Thanks, appreciate the input. This is really for an industry overview/current situation I'm putting together. I have BH data incorporated already, but wanted to show the dispersions/range of forecasts to give an idea of possible paths (at least according to those who claim to know)

one MEEN Ag said:

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I've got a buddy who does M&A for a big corporate firm in Houston. Their name is tied, behind the scenes, to a lot of deals talked about on this board. Not a partner, not an L1 either. They are interested in potentially jumping out to an OG general counsel role in a year or two.

Any advice I can pass along to someone considering making that jump? We go back and forth on equity compensation in OG. Stock options are how they lure talent away from the firm, but its tough to take OG future RSU offers seriously when governance plays a smaller fiddle compared to the global commodity environment. Bad companies get rewarded during high oil prices, good companies still get hammered during low prices. Any advice about navigating the transition out of big law to general counsel?

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Yeah, a lot of smoke and mirrors. I watched a bunch of RSUs go in the wrong direction (meaning the earnings, which were negative / losses, actually added to the length of time it would take to get the RSUs)

As far as heading to an oil company GC shop, I think regulatory work will remain hot. Not sure how much M&A work is done totally in house vs shopped out

shiphunt said:

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Thanks, appreciate the input. This is really for an industry overview/current situation I'm putting together. I have BH data incorporated already, but wanted to show the dispersions/range of forecasts to give an idea of possible paths (at least according to those who claim to know)

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Oh man, thats going to be tough to get anything more than some semi-wild ass guesses. Look at this company's data to get a sense of the fundamentals for shale.

https://shaleprofile.com/blog/permian/permian-update-through-february-2021/

The key macro takeaways I have for 2021-2022 are that shale is struggling to drill to even keep a flat overall field production in the permian. People might be drilling more right now, but is it enough to counter the decline curves? Probably not since the highs were built on the backs of PE cash burn, which isn't there right now.

GOM offshore is heavy on low cost tiebacks to maximize current production capabilities, not as many huge projects being floated out there right now.

There's conjecture on #EFT if Saudi can even return to their 2008 form or if their getting bit by their own field declines. Total OPEC+ extra capacity is estimated to be only 4-5MM barrels a day.

If corona virus fears wane across the globe, and the world returns to their 1% energy increase YOY they've been marching along for 100+ years, oil could easily break a $100 a barrel.

Which would send a flurry of money out into the fields and greenlight a bunch of marginal projects. Who knows.

I've done a couple of these recently and just pointed to the current forward curve and IHS/woodmac short term and long-term price forecasts. There are also production forecasts out there you can point to. I was specifically looking at Permian and got some data from Citi and Enverus but maybe EIA or one of the other free sites also provides this?

Awesome, thank you. I do have an enverus account and a couple other sources so can put something decent together. This is specially for OFS so that's why I put the initial Q out on rig count forecasts

htxag09 said:

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My company doesn't really use a program to keep track of when people are in the office but have set days. We do use teams so can have meeting regardless of who is in or out.

Everyone is in the office Monday and Thursday. So if I need an in person meeting with engineers, operations, etc., this is the day to do it. Individual teams decide if they're coming in Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Nobody comes in Friday. Office isn't even open, have to request access if you're coming in.

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APA


That seems like an odd schedule, I like what Chevron and Oxy are doing better. Work from home Mon and Friday, in the office Tues-Thurs.

As the industry picks back up I'm restarting my search to escape Midland. Wife and I have been out here longer than we would have liked and want to get back to DFW (San Antonio would also work). Reservoir engineer with about 8 years of experience with some of that being in ops.

Would it be best to contact a recruiter or just peruse the LinkedIn postings that seem to be picking up?

Yes- again, I think it fits in select components. I think you're completely over playing the skillset of the workforce. There are more than enough qualified applicants for company jobs. Service side has always been a terrible side to work on so that is understandable .

Cyp0111 said:

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I do not think you're reading this situation correctly.

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Have one friend who retired from XOM when they stopped the 401(k) match. Know a lot of people leaving and going to tech, tired of instability. Also, Covid has fostered a sense of entitlement - people working from home don't mind minimal raises and no promotions, but when you tell them to come back and don't accelerate this stuff, people bail. Finally, lots of retirements due to segment rate changes. Lump sum pensions were taking the equivalent of 6 months salary decrease, forcing a lot of the boomers to pull the trigger. O&G bloat is still real, I guess. Engineers get nice 6 figure jobs fresh out of school, then realize after 2 years that hopping ladders is more lucrative, but the usual mind-numbing boredom of management and business becomes unbearable when working from home. Maybe some of them are returning to engineering before it's too late and the skills are gone. If I were hiring in tech, I'd be bombarding the late 20's and early 30's management types who realize they miss innovation already.

Cyp0111 said:

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O&G has a lot of boomers that need to hang it up. Power came from people managed, not results or work product.

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MAROON said:

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agreed. And if your employees are professional then who cares if they work four days from their vacation home. If the work gets done, it gets done.

I'm an old guy who has fought the corporate wars for many years. IMO face time has some value, but it's not near as valuable as many make it out to be. It's great for new hires and training, and corporate politics.

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My entire engineering department has joked for years that we aren't actually needed at the office. The only thing i have missed out on is my face not being seen so there is potential of being forgotten about when it comes to other job openings internally.

I feel sorry for the new hires we brought on a few months into this. It was already hard enough to learn about our product line without being at the plant where its made let alone have to do it remotely where you have to skype with someone else to teach you things you want to know. Oddly enough that new hire was our departments first since me back in 2015.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Couple of thoughts:

Have it on good authority Exxon is back in the office 5 days a week for everyone in the Spring campus. There have been major droves of talent leaving. These are the survivors of the layoffs saying they want nothing to do with that company and being back in the office all the time.

In general, tech is continuing to crush OG. They pay better, better benefits, there's better growth opportunities, and more flexibility on vacation/work schedules. The trade off from everyone I know whose jumped is that they expect a lot more productivity out of the average employee than what they were used to at their previous job designing the tech for downhole tools.

Also, I help out in recruiting. OG doesn't get the pick of the litter anymore.

A talent gap is forming on top of another talent gap that just got exposed due to layoffs. OG is surviving with the manpower they have because of consolidation, downturn, and a moat of skills that don't translate well to other industries. OG better start paying 20% more than they normally do or even more people are going to jump ship in the next few years.

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This has been a topic of discussion in our household as of late.

I naively moved out to Midland 7 years ago for an Outside Sales position(my wife followed shortly after)thinking if I moved closer to the source I could generate some sort of O&G generational wealth for my family. Fast forward to present day, we have a 8 month old and I'm back to where I started professionally, only this time I'm getting paid less. Now that I have a family, it has become more obvious that I need to find something more stable with better pay.

I am going to give it one more shot in the industry (2 more years) before I give up on my "dream". I have already started to look for jobs(BD/Sales), and what I am finding on the services side is that there are a lot of openings for managerial roles that need to be based out of Midland and have 10+ years of selling in that specific field. Which does prove true that the talent gap is very wide even on the services side.

There's a guy on twitter named Pumper (@andy_oilman). You need to reach out to him. He's 23 and has bought some stripper wells. He gives updates about getting the pumpjacks producing again. Got one up to 10 barrels a day.

If you want generational wealth in Midland, you've got to own the minerals in the ground. Of course, this guy is running a long term risk against his plug and abandon obligations, but its worth talking to him. Anything short of owning minerals to make millions in midland requires you build a time machine and buy houses.

Agree, any thought you were going to create generational wealth in OFS sales (not owner)

Energy Transfer is dipping their toes in the "flexible schedule" pool.

You can elect to do a schedule of 9 hour days on Monday-Thursday, and then work a 4 hour day on Friday. It is pitched as a temporary "summer schedule" to allow for an early start to the weekend, but it feels like they know they're falling behind and need to adjust to the standard 8 hours a day at the office schedule and they're testing it out as minimally as possible. Especially since they announced it right after they published the results of the company-wide survey. Morale is pretty low and I know more than a couple of people looking for jobs elsewhere.

I won't pretend to know exactly what effect working from home does for efficiency and productivity - my guess is that there are roles and departments where it really hurts, and there are some where it actually helps. Probably depends on the employee and a number of other factors. What I do see happening, however, is some companies jumping on it as a recruiting tool if nothing else.

My wife works at Chevron. She :
- has worked from home full time for 15 months at this point. Maybe 3 days in the office total for random things.
- will work from home on Mondays and Fridays going forward. (Starting when they go back in the August-ish timeframe)

I work at Energy Transfer. I :
- had a couple months working from home (5-6?), followed by some "every-other week" type scenarios
- have been back to full time in the office for 2 months now and have gone from masks required to masks optional for those vaccinated.
- will be full time in the office going forward. Maybe the above mentioned summer schedule sticks.


Eventually the industry will find a balance point, it will be interesting to see how it washes out.

Or the mgr isn't effective

Cyp0111 said:

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Or the mgr isn't effective

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That can happen in the office and at home. I've had a couple of terrible managers in the office. The company is just extremely slow to notice when the manager is the problem, but they eventually got 'promoted' to an area that had no activity.

That's a pretty rigid schedule. Do you have to start / leave at specified times?

I think VPs might be handling it slightly differently, so I don't know about other parts of the company, but we have some flexibility. You work 9 hours sometime between the hours of 6am-7pm with a required one hour lunch break.

The required one hour lunch break is the biggest fly in the ointment. If you work through lunch, it doesn't count towards your 40 hours.

wessimo said:

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The required lunch break is pretty ridiculous.

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Probably because while their are people who actually work through lunch, a large number say they do but still take a break or take multiple short meal breaks during the day. It's easier to make a policy like that than to police people's lunch choice. I'm not saying it's always the best management option but it's a reason to go that route.

I've been an o&g engineer almost 13 years, and am curious about this as well. I am in the beginning, due diligence phase of looking into data analyst/science certs...