Encounter in Istanbul: Accountant & the Engineer Who Vanished…

Notes de l'éditeur

1. Module 5 Encounter in Istanbul: Accountant & the Engineer Who Vanished… Script by Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D. Dramatis Personae: Charlie: Former Engineer for Rio Real Energy Monica: Accountant for Rio Real Energy BACKSTORY: Three months before: Monica to her boss: I'm getting a lot of invoices for huge quantities of proppant and hydraulic fracturing fluid. What's going on? Has drilling changed? Is this used in drilling? What has changed? Help! Boss: Ask Charlie – he’s the one who has ordered everything. Monica: I can’t. He has disappeared… ------------------------- NOW: In a restaurant on the edge of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey Monica: Wow -- Charlie! I never expected to see you here! What a surprise – Charlie: Uh, Monica? What brings you to Istanbul? Long way from the oil patch. Monica: I’m here for a conference and then a vacation with my husband. He’ll meet me in a few minutes. He’s across the street buying a kilim. I love the handwoven Turkish rugs here. (pauses) But Charlie. Charlie: Sometimes I think the further away the better. But, I’m here for a few days. I’m on my way to Qatar for some frac jobs. Monica: What happened? You disappeared so mysteriously. There were a lot of rumors, you know. Charlie: About what? Monica: Well. I don’t want to be the one who tells you – but, well – since I was the one who had to end up figuring out how to pay for the big bills, I guess it’s okay… you know, we ended up paying 10 times more for drilling fluids, frac fluid, and proppants than we had ever paid on a single well before. It looked weird. Charlie: Didn’t anyone keep in mind that these were horizontal wells? Laterals take 10 times more than vertical wells, and it was Rio Real’s first horizontal well. Monica: I don’t understand. How can a well be horizontal? Sideways? I mean, yes, I’ve seen diagrams, but I just don’t really understand. And, I don’t understand why it would take 10 times more of the highest-cost materials for completion. Charlie: People really did not know? I guess I was too busy to check out if people around me had any idea how things worked. And, I suspect management did not really get it, either. Monica: I can tell you that our investors certainly did not. Especially when we exceeded the AFE by $3 million on a single well. Charlie: We had some problems on the well. Plus, the service companies changed ownership and used a clause in the contract to really gauge us. Monica: Gouge is right! Did you know that one of the directors asked me to see if there was any evidence that you were getting pay-offs or were an owner in one of the service companies?? Charlie: Good grief! All this going on, and I had no idea… Monica: And, when you disappeared … Charlie: I got this great job in Qatar… Monica: Appearances, Charlie… appearances… Charlie: Let me explain how all of this works. Then, if you need me to, I’ll come by the office when I’m back in Texas and I’ll talk everyone through it, too – at least the wells ultimately worked out and were successes. Monica: Yeah, high dollar ones, though!