Robert Brelsford
Downstream Technology Editor
Since the launch of its predecessor publication Oil Investors Journal in 1902, a hallmark of the Oil & Gas Journal has been an editorial approach to which its staff members—guided by the late P.C. Lauinger—have adhered to for more than a century. While present-day editors indeed have a chain of managerial command, under this foundational approach to what we do here, all of us know we have only one true boss: you, the reader.
Historically, this has been something of a match made in heaven. You wrote letter after letter to us, phoned us, faxed us, and with the dawning of e-mail, flooded our inboxes with questions, suggestions, offers to contribute technical articles. We saw you nearly day in and day out at countless international conferences, industry-specific social hours, and local get-togethers. Opportunities abounded to interact with you, to keep in touch, to hear your voices as clearly as if they were our own.
We knew what you expected from us, and we delivered again and again because you told us precisely those things that mattered to you. We were, in as many ways professional colleagues could be, and as comedian Larry David would say, coup de la.
But as Plato once observed, all is flux, and nothing stays still. This, no doubt, applies to all of us. OGJ has changed hands from the once Lauinger family-owned enterprise it once was. The price of oil cratered, wiping out countless jobs, and with them, the familiar faces that held them. And the myriad industry events that bombarded our daily schedules now, too, seem merely things of a near-distant past.
Change is in the air
As one thing ends, however, it’s inevitable new things will begin. While corporate downsizing has cleared many a slate, slates rarely exist to remain empty, and the petroleum industry is—and has always been—a prime example of this.
With Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s recent projections for a sharp rise in oil prices during first-half 2019, the first wave of hopeful murmurings in nearly 4 years are beginning to resound from the oil sector. The all-too-hard-and-gloomy outlooks of late are softening into slightly more optimistic forecasts for a resurgence in both upstream and downstream developments. People are starting to resume whispers about plans and projects that less than a year ago were left gasping for final breaths as they lay dying on the cold, polished-concrete slabs of fancy boardroom floors. While it’s not much, it’s certainly more encouraging for most of us than it’s been for a while.
But truth be told, OGJ has never been about those fancy boardrooms as much as it has been about the sharp minds and daily toiling of the individuals that keep those boardrooms in business. It’s primarily to and for you—the process engineers and operators, the all-hands-on-deck decision-makers—whom we write. And we haven’t stopped, regardless of oil price fluctuations or corporate downsizing efforts.
And since it’s to and for you, our hands-on operational readership, that we write, it’s from you that we’d like to hear.
Keep in touch
Given the general constraints on time and resources that OGJ editors know all too well, it’s slightly ironic to ask our similarly stressed readers to keep in touch. It’s always a lot to ask of someone, but we’re asking.
Drop us a line via e-mail or a handwritten note. Tell us what we’re doing right or wrong. Tell us what you’d like to read about, what industry topics are on your mind right now, or what you’d like to learn more about in coming issues. Or simply just tell us what OGJ means to you and the work that you do.
Our e-mail addresses are listed in the masthead. Or, better yet, join us on Oil & Gas Community (www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity) to regularly interact with us.
The fact of the matter is that change is good when it creates opportunities for dialogue.