Thread regarding ConocoPhillips layoffs

Some of us opted out and come here to see how much a good company has fallen.

I can see why you guys didn't make the cut!

@NONv66X-2qll - you must be a government employee and just plain stupid! If you work for an oil company, you should be terminated immediately!

@NONv66X-2qll - if it is not economics then tell me how any company will stay in business losing money! Have seen hundreds and hundreds of oil and gas companies go out of business in my 37 years in the oil business! Most because of ecomonics! I bet I've seen more than 600 oil and gas companies file bankruptcy in my 37 years!

Now smart guy, tell us what it is about if it not about economics? Selling your product for less than it cost to produce is a losing proposition!

As a a Petroleum Engineer with a minor in Business, I have a very good concept of business and I still own the Farm! And it too makes money!

With your concept, you are COP leadership quality!

You should have stayed on the farm. There is much more to this than just shale economics. Everyone is jockeying for position right now. You mentioned EOG and Pioneer, look at their stock. Both these companies stock has been dropping like a rock for the past six month and in steep decline for more than three years.

Growing up as farm boy sometimes I'm not so bright. Let's see if I got this right. Technology is super and helping us get more oil. This is pretty simple as I see it, if it cost a company more with expensive technology plus operating expense than they get for the oil, then the company is losing money. The company has some choices (1) find a less expensive way to produce the oil, (2) Get someone else who operates in a less expensive way and have a net positive based on price of oil (3) Farm out the leases and take a royalty from the farm out (4) Keep operating and lose money then go bankrupt (5) Sell out and spread the money out to the stockholders because they are the ones whom own the company.

So what is COP going to do?.....Currently looks like they are driving themselves become bankrupt by selling pieces and parts off and divesting of employees and keeping high cost shale plays that need constant drilling and completions to keep production up.

Does not sound like the leadership is very intelligent by selling off the chickens and thinking they will increase the volume of eggs. Just a farm boys prospective.

Do think ELT should demand alternatives to continued shale drilling as the sole means to monetize the shale holdings. Seems we would have been in a much preferred position if we had farmed-out to a best-in-class operator such as EOG, Pioneer, et al, and retained a 5-10 percent over-ride. Most likely would be able to extract a time period zero cash payment.

Those best-in-class shale operators would be capable of drilling, completing & operating more wells at a lower cost than COP. COP would realize production volumes and reserves with no (zero) CAPEX outlays. We have already demonstrated in Eagle Ford, Bakken, Permian-Delaware and Niobrara that COP is unable to commercially develop these plays. Yet the ELT has not considered alternatives or will not consider alternatives.

This continued hard-headed, close-minded approach of seeking to monetize the shale holdings by drilling has destroyed value and is destroying value. Way past time to consider farm-out alternatives.

1yys, I don't think you get the point made by OP who was just highlighting the fact that these abundant "tight" resource plays (inclusive of the drilling and completions techniques required to unlock them) are going to result in suppressed oil price for a very long time and are not going to make money full cycle, or at least not for high-cost, process-stifling COP.

I am still shocked at all of the wasteful spending in this Company on management boon doggles and perks, corporate sponsorships and propaganda materials (e.g. SPRIT magazine).

Cost of supply for these plays doesn't net back positive cash. The COS we see on slide packs are targets, not actuals. Need way higher oil and gas prices to make these work.

You just don't get it do you?

It's not just shale plays it's the technology that it has been developed to enhance production from shales. With our new horizontal drilling technology combined with completion and multi-stage fraccing every oil bearing formation can be enhanced. There are lots of oil bearing high porosity low permeability formations that this technology will be applied to. Abundant oil supplies are here to stay for very long time.