Drilling in the GOM

The bar chart below shows the history of well permitting and drilling in the GOM. As you can see, permitting is picking p but has a while to go before it builds a backlog of work that would indicate a healthy industry.

Source: Offshore Magazine

Universal Truths

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.


2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
 
A common saying in the CCCP was: "They pretend to pay me. I pretend to work."

Definition of Engineering

If it's green, it's Biology

If it stinks, it's Chemistry

If it doesn't work, it's Physics

If it works, but no one can explain why, it's Engineering

A Spooky Meeting

Tam has a recent post concerning military training in LA. It reminded me of an incident that happened back when I worked in Big Oil.


I was called into a meeting where I met a Special Forces Major from the Joint Readiness Training Center and a Spooky Civilian. (The civilian was wearing a lapel pin replica of the Meritorious Service Medal). We exchanged business cards and they made their pitch.

This was about a year after the First Gulf War. It seems that the military had some difficulties in destroying Sadam's offshore platforms and they wanted to train on how to do it better. They knew that the oil industry needed to remove our platforms at the end of their life and they were offering to do the job for us at no charge. They just wanted the fun of blowing the thing up and learning how to do the same to the enemie's platforms, should it become necessary.

While their offer was indeed interesting, we explained that not only did we have to remove the platform, we had to clear the sea floor of debris and could not leave any scrap steel that could snag fishing nets or otherwise make a hazard. This pretty much killed the discussion.

Things continued on with a short discussion of a terrorist drill where they would perform a HAHO jump with the intent of landing paratoopers on the platform while SEAL Team 6 infiltrated from below. It sounded like fun but we were concerned about what a bunch of Louisiana red necks would do if they suddenly had armed men dropping in from the sky and climbing the platform legs.

We took a short break before we adjourned. When I came back to the meeting, I noticed that the business cards that I had left on the table with my note book, had disappeared. It was as if it had never happened.

SOTU, Finale

The President's Cabinet consists of 15 Departments. In addition, he has 8 other cabinet level offices. These include OMB and EPA. What I would like to see is for each cabinet level officer to prepare 2 - 3 PowerPoint slides with bulleted items describing their key accomplishments, status of their KPIs and a SWOT analysis. The President could then cherry pick and condense these into the most important items for his SOTU address. He would end up with about 30 to 35 slides which would fit nicely into a one hour speech.

And after that hour, the American people would have a good idea of what has been going on in their government and what to watch for in the future.

But, what if a cabinet officer can't come up with any information for a PowerPoint slide? Well, then, one would have to question whether that department was worth the cost.

It will never happen, of course, but I will do it when I get my private island. You can come live there if you agree to live by MY rules.

SOTU, Part II

Allow me to do some very basic education on Project Management tools.....

Project Managers use measurement tools to gauge the health of their project. One is called Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs. The big four KPIs are Cost, Schedule, Quality and Safety. There may be others but every project report includes some sort of yardstick to measure progress.

Besides the Big Four KPIs, management wants some idea of the risks facing their project. After all, they are investing a bunch of money and they want to know what could affect their investment. One tool that is used is called the SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat. Project Managers brainstorm issues affecting the project that fall within each of those categories. This can provide a list of things to watch for and prevents the PM from being surprised.

The two tools complement each other. KPIs are backward looking - they tell what the project was doing in the past, and while they tell you what things need improvement, they give no idea about what the future holds. SWOT, on the other hand, is forward looking. It gives you ideas about what may be an issue in the future.

I'd like to see the SOTU utilize these, or similar tools, to report on the Union. Next, I'll propose how.

SOTU, My Way

When the founding fathers required the president to stand before Congress and review the State of the Union I believe they had several things in mind - and a campaign speech was not one of them. I think they wanted an objective evaluation of the country. They wanted to hear how it was growing and if it was improving or not. They wanted facts and figures, not campaign promises. I also think they wanted to impress upon the president that he worked for the people, and Congress, as representatives of the people, wanted a report on the job he was doing. It's really no different than a Project Manager making a status report to management - and it should be presented in a similar manner. Are we on budget, or are we over or under? Are we on schedule? What risks do we see in the future and how can we mitigate them? What measures of performance are you using?

I have some thoughts about how the SOTU should be done that I will write in future posts even though I know it is a futile exercise.