Oil meeting change ends local tradition
| Saturday, Jan 09 2010 04:47 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Jan 09 2010 04:47 PM
An annual oil industry gathering affectionately known as "The Liars Club" is going honest.
For the first time in its 20-year history, the meeting set for Jan. 21 will feature no Kern oil producers presenting their drilling forecasts for the year ahead. Instead, an industry expert from Houston has been invited to present a national overview with some commentary on local conditions.
This means Kern oil service companies will have less specifically local information with which to plan and budget, which had been the point of past gatherings.
Two factors prompted the change, according to people involved with the event. Large producers don't want to commit publicly to their internal projections, and their legal departments fear that the numbers traditionally shared at the meeting could be construed as violating antitrust laws.
"Basically nobody's allowed to give enough information to be of ... benefit," said Carl Simonson, president of the American Association of Drilling Engineers' Bakersfield chapter, which hosts the event.
"Everybody used to get up there and talk about what their plans were for the coming year," he continued. "Unfortunately, we're not allowed to do that anymore."
Taft oilman Fred Holmes expressed disappointment that a useful meeting had succumbed to the judgment of major oil producers' lawyers, who he said "probably had never been to the meeting."
"It's probably easier to say 'no' than research it," Holmes said.
Three major oil companies with local operations declined to comment or avoided providing an explanation for their decisions to stop presenting annual forecasts at the meeting.
Last January, an audience of about 200 industry executives and professionals was stunned when several major producers pulled out of the meeting at the last minute. No official explanation was ever provided, though afterward people in the local industry attributed the cancellations to decisions handed down by the companies' legal departments.
The meeting has long been known as a "liars club" because plans presented at the event often proved to have been exaggerated.
The scheduled speaker at this year's event is John M. Daniel, an equity research analyst with Simmons & Co. International, where he covers oil field service companies. He formerly worked as vice president of corporate development at Key Energy Services.
Holmes, who helped line up Daniel to speak, said the speech will provide some local insights. "It'll still work in California," he said. "It'll just be a little harder to get the answers you need."
Another difference this year is the event's venue. After many years at the Rice Bowl on 18th Street downtown, the meeting is moving to the banquet hall at Coconut Joe's on Easton Drive.
Simonson said the move reflects a desire to attract more young people in the industry, many of whom he said objected to the Rice Bowl.
Holmes bemoaned the switch.
"Rice Bowl is my favorite place in the world," he said. "I never miss a chance to eat there."
