  The Canadian oil and gas industry leaves the door open for a further extension of the branch plant management style that is becoming prevalent in the oil and gas industry. My concern is for the method of management that occured in Calgary up to 1983 was a branch plant management style where international companies owned and operated the industry. This mindset was eliminated by the dynamic and entreprenurial spirit that is prevelant in Calgary and I fear that the branch plant method may soon return.
Why? Its really quite simple, we have continued to prove that we are having significant difficulty in maintaining our deliverability and reserve base. The ability to drill wells on the prairies is constrained by a number of resource limits that impede the work that is required. When the work is completed the ability to estimate and deliver on the basis of what it will cost is poor and deteriorating quickly. This is particularly difficult in the oil sands where cost over runs are approaching 100% on multi-billion dollar projects.
A secondary issue and one that is the focus of my thesis is the reporting and accountability capability in the industry. My opinion regarding reporting is that it is desperately constrained. The ability to "report" to the various regulatory and statutory requirements is constrained by the systems in play. Other industries can use applications such as SAP to meet the revised Sarbanes Oxley and CICA requirements, however, SAP in oil and gas, in many instances, can not even report gross and net on operations and capital.
I have a couple of pointed questions regarding the attitudes of those international producers that have taken over Canadian independents in the past few years. Believing they had cherry picked the best of industry for themselves; did they subsequently regret their acquisitions on the basis that, with the key talent moving on, the remaining management was inadequate to run the company? Hence moving the management to other locations? Those companies or assets that were of no interest have found a home in the royalty trusts where the objectives are limited to the further exploitation of the reserves and the explicit renunciation of any and all exploration. This is not what the industry needs in the long term. With only a few real independent left, the time for those remaining, should head the saying that we reap what we sow. 
