THE BIRTH AND RISE OF PIONEER AND LONG SLIDE INTO OBLIVION, FIRE SALES

I started with Pioneer in the winter of 1998, had to pinch myself for working with an incredible company that was adding reserves and on the cutting edge. There were hiccups early on in the marriage between a Permian black oil company and T. Boone Pickens light oil, gas processing company. For a few years it was bad I left and came back, but much butting of heads on the strategic direction of Pioneer, was it production, or was it midstream. Something happened in the 10-12 years and Pioneer starting buying out of basin assets and companies; and birthing from within service companies.

Pioneer made a purchase in SW Colorado coal bed natural gas was low pressure and required massive compressor stations to move it to market. And working in Colorado the green or the green states, not Pioneer's dinner. Bout that time the price fell out of gas, and other "OIL" prospects dimmed, the asset had a large office in Denver in the LODO area near train station, large overheads and not much money coming in. WAS SOLD IN A FIRE SALE

Pioneer entered the sand mining business for fracking sand, purchasing mines in Texas, Ohio, California and Colorado. The mines brought silicosis, mine closing liability, groundwater contamination. Pioneer should have purchased the frack sand FOB delivered to the well sites, AGAIN FIRE SALE

Pioneer built fracking fleets north and South, Mack truck galore and F-250 as far as your eyes could see, sand buggies, $25,000 fluid ends that cracked and became beer cans. Frack brought Man Camps, trailer Parks, FRAC TRAILER TRASH, heavy maintenance and paying of crews when they weren't working, and two very large building complexes with bays for overhauls, that are now stranded assets in the deserts of Permian and South Texas. Pioneer would have contracted for fracking like normal companies and not load up with the overload . Once AGAIN FIRE SALE

Pioneer built a well workover fleet you can see remnant of that in the 80 yard and hundreds of empty frack tanks that are green in color, maybe they could place them on I-20 for highways signs, to me they took like tomb stones of failure. AGAIN FIRE SALE.

Barnett Shale, Pioneer acquired from Shell oil, much in City Limits of Denton, Texas north of Dallas that did not like drilling in their back yard, wells near footballs fields, empty lots, p-ss-d off homeowners, a legacy of environmental concerns, AGAIN FIRE SALE

South Texas shale play two very large building complexes a move into midstream, the wells had shorter lives and declining production, expensive to drill unless you hit the sweet spot with liquids. Also moved Pioneer back into the early on heritage of Midstream, and they are not good at that. It like dating your second cousin, good but embarrassing. AGAIN FIRE SALE

Pioneer Alaska built an Ark, wait a minute an island off the northern coast of Alaska. Hear China was interested in buying it for a bomber air field. DONT REMEMBER IF FIRE SALE, OR IT SUNK, Cook Inlet was dry.

Pioneer water management definitely a cutting edge company well run, but over built in the time of not much fracking, THE FUTURE FIRE SALE, if is ever comes back.

The new 2.0 Pioneer has now drawn a line in the sand with 1800 employees that are deeply brutalized and depressed if there is going to be lay-off 3.0. They have a great stack of brick building in Irving with no one home, many packaged, no one home at the Day Care, restaurants, and coffee bars, must be lonely MAYBE A FIRE SALE. Heard Amazon is looking for cheap real estate. heard the Chinese were looking at that so, but the good spirits were bad, place was cursed

The tragedy besides the balance sheet foibles are the thousands of people that bet their career on Pioneer and now it is over. Pioneer will need a whole lot of luck, and prudence on the TOYS if they are going to make 2022.

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All TD fault!

You cannot forget onshore Mississippi.........Bolton and the 22,000’ Norphlet dry hole! The fearless leaders of those debacles climbed pretty high on the ladder.

I was the author that wrote the original posting in this tread, it was more about investing in lost causes than the dedicated people that have worked for Pioneer through the years. I have so much respect for the lease operators for without them there would have been no LCO, no paychecks, no daycares, no free meals. In my many years doing Pioneer's environmental business I worked with many of them, they were great teachers with great patience. I hope I was able to render same to them.

I am sure there is a reason why J. H. from the Northern Invasion did not make the cut to be COO, he is probably lucky to have survived the 2018 4th Qtr. disaster. I don't think he is seasoned enough to take that position, takes more than building an ice road or scaring Polar Bears off with fire crackers. Pioneer needs to deepen their bench of potential Chairman and COO, right now it is awful.

I didn't mention the GOM as I did not work that much on it, I understood that it spun off around 1 million a day in cash, which evidently Pioneer did not invest that golden egg wisely. I did work shallow GOM and T Bay and Grand Bay , good they FIRE SOLD them just days before the big blow that hit Louisiana. To me deep GOM was a big boys game like Alaska not a nitch play for a Permian black oil player. Pioneer made MONEY IN SPITE OF ITSELF FOR MANY YEARS.

With the LAYOFFS behind the challenge now is to rebuild the company with the remaining 1,850 employees. Much like what Boeing Aircraft is facing after two crashes of the 737, management not listening to line employees, and product line not selling. Pioneer is facing a daunting existential fight for its very existence; or being snuffed out and sold cheaply to the bottom feeders. It won't be the top management that leads the 1850 out of the harsh wilderness, it will be the ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY EMPLOYEES that choose a future and move in that common direction.

I am not ashamed of any posting that I have made in the last 6 weeks, there were from the heart to assist the departing Pioneer Employees; but I understand the Pioneer Fuss is one of my favorite readers wanting to know who I am, I AM, " A VERY PROUND ONCE A PIONEER EMPLOYEE."

All too true. They tried to spin some of these bad decisions as having been succcessful, such as GOM, but they were not good decisions. Back in the day, nearly everyone who spent 15 minutes helping them unload the properties at a loss would get a bonus, adding to even more loss. Many of the expenses of the sale were also never booked against the sale. Many man hours spent on work when they bought assets and then sold them shortly thereafter. The sands business stands out as one of the dumbest decisions, in my mind, as it exposed the company to so much liability because of silicosis and added so much work across the company. The operating expenses were far beyond the expense of operating the plants, which were either closed or sold at huge discounts.

Yeah, MM s—s, just a quota.

Who needs luck or prudence when you appoint the person who headed the GOM, Alaska, South Texas, and the Permian (when the company overspent by ~$1 Billion) to manage virtually all of your capital spend going forward?

All sad and unfortunately all true. But you need to add the GOM. Another debacle. It would have been cheaper to lower the gulf than recovering that platform toppled in the hurricane.

New CFO? Someone skip over MM? What a joke!

"It like dating your second cousin, good but embarrassing." :'') LOL

Also Argentina & North Africa escapedes

Thread regarding Pioneer Natural Resources Co. layoffs

THE BIRTH AND RISE OF PIONEER AND LONG SLIDE INTO OBLIVION, FIRE SALES

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