In most walks of working life, there's nothing worse than not having your work appreciated by your boss. Everybody needs that little bit of recognition and acknowledgement that they are doing a good job, in order to be able to come in the next day with an increased level of enthusiasm for the next task at hand.
But it appears that oil companies are more like a grumpy and inconsiderate corporate ogre, quick to criticize and slow to praise when it comes to dealing with contractors. It often appears to not care how something is achieved, but only that it is.
On the other hand, nobody likes a whiner who seems more intent on bemoaning the fact that he is unloved, rather than getting on with the job he is trained and paid to do.
This situation is quite apparent in the seismic industry, judging by the content of several articles in this issue of Hart's E&P, which covers among many other things the state of the seismic market and technology. Time and again, legitimate concerns are raised about the change in the way business is conducted between contractors and operators. The many subtle ebbs and flows to the debate are reflected in the feature articles. The basic fact though is that operators now know how and expect to get more and better quality seismic data for less cost, with less commitment from themselves.
The seismic community would do well to listen again to the warnings by operators over the past year or so. In the old days things were simple: if oil prices dropped, operators curtailed their exploration spending until things improved. Then they started buying seismic again.
Not any more. The main reason is that oil operators in the main simply cannot afford to do business that way any longer. They've been burned once too often, and their shareholders will no longer accept it. One company chief executive summed it up when saying that oil companies are acting as though there is going to be $14/bbl oil prices for the rest of time. This is exactly what operators have been stating since the downturn in 1998, and this time things are unlikely to change despite the industry's traditionally cyclical nature.
"The budgeting flexibility of the oil companies is much different than it used to be 10 years ago, and they're much more careful when things go up and down during the course of the year," said one seismic contractor.
This combination of a more stringent and cautious approach to spending on exploration, along with an awareness that they can get more for less, is a hard business mindset to overcome.
But the seismic sector's major concern is perhaps more fundamental than that. It is that the oil companies seem apparently unable to appreciate what is being done by the seismic community to accommodate this new mindset.
Robert Brunck, chief executive officer of CGG, says in an exclusive profile in this issue: "The biggest frustration would be that a company of talents, having done such a tremendous job with big hopes for the future, would have to realize that our E&P industry doesn't value it properly, or more simply doesn't measure the consequences of the current situation vis a vis a very committed community. This would then be a long-term loss resulting from the shortsightedness of a short-term-oriented business community. My hope is that this is not happening."
Let's hope that operators do indeed retain the ability to recognize that seismic remains the only technology that truly helps to identify new basins and reservoirs.
Paying a fair price reflecting this shouldn't be too hard, plus the occasional pat on the back for the contractor involved. A little bit of recognition goes a long way.