producers in good times and in bad for the next several decades. As much as it was easy to report good profitability and cash flow as a young producer, over decades the buildup of those capital costs became outsized to the performance of the firm. That is where we are today. We have crossed the threshold of reasonableness in terms of acceptable levels of property, plant and equipment. When our sample producers produce only 12% of their property, plant and equipment in revenues in the first quarter, we have some bloat. Depletion at 2.5%, and capital expenditures at 3% of property, plant and equipment for the first quarter shows the never ending desire of the bureaucrats to hide their past wild spending from everyone. This is now the issue that they can’t deal with and can’t account for. When their overproduction overwhelms the market again, what will they do?

The fact of the matter is turning your capital over every ten years was a good business model when the banks and investors provided you with all the cash you could ever want to backfill the deficiencies. A business would normally have to turn that capital over quickly in order to recapture that cash back in the form of higher cash flows. These cash flows would then be used to pay down debt, pay dividends and fund capital expenditures. And that’s not a menu of possibilities as it’s thought to be in oil and gas. A healthy business would have the cash flow necessary to do all three of the activities of paying debt, dividends and funding capital expenditures all the time. That oil and gas producers feel they have to trade one off for the other shows how limited their thinking is. Of course it would be impossible in today’s environment to generate the cash flows necessary to do all three. Producers used their investors dollars to essentially subsidize the consumer for their use of energy by having them pay for the capital costs. These capital costs sit, glowing on the balance sheets of the producers where the CEO can strut about thinking it’s worth something. The only thing that property, plant and equipment reflects today is the amount of unrecognized capital costs of past production and therefore the amount that producers have subsidized consumers for their energy. And how much of these costs needs to be captured in future prices in order to rehabilitate the industry.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, we see with today’s oil and gas prices they are woefully inadequate to cover the cost of operations and overhead of the oil and gas producers. The deferral of recognizing their capital costs continues, and increased in the first quarter of 2018, and they’re still spending more than they bring in, they’re desperately short of cash, yet wildly profitable, with great cash flow. Drilling is being conducted at a reasonable pace now and with shale overwhelming pipeline takeaway capacity pretty much everywhere, the constrained deliverability in those areas is reflected in the high differentials producers are realizing. When pipelines are built we can be assured that the constrained deliverability will be released to the larger market where it’s impact on commodity prices will certainly be reminiscent of the past. And we’ll hear the bureaucrats chime in once again “oh whoa is me.”

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 profitable 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.

Victoria Day

Third Friday Off

Our 12th Module, Part IX

One of the advantages of using the blockchain is the immutable nature of the data contained within the blocks. The ability to change the data within the block is possible, however the checks and balances inherent in the technology make it nearly impossible to get away with it. Any changes to the data are written to subsequent blocks and the user can therefore see the result of the two blocks data which provide them with the information that they’re looking for. A simple description of this is featured in this YouTube video.

Using the Ethereum blockchain throughout the Preliminary Specification would be the preferred technology at this time. However, there is significant innovation being made in the various blockchain technologies being offered. For example one blockchain technology has now achieved the capability to process 2.5 million transactions per second. What People, Ideas & Objects and our user communities needs will be and the capabilities that will ultimately be provided by Oracle’s Cloud Blockchain offering will need to be determined by the user community after consideration of all of the industries needs and technical requirements.

As the Petroleum Lease Marketplace describes there are a number of data elements, mostly attributable to the Joint Operating Committee, that come into play as a result of this module. What is necessary is that the data that is captured by the Preliminary Specification in any of the modules must be unimpeachable in terms of its quality and integrity. Chasing data elements to ensure that they’re the correct data is a well respected time consumer. With blockchain the nature of the data within the Petroleum Lease Marketplace can achieve this unimpeachable level of integrity and save the industry time and effort in checking information that was either correct or should have been correct. The level of effort necessary to achieve this assurance on a consistent basis is the job of the user community. Doing the research, design and development once, then defining the process management in the software, and the data source that provides these levels of assurance can be done by the user community during our development. This level of examination and review is what is necessary for the oil and gas industry to move forward to the next level in terms of their systems quality.

Financial Marketplace

Within the Financial Marketplace we concern ourselves with something that is present in the other two marketplace modules. That concern is how the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer obtains their capabilities. At the extreme, each producer can house all of their capabilities within their own organization and therefore mine for the steel to make their own drill bits. Or it can use the market to obtain the capabilities that it needs. Within the Preliminary Specification we move from the current producer configuration to one that is more dependent on the market to obtain its needs. This is most obvious in the shift of the administrative and accounting that will be conducted by the user community based service providers. Moving from the fixed overhead of the producer to become the variable overhead of the industry. The point in moving resources around is to focus on their key competitive advantages, enhancing the focus on the service industry is to expand the throughput of the industry by way of specialization and the division of labor. Enabling the producers themselves to focus on their key competitive advantages of their land and asset base, and their earth science and engineering capabilities.

We also implement the change of using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. Therefore from a financial point of view we are moving from a producer perspective to a Joint Operating Committee perspective in order to advance the speed, accountability and innovativeness of the industry. In the Financial Marketplace and other modules we are therefore looking to establish each Joint Operating Committee to be its own standalone organization. With each providing full financial statements of the property where these are consolidated upwards to the producers that are represented in the partnership. These Joint Operating Committees will have their own bank account, bank loan and financial resources that the banking community currently provide the producer firms. Then at the end of each month, in addition to the consolidation of the financial statements the profits, those being the real profits, can be distributed to the owners of the Joint Operating Committee.

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 profitable 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.

Our 12th Module, Part VIII

Innovation in oil and gas will not withstand decades in which coiled tubing developers are begging producers to try their product to see what the possibilities are. Or Packers Plus is abused and humiliated for their ball dropping developments. People, Ideas & Objects can speak of these things as we’re only the most recent example of the abuse that people have to withstand to deal with the oil and gas producers. Nothing in the industry would have happened in the shale industry if it weren’t for a number of individuals who brought those technologies to life in the service industry. These innovations taking decades for the producers to accept as common sense. Today with Canadian producers paying customers to take the natural gas off the producers hands, People, Ideas & Objects can assume that it’s only a short period of time from now in which the producers realize that producing only profitable production with our decentralized production model’s price maker strategy is considered common sense. Or alternatively this next quarter may be the Canadian natural gas producers most profitable yet!

A more cooperative and collaborative environment is created within the Resource Marketplace to ensure the innovations that the industry needs in the next few decades are brought to market in a timely manner. An environment where ideas are respected, supported and developed with the understanding that it is the producers who will benefit from them. What other purpose could there be for coiled tubing or ball dropping? The service industry is not the producers enemy and they are not leeches, greedy or lazy. What I’m most concerned with as a result of this downturn is that producers will begin to reap what they’ve sown.

It is therefore within this area of the Resource Marketplace module that blockchain is most valuable. Supporting the recording of transactions and reporting them through the distributed technologies is what the user community will implement. Specifics of what and how will hopefully be done through collaborations between our user community and the producers. Even if it is just our user community that determines the details of the Resource Marketplace and its use of blockchain, we’ll be more than satisfied with that. With the Resource Marketplace module there is the implementation of the Marketplace Interface which is shared with the Petroleum Lease Marketplace and Financial Marketplace modules. There is also from a transaction processing point of view the Accounting Voucher and Partnership Accounting modules. In addition the Resource Marketplace module feeds critical data and information into the Research & Capabilities, and therefore the Knowledge & Learning modules. It is the focal point, the point where much of the transaction history that will be reflected in the blockchain begins.

One of the markets that blockchain is uniquely qualified to address is the area of Intellectual Property. Particularly from the point of view of the smart contract technologies that are included in the Ethereum blockchain. As we noted the innovations and the IP of the oil and gas field operations mostly resides within the service industry. And those people or companies have ample protection provided by the three forms to secure Intellectual Property by way of copyright, patent and trademark protections. What I’m suggesting here in the Resource Marketplace module is that we have an element of the Marketplace Interface that is a registry of that Intellectual Property. This registry would be implemented within the blockchain and therefore be available for people to view and see when and where the ideas were created. In addition it could be used as a marketing tool by those who are behind the idea to recruit producer participation and active involvement in the funding and deployment of those IP based technologies. It would focus the innovations and ideas of the oil and gas industry and exclude any other noise of innovations or ideas from outside the oil and gas domains. Concentrating the focus of the service and oil and gas industries on these innovations and developments of the field technologies.

Petroleum Lease Marketplace

Don Tapscott defines blockchain technologies as the Internet of value. In terms of value land and mineral rights are the area where producers secure their ownership of oil and gas reserves. Having a registry of land titles in the blockchain is a logical direction for the industry to pursue. Most of these registries are managed by the federal, state or provincial governments who lease the mineral rights. Would they, or are they beginning to consider this as an area of development of their service? Nonetheless the user community should fully explore the opportunities and issues that are present in using the blockchain to manage the land titles for the industry. What would be needed to stimulate the governments to act and would that be within a time frame that is consistent with our initiative. Otherwise we will be reliant on developing the Petroleum Lease Marketplace on the basis of the Preliminary Specification as it stands today. That is not an issue as I see it as a necessary part of our system and would be an advancement in comparison to the current market offerings. Subsequent developments to incorporate the blockchain within the module would be enabled once the jurisdictions had enabled their registries to use the blockchain technology. Subsequent developments being one of the defined benefits of People, Ideas & Objects software development capability.

Petroleum Lease is a marketplace module implying that it is the place where buyers and sellers interact to transact for things of value. This marketplace would be populated by producers seeking to acquire and divest of oil and gas assets, make arrangements with new partners in Joint Operating Committees, post and bid on new leases and engage with the market as a whole. As with the Resource Marketplace module the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module is a source of transaction origination. Therefore the administrative and accounting service providers, producers legal representatives and others would also be engaged with the principles behind the transactions. Ensuring that the details of the transaction were understood and implemented on that basis. As has been mentioned in the Marketplace Interface both “tiles” and contextual menus would be available to support these transactions and their principle users. Embedding these within the blockchain, even if it may not initially involve the issuing jurisdictions registry, would still provide value with a history of the transaction and a level of integrity achieved over the history of the property.

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 profitable 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.

Our 12th Module, Part VII

Continuing with yesterday’s discussion of integration of the blockchain in the Security & Access Control module. Implementation of the blockchain technologies at this point open a number of possibilities as to how the technology will be implemented. There are a variety of possibilities and too many to go through now and document here. The need for our user community to fully identify and explore the issues and opportunities of each of these possibilities will be their responsibility during development. Producers needs in the area of confidentiality and their specific concerns regarding the cloud, encryption and security, as well as the many other areas, need to be addressed through their active involvement with the user community. Otherwise decisions will be made without producer involvement and there will be little in the way, after the fact, for them to make the changes that they desire. User community based systems are the only development methodology worth pursuing, the user community understands oil and gas, and can implement that understanding within the software on their own. Without producer involvement only producers will suffer. It is in their own best interests to participate by interacting with the user community.

The key area that producers will suffer is that their perception is in their belief that these developments are a one way street. That the users absorb what it is the producers want and deliver that to them. That was the theory in 1989. Today the producers need to keep on top of the changes that are being made in the software and how those developments impact their organization. Implementation of the software will have to be done with significant consideration to its impact by the producer firm. Changes will need to have been made during our development and most definitely during implementation. To sit out the first round of software developments with the user community may preclude the producers organization from ever benefiting from the software. As the ability for a producer to assimilate the first round of changes alone while iterations are being made upon those in the second round of developments may render the producer unable to keep up with the industries new standard of profitable organizational performance.

People, Ideas & Objects use the cloud implementation of Oracle to host the software that will be derivative of the Preliminary Specification. In Oracle's Database version 12 we adopted their new feature called MultiTenant. Although each “tenant” or producer in our case have a unique database instance, that is its data is separate and distinct from all other instances (producers) data. Each instance of the database is using the same database for its functionality. From a software development and deployment point of view this significantly reduces our costs and difficulties in deploying the Preliminary Specification as conceived. Each producer will have their own, for all intents and purposes, database and applications that are distinct and unique onto each and every other producer. In prior databases, and in other vendors currently, the need for cloud implementations of those databases to be either separate containers each or we would have had to use a producer ID in order to identify the data belonged to one producer in a pooled database of all of the other producers in the industry. Either of these last two options would have been either wholly unacceptable or costly from a licensing and support point of view.

When we look at the decentralized nature of the blockchain we see a further separation of the data and information of the producer from each of the other producers in the industry. Although we are unaware of the implementation within Oracle technologies at this time, please review the IDC whitepaper, the addition of decentralized ledger technology that is the blockchain will have the effect of enhancing this MultiTenant effect of the Oracle database. It is difficult, in my opinion, to justify the use of hardware and software for ERP purposes within the producer firm itself. The decentralized nature of the blockchain can be achieved through the cloud implementation just as easily. The feature that we want to maintain by using the cloud is the overall feature of the Security & Access Control of “the right people having the right access to the right information with the right authority at the right time and at the right place.” For these purposes the “right place” is the cloud and whatever the location may be of the user. It is my understanding that there is a feature of blockchain that is called Blockchain Access Control. It consists of public / private key encryption technology enabling access to the blockchains individual blocks. Eliminating the use of passwords and providing the level of security and overall access control that not only the producers data and information needs but also for that of the Joint Operating Committee.

Resource Marketplace

“A marketplace to support contracting from A to Z.” Pretty simple really. The issue that People, Ideas & Objects takes to the manner in which the industry is operated is that producers appear unaware and uncaring that they are the benefactors of being a primary industry. They feel the secondary industries that they rely upon to complete the work they need done are “greedy and lazy” and are leeches off of their revenue stream. It is simplistic to view the world from this perspective when you collect 100% of the cash from oil and gas commodity sales. It is however difficult to understand that those revenues were not earned 100% by the efforts of just the producers. Cutting the service industries “costs” during times of difficulties, extending the time in which accounts payable are paid to 6 and 18 months are easy to do when everyone does it. And everyone does it when no one is paying attention to the fact that overproduction of oil and gas commodities are chronic and systemic, yet unaddressed by an uncaring bureaucracy. The Resource Marketplace changes this. It also identifies the source of the innovations that the producers are first to claim as theirs in the press are really those of individuals who have worked hard for decades in the service industry. Who have had their Intellectual Property disrespected by the producers and who’ve been generally ignored until the producers so badly need the innovation from the service provider they finally begin to approach the situation responsibly.

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 profitable 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.

Our 12th Module, Part VI

Canadian natural gas producers are driving the industry forward with new innovations on the natural gas front. We can only assume they’ve been unhappy with low natural gas prices and therefore have implemented a policy of paying their customers to take their gas. That’s correct negative prices of natural gas are all the rage in the Canadian natural gas industry. After all, the time to have implemented the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model’s price maker strategy and only produce profitable production was around 2009. We have to give them credit for this bold and determined move since then to fully explore the implications of chronic overproduction. Now we’ll only have to wait and determine if the same principles of chronic overproduction apply to the oil market.

We now shift back to our documentation of our Blockchain module. Before we get into that I want to clarify a seeming contradiction in last week’s commentary. That producers are focused on “where the money is” of finding and producing reserves which is consistent with their competitive advantages of their land and asset base, and their earth science and engineering capabilities. Therefore their current focus is appropriate. My criticism is that they don’t understand that they’re a primary industry and the secondary industries that support oil and gas, the service industry, pipelines and software etc. need to be a part of the business and the producers concern as well. Producers can’t just leave the outcome of these activities to fate. They need to be involved in order to make them happen and they need to be involved in ensuring these businesses are compensated appropriately. If investors see that the service industry, pipelines and software businesses are treated with disrespect and financially abused then they’ll be hesitant to get involved in those businesses, as is the case today. Leaving producers unable to get the job done. So yes they need to focus on the things that they’re able to be competitive in. And they need to understand that as a primary industry it’s not just the producers who’ve earned or are entitled to those oil and gas revenues.

Security & Access Control

We’ll now take a module by module step through each of the eleven modules of the Preliminary Specification and discuss the implementation of the Blockchain in each. The first module is the Preliminary Specifications Security & Access Control which seeks to ensure that “the right people have the right access to the right information with the right authority at the right time and at the right place.” Which is one of the more difficult aspects of the Preliminary Specification. This requirement is complicated by a number of unique elements that are introduced as a result of using the Joint Operating Committee and the expectation that producers, as well as service industries dependent on the producers, will be required to expand their throughput through enhanced specialization and division of labor. This as a result of the natural demand for more engineering and earth science effort in each incremental barrel of oil or gas produced. And the reduction in the industry wide availability of earth science and engineering resources as a result of the recent downturn and the anticipated retirement of large percentages of those professions. Triggering the need for a pooling of technical capabilities between each of the producers that are participants in the Joint Operating Committee and imposing a temporary compliance and governance structure over this pooling through the Preliminary Specifications Military Command & Control Metaphor, a feature of the Security & Access Control module.

The majority of the information that is contained within each producer firm regarding the Joint Operating Committee is the same. Each producer shares in all of the data and information that is pertinent to the Joint Operating Committee and will be party to the billings from the service providers for the administrative and accounting services that are rendered for that Joint Operating Committee. One clarifying aspect of using the Joint Operating Committee was the data and information that was created and used within that organizational construct was unique to the partnership. The sharing of this data within the Joint Operating Committee is standard fare in the industry and has always been. This contrasts to the unique and proprietary nature that is contained within the producer firms data and information. Segregating these two unique types of data from each other would and should be the first order of business during our developments. That way members of a Joint Operating Committee, of which a producer firm may have an interest in several thousand of, doesn’t leak any proprietary firm data.

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 profitable 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.

These Are Not the Earnings We're Looking For, Part XVII

Focusing on the earnings of the producers is not the only concern of People, Ideas & Objects. Ours is a more global perspective that includes the societal impact that oil and gas has. Starting with the consumer who realizes 5,000 man hours of labor with each and every barrel of oil that is consumed. Consideration of how and with what other energy source that could be replaced with should have everyone understand the real value of these resources that we consume. At the same time it is the largest and most powerful economy that consumes the most oil and gas. Using the mechanical leverage that is available to us through the use of oil and gas is the means in which we can advance our economy the furthest and the fastest. We owe it to our future to at least produce our energy profitably. Otherwise it would be wasted.

And the broader scale of our economies are dependent on a healthy and prosperous oil and gas industry as the primary industry that drives much of the activity that the industry itself depends upon. With over ten years of devastation in the natural gas marketplace. And more than three years in oil. We can measure the impact and number of losses outside of oil and gas that have been adversely affected by this downturn. The service industry has had it much worse. The people who have dedicated their careers to the producers are finding that their efforts are not as valuable as they thought they were when they line up in the unemployment lines with the construction laborers with only their high school education. In Alberta, partly due to mismanagement, the government has incurred a debt of $43 billion. Oil and gas royalties are a big part of their budget which has caused the deficit to form and expand. This in the land where savings in excess of $30 billion had been the norm. I can only assume that the situation is similar with other royalty regimes. And what about the cities and towns where all of these companies and people live and work. They’ve also felt the downturn with many businesses closing and sending the mood across the town’s and cities down too. Alberta is possibly unique in that we are a one industry province and Dallas, Houston and Oklahoma may not be as dependent on one industry to carry the freight for all concerned.

The question that people should be asking is why is this happening? Why is it necessary that investors pay for the capital costs of oil and gas on behalf of the energy consumers? If the consumers are generating real value from the consumption of their hydrocarbons, and the real cost of energy is incidental to its replacement, hire 5,000 people for an hour as a replacement to a barrel of oil to discover the difference. Why don’t they pay full value for that. And full value as we’ve calculated here at People, Ideas & Objects is $137 / barrel for 2017. This wouldn’t be a doubling of the consumers energy costs as most of their costs are taxes that are fixed in nature. Therefore doubling the cost of the feedstock would not have the effect of doubling the consumers energy price. Even if it did can we continue to function as an industry on the basis of finding new and naive investors that will volunteer their capital to subsidize energy consumers? The other alternative is we watch the industry atrophy to the point that it is now, and as we’ve noticed in the first quarter of 2018, begin to see it fall off the cliff where the operational and political declines are as dramatic and as devastating to all those concerned above, but also the consumer who can’t source their energy securely and reliably. Do we have to go to that level of destruction in order to prove the point that this situation is not working?

We can also assume that this has lost its lustre for our friends the bureaucrats. Instead of dining for hours for lunch their having to spend their time finding truck drivers to haul water in the Permian, which isn’t what they signed on for. The logistics of putting the people that are needed into place have now become complicated by the fact that the supplier can’t work for you because you haven’t paid him in 18 months and their starving. Or you haven’t paid them for 18 months and they refuse to work. Complicated by the fact that the cash resources that were used to overcome these kinds of troubles and get the job done is now empty and lining up everyone and everything is near impossible. I’m certain, it’s not that bad in industry today, but do we have to go there before anything changes? The only people that are financially satisfied in the industry are the bureaucrats who are running the show. Although they were challenged here and there at their annual meetings, those have always been useless venues to orchestrate change. And the bureaucrats are now entrenched for another year.

Bureaucrats will never care about these issues. As long as their making out like bandits that’s their only concern. As soon as things become untenable though, as they are now. They’ll hightail it to greener pastures in other industries or retirement as the wheels fall off. It’s up to us to provide the industry with an alternative. That is People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. That is the only way we’ll proceed as a healthy and prosperous industry.

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 profitable 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.

These Are Not the Earnings We're Looking For, Part XVI

We see with oil prices reaching $70, the past behaviors of the producers coming back into play. Also known as muscle memory, the downturn that they’ve experienced is over as far as their concerned and it’s time to drill some wells, because that’s where the money is. While they focus on expanding their reserve base that generates the revenues they earn as a primary industry. It will be somebody else’s responsibility to develop the service industry, the pipeline takeaway capacity, software and all the other needs of the oil and gas industry. Producers will pay for those services on a 6 to 18 month accounts payables basis, or when they should happen to feel like it. “That is the way the capital market system operates” they’ll say. “If you go after the reserves all these little nuisance parts of the business will work themselves out.” This is also known as the “muddle along” strategy and the “do nothing” operating procedure. And as I’ve said before in this never ending cycle of producer behavior, here we go again.

Just as the investors have learned in oil and gas, bureaucrats take care of bureaucrats. As I’ve documented many times before the expectation by the producers is that “someone” will fund the development of systems that they’ll eventually purchase. This was the game that was played in the late 1980 and early 1990’s. The problem came about when the system vendor, who survived off of the otherwise naive investors money during development. Couldn’t sell their systems for the appropriate price. The producers new the small size of the limited oil and gas market that uses ERP systems and as such squeezed the software vendor for all its worth. This is the primary reason that no software developments have been done. Investors realized there was nothing in it for them. And this same story can be heard across the landscape. Small service industry firms are never given the chance they would otherwise have had in any other industry. Producers only deal with the “big boys” who can provide them with the services they need. The Schlumberger and Halliburton’s of the world get bigger while the rest of the service industry atrophies. The point everyone should learn about the oil and gas or service industries is to never have an idea. 

Most people are beginning to fully appreciate the changes in society as a result of Information Technologies. The only businesses that will exist in the future will be software companies such as WalMart, Apple etc. In oil and gas with the Preliminary Specification it’s not enough to own the oil and gas assets anymore, you’ll also have to have access to the software that makes the oil and gas asset profitable. People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification provides oil and gas producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Or in other words the way things are done today is about to end. Maybe not next Friday, but certainly soon. With the producers resurrecting their past behaviors due to the $70 oil we know we’re close to the top of the cycle. I would suggest that our collective future may begin to look a lot like the recent past, downward. The big difference this time is the producers are in desperate financial condition to be able to survive either a boom or a bust. They’ve damaged themselves so completely that they will need a decade of extremely good times just to rehabilitate themselves. If you can find the capital that can wait a decade to show any signs of life in the investment, oil and gas producers are in desperate need.

Most of the smart people in Information Technology have left oil and gas many years ago. They’re selling Apps on the App store for $2 to the 7 billion people on the planet. It’s an easy business in comparison and one that leaves only the crazies thinking they can bring the ERP systems to life in oil and gas. The point of this rambling dissertation is that dealing with the producers will be frustrating in trying to see outside their point of view. And if you should happen to capture one of them, their attention spans are as limited as the daily direction of the commodity price. What we can say is that we tried, once again, and once again proved that it was futile.

Not to contradict myself in the many ways that I am about to now. Our Initial Coin Offering is developing as to be expected. The token that we’ll be issuing will have the rights in which it will be able to process the oil and gas production through the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. We have recommended that the price the producers would pay for this would be one third of the incremental value that is attributable to the use of our system and the result of the decentralized production models price maker strategy. For the one year period ending March 31, 2018, on a North American production basis, this amount would total after royalties and taxes at $112.594 billion. There have been two developments on our ICO. First, my assumption was that we would generate our full budget from this market at the beginning. A necessity when we were dealing with the mosquito like attention spans of the producers. However this is now deemed to be unnecessary. We could issue additional tokens on a pay as you go basis throughout the course of our development. The balance of the unissued coins would remain in my hands. Secondly the development of the Private Initial Coin Offering (PICO), using the SAFT project which provides a level of compliance and governance over the tokens. This will reduces our timeline down from a little less than two years to about 18 months.

It is frustrating and difficult to determine what the outcome of all of this will be. Attempting to work with the producers has been an exercise that has borne no fruit. As much as we all would like to see a healthy oil and gas, and service industry it is not going to happen under the current management. Our appeal to the investors over the past decade has been very lucrative. They see the world in the same way that we do. What the result of all of this will be can not be speculated upon. What we can do is our job by continuing to work on developing our user community as our first priority. Work on our PICO and the completion of all of the other initiatives that were involved in. Where and when this all comes together is one day less than it was yesterday.

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 profitable 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.

These Are Not the Earnings We're Looking For, Part XV

One of our sample of 23 producer firms is Devon Energy who’s stock had a good jump on news of their financial performance, or monstrous deliverability at some Permian wells they drilled. It must have been the wells performance because if we look at the company, which is generally a good company, we see the state of the industry is very desperate. First I want to get to the size of their property, plant and equipment account which sits at $21.3 billion. Their current market cap is $19.7 billion. One of our favorite producers of all is Cenovus which we awarded the most creative accounting award, ever to in 2017. A recent change in CFO’s seems to have them cooling their accounting creativity and adopting some conservative principles. One of them is they’ve increased their depletion in an attempt to begin to bring their property, plant and equipment ($33.25 billion) below their market cap ($12.5 billion.). A variance of $20.75 billion for Cenovus and $1.6 billion for Devon. A recognition of Cenovus’ creativity under the previous CFO and the overall asset bloat in the industry.

We also heard Devon has laid off a number of their staff. A reduction of 10% or 300 individuals. This marks the period between the boom and the ensuing bust at less than 3 months from my point of view. Maybe the next boom will be 4 months! Devon claims they’ll achieve savings of $150 to 200 million as a result of these layoffs. Which doesn’t quite work out in the math department. At 10% that would indicate their overhead is in the region of $2 billion yet G&A for all of 2017 was only $872 million! That means that $1.128 billion must have been capitalized to property, plant and equipment. Which to be honest, at 56% of the total G&A that is at the very low end of the scale in comparison to its peers. If Devon recognized the full $2 billion of G&A on the income statement what would the implications be? First G&A costs would total 38% of their oil and gas revenues. I’ve excluded their purchased product revenues. Their earnings as reported in 2017 of $898 million would have actually been a loss of $230 million. And their annualized cash flow from operations would have been $1.781 billion instead of the $2.909 billion. Just a small difference really, except for when you calculate their industry standard valuation. At six times cash flow their market cap would have been justified at $10.686 billion as opposed to the $17.5 billion. But these are minor differences, aren’t they?

It’s also interesting to note that Devon drained itself of a bit of cash in the first quarter of 2018. Cash was down by $1.214 billion which isn’t a lot in the real scheme of things. Way back in 2016 in order to have some cash, you might recall, Devon issued an additional 27% of their shares for the fire sale price of $1.469 billion. Good thing they did because they would have had to face the music one quarter sooner if they hadn’t. Working capital for a stellar company such as Devon is holding up nicely at $153 million. That too is down $1.323 billion in the past three months. What we can probably suggest here is that there will be more paychecks that might not be able to be cashed in the coming days. I say stellar company because its others who define the outer limit. Suncor have “assets” listed in property, plant and equipment of $76.495 billion and a working capital deficiency of $1.193 billion. They’ve actually nominated their accounting staff for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Their capacity to shuffle bills around at the speed of light is apparently a sight to see!

For Devon to be laying staff off in this the Information age is not that much of an issue. There are hardware and software that can easily replace the people that are being lost and pick up the slack. That would be the thing to do in a crisis such as the oil and gas industry is in. To invest in the capabilities necessary to deal with the future through the implementation of advanced hardware and software. Word is that Devon has decided that in this bust, with the loss of these human resources they will be slashing their hardware and software purchases. Therefore there’s no sense for me to be knocking on their door to see if their interested in the Preliminary Specification. They probably have more wells to drill.

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 profitable 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.