To be clear I am an OXY employee and I have respect for many of my hard working colleagues who want to make a difference. But we have a problem with OXY culture. All those fools from Apache for example! They walk on earth as they are gods and they act as they know everything! Bunch of BSers whose sole career is based on lies and word dropping. This company works based on egos/whispering and over-confidence and not facts. More Trump-like you are (I am a Trump supported but let's face it he is arrogant), better chances you get to the top in OXY. It is all about who you drink with, who you club with, or who you sleep with. HR calls it influence, I call it corruption. HR calls it emotional intelligence, I call it dishonest behavior. No wonder we are in the mess we are in.
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@ 1wgc+14Zbpj1u
Mr. and Mrs. #ClrSkies show you what it means to have deep connection in this company. Lots of BS and arrogance!
Obviously, OP doesn't know any of the Ex-Apaches. They are no nonsense, incredibly talented people. Sounds like sour grapes to me...
@1wgc
I had very little experience with JS, JP but KN made a serious contribution to reducing cost per well. He brought a workflow that eliminated acquisition of expensive logging and attempted to standardize across the organization. Is he thought to have has a significant influence on the decision to buy APC?
He has a difficult personality, not unusual for that level, but otherwise proved to be quite competent.
JS, JP, KN.... and dishonorable mention for PJB aka Mr. #BlueSkies.
Who are Apache gangs that were mentioned a lot in these posts?
VH and her minions are the ones who brought in the Apache Mafia and then gave them their free reign.
Oxy did not have a good organization to handle UC plays (witness their Bakken debacle) so the AM was brought in to establish a better UC play organization, which they did.
The problem with VH and her minions was that they kept doubling down on the Permian UC plays as the future of Oxy.
UC plays can be excellent ways to get production ramped up rapidly (compared to conventional assets) when oil prices are high, but in the highly cyclical O&G industry you can’t rely mostly on UC plays. It’s a fool’s bet.
Unfortunately, the UC asset BU’s in all companies seem to attract all the BS artists and charlatans who always promise pending improvements while never delivering good results (i.e. free cash flow).
Overall the U.S. shale business has been a vast Ponzi scheme. The U.S. shale CEO’s seemed to have a huge case of groupthink as they touted huge overall U.S. production levels while most were not producing any free cash flow. When exported US oil started to take market share from Saudis and Russkies — who had much lower production costs — that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Even without the huge demand destruction caused by COVID-19, Oxy’s acquisition of APC was doomed to failure from the beginning. Too much debt. Borrowing $10B from Buffett (at 8% interest!) simply to avoid a shareholder vote that they knew they would lose was the kicker! How did Oxy’s corporate governance allow such behavior?
I left with a nice VSP after 12+ years with Oxy because I witnessed the post-2015/2016 stupidity of VH and the EC as they kept doubling down on Permian UC plays despite so-so results. It was/is really a shame. Especially after VH managing the 2015/2016 downturn with minimal layoffs and re-assigning young people to field jobs where they gained valuable experiences. What a shame. From a promising start to abysmal failure on all fronts in just a few years.
And VH and her minions will escape with almost no damage, except maybe to their egos, while doing huge damage to OXY/APC employees and OXY shareholders.
I agree with this post. But to elaborate I personally don't blame those ex-Apache leaders for APC acquisition. However, I blame them for making VH believe that Shale is everything. Of course JS and JP are no longer with OXY but the negative I-Know-it-all culture the left behind is still with OXY.
Definitely agree with you. L APC employee here and an Oxy director told me directly that you had to be a D-bag and yes man to make it to the VP level. They only have 1,752,842,298 billions executives in the company.
You must be referring to domestic unconventional subculture
Oxy are a company devoid of morals and run by a bunch of r—ds
When are they going to sack VH as she has destroyed the value in two companies in less than 12 months
$83 billion to $13 billion and she blames a virus and price war?
She rolled the dice and bet the farm
Funny how the other operators are not reducing staff salary and pensions by huge amounts
VH has f—ed it up - she needs to fess up and resign