One of the things I have found most peculiar throughout this downturn in the oil and gas industry was how long it took SLB executives to admit how extended this downturn would be. It was only in October during the Q3 earnings call, was it finally conceded that the downturn would stretch well into 2016.
I'm not saying 'I told you so', but for as long as OPEC has held their line about not cutting production, the fundamentals were not favorable to a turnaround in oil prices. And OPEC has definitely been holding the line. A week ago, one of the representative nation ministers admitted there was "no ceiling now" the group affirmed the position they've held for the past year that there would be no cuts at this time. This is a position they have held since at least November of last year and affirmed again over the summer. If anything, member production will trend higher as individual nations in tough financial situations will inch up their production in attempt to make up for the low prices.
Frankly, most of the OPEC members have gotten sloppy and undisciplined over the sustained high oil prices. We have lived in a generally long term oil boom since the early 2000's. The 2009 blip, while noteworthy, was not driven by sector fundamentals. Instead, it was driven by a lack of available credit and while the price of oil underwent a sharp decline during that time, it ultimately made just as sharp a recovery. Oil exporting nations (many of whom are in OPEC) have used these fat years to push various domestic programs and subsidies to their populations as a way for leadership to maintain power, but now many are struggling. Venezuela is the poster child for this and now the country is roiling as a result. But it's not just Venezuela. By some estimates, many OPEC nations need substantially higher oil prices in order to balance their budgets. Some of them, like Saudi Arabia, have large cash reserves to fall back on during this time, but most do not.
With OPEC refusing (or unable to internally agree) to cut production, US shale has become the swing producer. And the US market is highly responsive to market conditions. However, already sunk costs and financial obligations make it reasonable for many producers to keep producing even at lower prices. US production technically peaked in March of this year, but it has remained stubbornly high despite $40/bbl pricing levels. However, the spread in YoY production is shrinking and getting close to prior year levels. It is almost certain that US 2016-Q1 production will be lower than 2015-Q1 levels. In fact, that cross-over may occur for the current quarter, but the data is not yet available.
US production will finally drop in 2016 so prices will bounce right back and that's what SLB had been expecting all along, right? Maybe. I won't pretend to know what the C-suite is thinking (other than "transformation") but it's pretty clear activity is not going to bounce back in early 2016. Part of the supply/demand problem is that even with reduced US production, others will increase production, especially Iran which is eager to get back to pre-sanction production levels. On the demand side, the outlook is also murky. Part of this year's demand has been goosed by countries taking advantage of low prices to top off their strategic reserves. China has been a big participant in this trend. That's unlikely to continue much further so what happens when everyone's tanks are full and the ships have nowhere to go because there are no buyers?
If I knew the exact answer, I'd be making a killing on the futures markets. However, it does seem like the grim reality has fully set in for the oil and gas services sector. In discussions with friends of mine still in the game, it looks very grim. In SLB's case, going from 120K to 80-90K people is a tough process to be a part of and I wish my friends luck through this coming round of cuts.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Friday, December 11, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
thursday's trawling - more cuts coming
Last week, Schlumberger Schlumberger announced another round of job cuts that would be coming soon. (Also here for a presentation from a top executive.) No number was provided for the number of of job cuts, but it can be estimated based on the $350 million restructuring charge that was announced as part of the cuts. At the beginning of the year, a $390 million charge was taken to coincide with 11,000 job cuts. If a similar cost/cut ratio holds, then this round will be good for about 10,000 more cuts.
Let's look at the numbers:
120,000 peak employment
-9,000 cuts in late 2014
-11,000 cuts in early 2015
-10,000 cuts in late 2015 and/or early 2016
_________
90,000 remaining employees
If anything, the 90K estimate is too high because of natural attrition and retirements which would have also occurred over the past year. The reality is that in a high turnover industry like oilfield services, this could account for another 5K-10K people. It is quite possible that when this is all said and done, roughly 1-in-3 people who were working for SLB in early/mid-2014 will no longer be there by the end of Q1-2016. In fact, there are two other factors in play which could make it feel even more severe:
1) Contractors - When times are good in the oilfield services industry, they are really good and it is nearly impossible to be properly staffed. (Definitely a post for another time.) Thus, contractors are hired to fill the gaps, but they come at a high short-term price. Everything was humming along quite well at the beginning of 2014 and there were probably several thousand contractors on the payroll (perhaps 5K, but I don't have a good estimate). When it is time to cut, the contractors are almost always the first to go. This population was never part of the employee figure and didn't have restructuring charges tied to it, but they were nearly all let go early on in the downturn.
2) Lower separation costs per person - Some of the early 2015 layoffs were almost certainly packaged retirement deals. I know for sure this happened in 2009 when several people I knew from my time working in New Mexico and Texas who were at or very near retirement age (and thus eligible for full pension) were given a separation package. Those packages would have been relatively expensive. This time around, the ready-to-retire and nearly-ready populations are probably very thin now and so oustings will come from much less senior employees. These will cost the company less on a per person basis. Thus, $350 million might end up being close to 12K or 15K job cuts when the smoke clears.
To an industry outsider, this might seem terribly harsh, but it is actually completely normal for the industry. Times are tough so it is time to retrench. If I told people in the Bay Area that every few years, there would be a tech downturn that would lead to 1-in-3 people getting canned, they would look at me like I was crazy. And they'd be right to do so. However, oil and gas (and any resource extraction business for that matter as the miners are also having a rough go of things) cannot innovate itself into creating more demand for its product.
Let's look at the numbers:
120,000 peak employment
-9,000 cuts in late 2014
-11,000 cuts in early 2015
-10,000 cuts in late 2015 and/or early 2016
_________
90,000 remaining employees
If anything, the 90K estimate is too high because of natural attrition and retirements which would have also occurred over the past year. The reality is that in a high turnover industry like oilfield services, this could account for another 5K-10K people. It is quite possible that when this is all said and done, roughly 1-in-3 people who were working for SLB in early/mid-2014 will no longer be there by the end of Q1-2016. In fact, there are two other factors in play which could make it feel even more severe:
1) Contractors - When times are good in the oilfield services industry, they are really good and it is nearly impossible to be properly staffed. (Definitely a post for another time.) Thus, contractors are hired to fill the gaps, but they come at a high short-term price. Everything was humming along quite well at the beginning of 2014 and there were probably several thousand contractors on the payroll (perhaps 5K, but I don't have a good estimate). When it is time to cut, the contractors are almost always the first to go. This population was never part of the employee figure and didn't have restructuring charges tied to it, but they were nearly all let go early on in the downturn.
2) Lower separation costs per person - Some of the early 2015 layoffs were almost certainly packaged retirement deals. I know for sure this happened in 2009 when several people I knew from my time working in New Mexico and Texas who were at or very near retirement age (and thus eligible for full pension) were given a separation package. Those packages would have been relatively expensive. This time around, the ready-to-retire and nearly-ready populations are probably very thin now and so oustings will come from much less senior employees. These will cost the company less on a per person basis. Thus, $350 million might end up being close to 12K or 15K job cuts when the smoke clears.
To an industry outsider, this might seem terribly harsh, but it is actually completely normal for the industry. Times are tough so it is time to retrench. If I told people in the Bay Area that every few years, there would be a tech downturn that would lead to 1-in-3 people getting canned, they would look at me like I was crazy. And they'd be right to do so. However, oil and gas (and any resource extraction business for that matter as the miners are also having a rough go of things) cannot innovate itself into creating more demand for its product.
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
tuesdays not in turkmenistan - long gone
Wait, there hasn't been a post in nearly 18 months. And I haven't been in Turkmenistan in over two years. Why this? Why now? I am long gone and I will not be going back. At this point, nearly all the other expats I worked with are no longer in Turkmenistan and I have minimal contact with anyone still there.
I have always pulled my punches with this blog. There was always a reluctance to write too critically about any location I was in, especially when I was in Turkmenistan (though the Turkmen President falling off his horse was too good to not write about). After all, it is essentially North. Korea. Lite. Perhaps I should say "was" since I haven't been there for two years, but my former colleagues have assured me it is as dysfunctional as ever.
Doing a quick check and review of an older post of mine on Turkmenistan's place in various rankings around the world, not much has changed. The country is still pulling in awful marks from essentially everyone:
* Human Rights Watch (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Freedom House (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Reporters Without Borders (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Transparency International (Turkmenistan profile link)
Yep, still not a great place when the only places you beat are Eritrea and the actual North Korea (as per the Reporters Without Borders report).
Turkmenistan's great struggle is not that it is terrible, but that it will continue to be terrible. It sits atop the fourth largest natural gas reserves (direct link to .pdf of the 2015 BP Statistical Review and go to page 20). But all this wealth will not reach the vast majority of the people while it has such a petty and vainglorious leader. Yes, petty enough to insist upon a yacht as a bribe. This was actually semi-openly discussed among expats in at least one of the client offices while I was there. It was never much discussed in front of Turkmen nationals since you could never be certain who actually supported the president as opposed to those who paid lip service to his ego-centrism. And with visas so difficult to come by and deportations so legitimate a threat, the trend was towards discretion around locals.
In the past, I was pulling my punches about the potential of the country. I laid out two main stumbling blocks to developing the country's resources: distribution of wealth and available labor. The labor issue is straightforward enough. People there are not well educated and the nature of the education they receive is very dogmatic and rigid. There are gains, but people will be educated only just enough to perform the work needed, not well enough to create what one might call a creative class. In its current form, the education system there will never lead to an innovative or entrepreneurial society. Additionally, Turkmen nationals need an exit visa to leave the country and get a foreign education. This further restricts which type (and how loyal) of a person is allowed out. As for the distribution of wealth, well, this report sums it up well when it says:
"Twenty percent of the Agency’s revenues go into the State budget. The other 80 percent disappear into the murky, shadow economy that President Berdymukhamedov has built though a legal, but highly unethical, system of law that he created under the noses of western officials, but which has never been analyzed, until now."
With leadership like that, Turkmenistan will never prosper. It will improve in some ways, perhaps many ways, but it will fall deeply short of its potential as long as it is led by such a petty and insecure person.
I have always pulled my punches with this blog. There was always a reluctance to write too critically about any location I was in, especially when I was in Turkmenistan (though the Turkmen President falling off his horse was too good to not write about). After all, it is essentially North. Korea. Lite. Perhaps I should say "was" since I haven't been there for two years, but my former colleagues have assured me it is as dysfunctional as ever.
Doing a quick check and review of an older post of mine on Turkmenistan's place in various rankings around the world, not much has changed. The country is still pulling in awful marks from essentially everyone:
* Human Rights Watch (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Freedom House (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Reporters Without Borders (Turkmenistan profile link)
* Transparency International (Turkmenistan profile link)
Yep, still not a great place when the only places you beat are Eritrea and the actual North Korea (as per the Reporters Without Borders report).
Turkmenistan's great struggle is not that it is terrible, but that it will continue to be terrible. It sits atop the fourth largest natural gas reserves (direct link to .pdf of the 2015 BP Statistical Review and go to page 20). But all this wealth will not reach the vast majority of the people while it has such a petty and vainglorious leader. Yes, petty enough to insist upon a yacht as a bribe. This was actually semi-openly discussed among expats in at least one of the client offices while I was there. It was never much discussed in front of Turkmen nationals since you could never be certain who actually supported the president as opposed to those who paid lip service to his ego-centrism. And with visas so difficult to come by and deportations so legitimate a threat, the trend was towards discretion around locals.
In the past, I was pulling my punches about the potential of the country. I laid out two main stumbling blocks to developing the country's resources: distribution of wealth and available labor. The labor issue is straightforward enough. People there are not well educated and the nature of the education they receive is very dogmatic and rigid. There are gains, but people will be educated only just enough to perform the work needed, not well enough to create what one might call a creative class. In its current form, the education system there will never lead to an innovative or entrepreneurial society. Additionally, Turkmen nationals need an exit visa to leave the country and get a foreign education. This further restricts which type (and how loyal) of a person is allowed out. As for the distribution of wealth, well, this report sums it up well when it says:
"Twenty percent of the Agency’s revenues go into the State budget. The other 80 percent disappear into the murky, shadow economy that President Berdymukhamedov has built though a legal, but highly unethical, system of law that he created under the noses of western officials, but which has never been analyzed, until now."
With leadership like that, Turkmenistan will never prosper. It will improve in some ways, perhaps many ways, but it will fall deeply short of its potential as long as it is led by such a petty and insecure person.
Friday, May 30, 2014
saturdays in sakhalin: in search of balance
Another Saturday, another day in the office. Of course, my employment contract does stipulate working 6 days per week, so my presence in the office today is perfectly normal, even expected. The real issue is what happens tomorrow. Another Sunday, another day in the office? Probably yes. We have still not gotten the staffing situation to the level it really needs to be at and it wears on everyone else as a result. I have been in this situation before. In the short-term, people can power through and operate like this for a few months. In the long-run, this is not sustainable. Not just for me (though I really don't ever worry about myself in this sense), but rather for the people who work lateral and below me. I am a shepherd of of sorts, though no biblical analogies are intended. This is what managing is though: tending to your staff, developing them, making sure the work is getting done, offering support, and every so often you lose people, sometimes at their own volition and sometimes at your own volition. I know I can only push people so hard before something gives. I have often wondered how hard I can be pushed. Very hard is my answer from experience, but my most difficult assignments have also been relatively short. I can sustain the pace for roughly a year so that's what I know I can do, but a single year is not a long-term solution. However, I have come to (somewhat) jokingly say that there are never the right number of employees. Either we have too many people relative to activity and revenue and need to transfer people out or we have too few people. We never have "Goldilocks" staffing levels because something is always changing. Thus, the only balance is dynamic, like moving back and forth to keep a pendulum balanced above its pivot.
Friday, January 31, 2014
saturdays in sakhalin: where am i?
Short version: city = Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk; island = Sakhalin
Slightly longer version: People often refer to this place as simply "Sakhalin" and while that's sort of correct, that's not actually the name of the city. I'm in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the largest city on the island of Sakhalin. The island is part of Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, though that was not always the case. It is worht noting that the Far Eastern Federal District is not part of Siberia. It's even further east as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Federal_District>Siberian Federal District is to the west of this region. So yes, there is a place past Siberia, though it really depends on what direction you're travelling.
Why are we all here? For the eminently originally named Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin II projects. What can I say, people like functional names. Though apparently all the fields in the Sakhalin-I project are named after birds. Probably tasty birds.
Slightly longer version: People often refer to this place as simply "Sakhalin" and while that's sort of correct, that's not actually the name of the city. I'm in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the largest city on the island of Sakhalin. The island is part of Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, though that was not always the case. It is worht noting that the Far Eastern Federal District is not part of Siberia. It's even further east as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Federal_District>Siberian Federal District is to the west of this region. So yes, there is a place past Siberia, though it really depends on what direction you're travelling.
Why are we all here? For the eminently originally named Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin II projects. What can I say, people like functional names. Though apparently all the fields in the Sakhalin-I project are named after birds. Probably tasty birds.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
the daily routine
I have now been in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk for over a month now. Time to give a basic run down of what a normal day here is like. I get up, go to work, work, go home, sleep, and repeat. Exciting, isn't it?
Ok, I kid, I kid (sort of). The typical day is slightly more compelling, though I'm not sure what you expect. My first three weeks here were actually quite atypical because of both my arrival to the location and the holiday season. Being new always means a steep learning curve. While I'm still on the curve, it's not as steep as it was my first few weeks here. The holidays were interesting as well because January 1-8 was treated as a holiday for local staff (and so the office was basically gutted for an entire week and since that time period straddled a weekend, many people took a few extra days off at the beginning and end to take a full 16 days off from work (going from Saturday, December 28 to Sunday, January 12). Now things are more even, though we're in the midst of what I will obliquely call some lumpy staffing coverage owing to factors which regular readers (if any are left) will know I never provide details on. Suffice to say, this is the hand I inherited from my manager and predecessor and it's something that can be worked through.
The set-up here is quite good, at least in terms of convenience. I usually get up between 06:00-06:30 and stroll out the door by 06:50 to head toward the bus stop. My employer runs buses to the office/base facility since it is at the edge of town (and then some). On weekdays, the bus comes at 07:13 and I'm usually at my desk between 07:30-07:40 depending on the traffic (aka: depending on how much snow is on the ground). There is a later bus, but it arrives after 09:00 and is for shamefully late employees. Office work is office work, some people to meet, things to review, numbers to crunch, e-mails to ignore, etc. Lunch is provided in an on-site cafeteria. It's nothing fancy, but a nice warm meal does eliminate the need to put any time or thought into lunch plans. From a business perspective, it's really the only sensible thing to do. The base is several kilometers from shops and restaurants so on-site meals allow employees to spend more time at work and less time eating. Well, perhaps the same amount of time actually eating, but the one minute walk to the cafeteria is much shorter than the time it would take to go out to eat every day. At the end of the day, there are a few more bus options, leaving at five past the hour from 17:05 to 20:05. Want to stay later? Then you'll be taking a taxi home unless you have your own car.
About cars, I don't have one here. I could purchase one, but lack most of the reasons others have for doing so like family or living far away from the bus stops or a need for speed or desire to go off-roading or any of those sorts of things. A car would not simplify my life. It would moderately complicate my life. Sure, it would be convenient, but you know what's even more convenient? Not having to drive to work. I can sleep on the bus (or at least close my eyes since it is a very bumpy road), read, avoid any form of socialization with grim-faced Russians, etc. I never worry about parking, being too tired to drive, or ice on the roads. I have not had a daily commute in nearly three years and have not owned a car in more than five years. (In both Hungary and Gabon, I had an assigned company vehicle and drove myself to work.)
Regardless of my commute to and from work, I usually get home in the evenings, have a light dinner, water my plants, and consume some fiction-based media. It's as exciting as it sounds. Yes, I've been out a few times, but until our lumpy work coverage gets sorted out in a few weeks, I do not have much time for making it rain at da club. Seriously, the days here take on a routine, much like anywhere else. Routine drives most days, provides normalcy (and often sanity), and generally keeps things far less dramatic than they otherwise would be.
Ok, I kid, I kid (sort of). The typical day is slightly more compelling, though I'm not sure what you expect. My first three weeks here were actually quite atypical because of both my arrival to the location and the holiday season. Being new always means a steep learning curve. While I'm still on the curve, it's not as steep as it was my first few weeks here. The holidays were interesting as well because January 1-8 was treated as a holiday for local staff (and so the office was basically gutted for an entire week and since that time period straddled a weekend, many people took a few extra days off at the beginning and end to take a full 16 days off from work (going from Saturday, December 28 to Sunday, January 12). Now things are more even, though we're in the midst of what I will obliquely call some lumpy staffing coverage owing to factors which regular readers (if any are left) will know I never provide details on. Suffice to say, this is the hand I inherited from my manager and predecessor and it's something that can be worked through.
The set-up here is quite good, at least in terms of convenience. I usually get up between 06:00-06:30 and stroll out the door by 06:50 to head toward the bus stop. My employer runs buses to the office/base facility since it is at the edge of town (and then some). On weekdays, the bus comes at 07:13 and I'm usually at my desk between 07:30-07:40 depending on the traffic (aka: depending on how much snow is on the ground). There is a later bus, but it arrives after 09:00 and is for shamefully late employees. Office work is office work, some people to meet, things to review, numbers to crunch, e-mails to ignore, etc. Lunch is provided in an on-site cafeteria. It's nothing fancy, but a nice warm meal does eliminate the need to put any time or thought into lunch plans. From a business perspective, it's really the only sensible thing to do. The base is several kilometers from shops and restaurants so on-site meals allow employees to spend more time at work and less time eating. Well, perhaps the same amount of time actually eating, but the one minute walk to the cafeteria is much shorter than the time it would take to go out to eat every day. At the end of the day, there are a few more bus options, leaving at five past the hour from 17:05 to 20:05. Want to stay later? Then you'll be taking a taxi home unless you have your own car.
About cars, I don't have one here. I could purchase one, but lack most of the reasons others have for doing so like family or living far away from the bus stops or a need for speed or desire to go off-roading or any of those sorts of things. A car would not simplify my life. It would moderately complicate my life. Sure, it would be convenient, but you know what's even more convenient? Not having to drive to work. I can sleep on the bus (or at least close my eyes since it is a very bumpy road), read, avoid any form of socialization with grim-faced Russians, etc. I never worry about parking, being too tired to drive, or ice on the roads. I have not had a daily commute in nearly three years and have not owned a car in more than five years. (In both Hungary and Gabon, I had an assigned company vehicle and drove myself to work.)
Regardless of my commute to and from work, I usually get home in the evenings, have a light dinner, water my plants, and consume some fiction-based media. It's as exciting as it sounds. Yes, I've been out a few times, but until our lumpy work coverage gets sorted out in a few weeks, I do not have much time for making it rain at da club. Seriously, the days here take on a routine, much like anywhere else. Routine drives most days, provides normalcy (and often sanity), and generally keeps things far less dramatic than they otherwise would be.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
actual first impression
I need to amend my previous post. My first impression upon arrival to Sakhalin was that there was only one conveyor belt in the baggage claim area. This was reminiscent of the airport in Turkmenbasy, Turkmenistan. It's quite a nice looking airport, see here and here. However, the Turkmenbasy airport has a single very long baggage claim conveyor. It snakes around an entire large room that must be close to 50 meters long. It baffles me why they'd make it like that when they could have easily had two (or more) shorter conveyors which would of course mitigate the problems whenever the conveyor needs maintenance. Anyway, that was such a typically Turkmenistan thing, to have something be deliberately fancy for the sake of fanciness (or perhaps an attempt at some obscure world record) that was ultimately not very practical.
Back to the topic at hand, the lonely single conveyor in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport (IATA code is UUS for reference). This seems to have been borne more out of necessity given how tiny that room is relative to the number of passengers it is attempting to accommodate. Also, the passengers displayed the same poor baggage claim etiquette as nearly everywhere else I've been which is that they crowded around the belt and did not let anyone else in to reach their bags. This didn't really matter to me because my bags did what they nearly always do which is arrive almost last (but never get lost!) so they crowds had finally thinned by that point.
Bonus picture: Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport.
Back to the topic at hand, the lonely single conveyor in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport (IATA code is UUS for reference). This seems to have been borne more out of necessity given how tiny that room is relative to the number of passengers it is attempting to accommodate. Also, the passengers displayed the same poor baggage claim etiquette as nearly everywhere else I've been which is that they crowded around the belt and did not let anyone else in to reach their bags. This didn't really matter to me because my bags did what they nearly always do which is arrive almost last (but never get lost!) so they crowds had finally thinned by that point.
Bonus picture: Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
our long trans-national nightmare is over
I'm back. Now from Russia with Love. It works on two whole levels. Additionally, the title is an adapted version of the esteemable Gerald Ford's inauguration speech. Or perhaps that one classic speech from George W. Bush. It's sometimes hard to tell those great orators apart.
My days in Turkmenistan and its censorship of blogger.com and terrible bandwidth are over. I'm now in the fair city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, a place seemingly near the edge of the Earth, which you'd think would be hard to find on a spherical body but yet here we are. I have been here nearly two weeks now. First impressions: there is snow, lots of snow and many of the cars are right-hand drive which is presumably a function of the the island's proximity to Japan. A bonus observation: I have heard fireworks every night I have been here, not just last night. The locals seem to really dig blowing things up. More to come soon. Maybe.
My days in Turkmenistan and its censorship of blogger.com and terrible bandwidth are over. I'm now in the fair city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, a place seemingly near the edge of the Earth, which you'd think would be hard to find on a spherical body but yet here we are. I have been here nearly two weeks now. First impressions: there is snow, lots of snow and many of the cars are right-hand drive which is presumably a function of the the island's proximity to Japan. A bonus observation: I have heard fireworks every night I have been here, not just last night. The locals seem to really dig blowing things up. More to come soon. Maybe.
Monday, July 15, 2013
tuesdays in turkmenistan: the potential of Galkynysh
I have been sitting on this post for a couple weeks. Now that I'm back in the blogging spirit, this is a good time to post. It would have come out last week had it not been for my visit to Ashgabat last week. In fact, my visit was partially related to this subject, but alas, no further details can be provided on the matter.
There is a massive gas field in Turkmenistan called Galkynysh. The field, which used to be called Yoloten, is massive. One of the largest gas fields in the world ever to exist. If you have ever heard me speak about the potential of this country and where its financial future lies, it is this field I have in mind. It is the country's goal to produce gas from this field soon, and eventually reach quantities that will sustain pipelines to China, India, Europe and anywhere else they can find a market. Turkmenistan has the opportunity to become like some of the oil-rich Gulf nations. High resource wealth mixed with low local population means a very-high average standard of living can be achieved. There are two major social stumbling blocks in addition to the many technical and geopolitical ones. Only touching on the technical aspects briefly, I want to mention that this is not an easy field. Drilling will require a reasonably high level of technical sophistication. In terms of geopolitics, gas means pipelines for Turkmenistan as a land-locked nation (ignoring the Caspian). Pipelines need to be built and maintained. Ok, there's one to China now (in addition to the one through Kazakhstan and Russia). But building one to India, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, will not be easy and a trans-Caspian line to Azerbaijan and eventually Europe will also meet with resistance, mostly from Russia. I think these are actually all fixable problems. Some of it is technical, some is political, and money will carry the day to get things done.
Back to the social stumbling blocks. First, a high average standard of living does not mean a good standard of living for everyone. Some people will do very well, and there are always some who do exceedingly well for themselves in places like this, while others will do moderately well (ie: the future professional/middle class), and there will be those who do not fare so well. Perhaps progress will bypass their lives or social programs will not reach all corners of the country or perhaps plain old ethnic divisions will continue. Ashgabat has become a shining marble beacon already, but the rest of the country has yet to be so fortunate. How long and how extreme can the disparity become until it creates unrest? The next 10-20 years will be interesting to say the least.
The other social stumbling block is labor. As in, where does the labor come from? Does Turkmenistan want to go the same direction as some of the Gulf states and import significant amounts of expats? For its own sake, I think it should not and in practical terms, it may not be able to anyway. Countries like Bahrain and Qatar have less than one million citizens each, but have total populations that are more than half-expat. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer with less than a tenth the population of the U.S. (which itself produces more oil than most people realize). Turkmenistan, with 5-6 million residents does not seem eager to embrace significant amounts of outside labor. For sure it exists, as evidenced by significant numbers of Turkish construction projects. However, the Chinese, despite their investments into the country, have been rebuffed many times and only a limited number of visas are available for Chinese nationals to support the operations of the Chinese state company CNPC in the eastern part of Turkmenistan. And vast waves of cheap labor from India and Southeast Asia like you see in Bahrain, Qatar, and U.A.E., have yet to flood into the country. There are obvious hurdles in terms of getting visas, but additionally, local labor is still relatively cheap. The challenge lies with the quality of local labor. It would benefit the country to significantly invest in education and health services. The benefits are numerous: educated labor force, reduced population growth (which is rather high), and the ability to employ the nation's citizens in the nation's own projects. This allows more of the investment to stay in the country instead of going abroad with expats like myself.
There is so much potential here. Turkmenistan has before it so much opportunity, but fulfilling these opportunities depends on the people here, especially the political leaders.
There is a massive gas field in Turkmenistan called Galkynysh. The field, which used to be called Yoloten, is massive. One of the largest gas fields in the world ever to exist. If you have ever heard me speak about the potential of this country and where its financial future lies, it is this field I have in mind. It is the country's goal to produce gas from this field soon, and eventually reach quantities that will sustain pipelines to China, India, Europe and anywhere else they can find a market. Turkmenistan has the opportunity to become like some of the oil-rich Gulf nations. High resource wealth mixed with low local population means a very-high average standard of living can be achieved. There are two major social stumbling blocks in addition to the many technical and geopolitical ones. Only touching on the technical aspects briefly, I want to mention that this is not an easy field. Drilling will require a reasonably high level of technical sophistication. In terms of geopolitics, gas means pipelines for Turkmenistan as a land-locked nation (ignoring the Caspian). Pipelines need to be built and maintained. Ok, there's one to China now (in addition to the one through Kazakhstan and Russia). But building one to India, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, will not be easy and a trans-Caspian line to Azerbaijan and eventually Europe will also meet with resistance, mostly from Russia. I think these are actually all fixable problems. Some of it is technical, some is political, and money will carry the day to get things done.
Back to the social stumbling blocks. First, a high average standard of living does not mean a good standard of living for everyone. Some people will do very well, and there are always some who do exceedingly well for themselves in places like this, while others will do moderately well (ie: the future professional/middle class), and there will be those who do not fare so well. Perhaps progress will bypass their lives or social programs will not reach all corners of the country or perhaps plain old ethnic divisions will continue. Ashgabat has become a shining marble beacon already, but the rest of the country has yet to be so fortunate. How long and how extreme can the disparity become until it creates unrest? The next 10-20 years will be interesting to say the least.
The other social stumbling block is labor. As in, where does the labor come from? Does Turkmenistan want to go the same direction as some of the Gulf states and import significant amounts of expats? For its own sake, I think it should not and in practical terms, it may not be able to anyway. Countries like Bahrain and Qatar have less than one million citizens each, but have total populations that are more than half-expat. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer with less than a tenth the population of the U.S. (which itself produces more oil than most people realize). Turkmenistan, with 5-6 million residents does not seem eager to embrace significant amounts of outside labor. For sure it exists, as evidenced by significant numbers of Turkish construction projects. However, the Chinese, despite their investments into the country, have been rebuffed many times and only a limited number of visas are available for Chinese nationals to support the operations of the Chinese state company CNPC in the eastern part of Turkmenistan. And vast waves of cheap labor from India and Southeast Asia like you see in Bahrain, Qatar, and U.A.E., have yet to flood into the country. There are obvious hurdles in terms of getting visas, but additionally, local labor is still relatively cheap. The challenge lies with the quality of local labor. It would benefit the country to significantly invest in education and health services. The benefits are numerous: educated labor force, reduced population growth (which is rather high), and the ability to employ the nation's citizens in the nation's own projects. This allows more of the investment to stay in the country instead of going abroad with expats like myself.
There is so much potential here. Turkmenistan has before it so much opportunity, but fulfilling these opportunities depends on the people here, especially the political leaders.
Monday, July 01, 2013
a June wash
Whelp, June has become a wash of no posts. This issue with the censorship and needing to do some VPN hoop-jumping has deeply dampened my interest in writing. I end up with all these ideas and then go to this page and of course it is blocked. I really need to be writing posts offline and then doing the hoop-jumping at a more convenient time. The problem is compounded by two other things. First, I was home part of June and I oddly don't blog much while home. It's a mix of being busy with more interesting things and simply from being incredibly tired. Finding energy while home is never easy since the work never quite goes away and is always there in the back of my mind. This brings me to the second item which is work itself. I am busy. Perhaps not in a way that translate to lots of revenue for the company, but it feels like I am much busier at work than I used to be. Things are always in transition, but this is more transition-y than usual and I feel like I'm running hard just to stay in place.
Monday, April 15, 2013
tuesdays not in turkmenistan: dubai edition
This post is a lie, sort of. It’s not actually Tuesday, April 16. In fact, it’s more than 10 days later. However, I have been busy and my time has been better spent pursuing other endeavors of which will largely not be discussed here. Despite this, the contents of this post are quite true. And be true, I mean filled with conjecture, opinion, and hearsay.
I was not in Dubai long. All told, it was less than 80 hours on the ground there. And I did not see all that much of the place either. However, it essentially conformed to what I expected. Perhaps I only saw what I wished to see and my assessment will simply reflect all my preconceived notions, most of which were negative. My preconceived notions about Dubai were that it is basically Las Vegas without the gambling and strip clubs (but it does have hookers [or whatever term you wish to use]). Sand? Check. Hot? Check. Lots of shopping? Check. Lots of restaurants? Check. People from all over the world working there? Check. Interesting architecture? Check. Wide roads but oddly bad traffic? Check. No soul? Check. That’s basically what I saw. Perhaps there is a vibrant local culture where all the locals are contributing to fantastic advancements in the arts and sciences. However, I could not help but notice the city was powered by expatriate labor. (Perhaps this is an ironic comment from someone who has worked as an expat for the last four years, but at least everywhere I go our workforce is overwhelmingly local in content.) As I noted earlier, I did not see much, but what I saw was this. Locals were working government jobs. Things like immigration officers and police. But nearly everyone else was an expat. Every taxi cab I was in was driven by a foreigner (though that would arguably be true in much of the world), the hotel staff was an interesting mix of more non-locals, and the restaurant we had the course dinner at was staffed by additional foreigners.
A side note for now. I was in Dubai for a training course for work. Hence my presence there in the first place and why there was a “course dinner” when we all went out as a group and had dinner together. Ironically enough, in true Las Vegas fashion, we went to a buffet. And it was not even a very good buffet. I would say it was distinctly worse than any decent Vegas buffet I have ever been too. To further add to the Vegas comparison, the buffet was at a big hotel and resort. A few guys in the course who had been there before basically compared it to Disneyland. You can even swim with dolphins at the resort part. I can only assume they are chronically depressed dolphins.
Back to all the foreigners at the hotel. We stayed in a nice business hotel and also had the training course in one of their seminar rooms. The coordinate that our instructor interacted with was either from the U.K., Australia, or South Africa. I realize that it is terrible I could not distinguish her accent, but I only her heard speak a few times and not very clearly at that. Regardless, she was clearly a “professional” of sorts. Meanwhile, other hotel employees like the housekeeping staff and the people who stocked the little room outside our main conference room with food and water (waiters I suppose) were all either African or Southeast Asian. No kidding. There was a bar in the lobby area where we had some drinks after the last day of the course. Staffed by more expats. I cannot recall a single instance of seeing a local doing what could be called blue-collar or service work.
Dubai is a strange and magical city in this regards. It is also totally unsustainable.
I was not in Dubai long. All told, it was less than 80 hours on the ground there. And I did not see all that much of the place either. However, it essentially conformed to what I expected. Perhaps I only saw what I wished to see and my assessment will simply reflect all my preconceived notions, most of which were negative. My preconceived notions about Dubai were that it is basically Las Vegas without the gambling and strip clubs (but it does have hookers [or whatever term you wish to use]). Sand? Check. Hot? Check. Lots of shopping? Check. Lots of restaurants? Check. People from all over the world working there? Check. Interesting architecture? Check. Wide roads but oddly bad traffic? Check. No soul? Check. That’s basically what I saw. Perhaps there is a vibrant local culture where all the locals are contributing to fantastic advancements in the arts and sciences. However, I could not help but notice the city was powered by expatriate labor. (Perhaps this is an ironic comment from someone who has worked as an expat for the last four years, but at least everywhere I go our workforce is overwhelmingly local in content.) As I noted earlier, I did not see much, but what I saw was this. Locals were working government jobs. Things like immigration officers and police. But nearly everyone else was an expat. Every taxi cab I was in was driven by a foreigner (though that would arguably be true in much of the world), the hotel staff was an interesting mix of more non-locals, and the restaurant we had the course dinner at was staffed by additional foreigners.
A side note for now. I was in Dubai for a training course for work. Hence my presence there in the first place and why there was a “course dinner” when we all went out as a group and had dinner together. Ironically enough, in true Las Vegas fashion, we went to a buffet. And it was not even a very good buffet. I would say it was distinctly worse than any decent Vegas buffet I have ever been too. To further add to the Vegas comparison, the buffet was at a big hotel and resort. A few guys in the course who had been there before basically compared it to Disneyland. You can even swim with dolphins at the resort part. I can only assume they are chronically depressed dolphins.
Back to all the foreigners at the hotel. We stayed in a nice business hotel and also had the training course in one of their seminar rooms. The coordinate that our instructor interacted with was either from the U.K., Australia, or South Africa. I realize that it is terrible I could not distinguish her accent, but I only her heard speak a few times and not very clearly at that. Regardless, she was clearly a “professional” of sorts. Meanwhile, other hotel employees like the housekeeping staff and the people who stocked the little room outside our main conference room with food and water (waiters I suppose) were all either African or Southeast Asian. No kidding. There was a bar in the lobby area where we had some drinks after the last day of the course. Staffed by more expats. I cannot recall a single instance of seeing a local doing what could be called blue-collar or service work.
Dubai is a strange and magical city in this regards. It is also totally unsustainable.
Monday, December 31, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: a new year, no promises
For sophisticates like myself living 13 hours ahead of the lagging West Coasters, the New Year has already arrived. In fact, it arrived nearly 12 hours ago to great and glorious fanfare for the neutral nation of Turkmenistan. And we were playing Mario Kart Wii when it happened. It was as awesome as you think it sounds.
Interestingly enough, yesterday was a holiday in Turkmenistan. Well, sort of. By decree from the great and glorious neutral leader of Turkmenistan, they did a bit of horse-trading for the days. Basically, Saturday was a "normal" working day and Monday become part of the weekend in its place. So people with "normal" jobs had Sunday (as is typical), Monday (traded for Saturday), and today (New Year) off. Strange and magical indeed. Of course, the business I'm in does not take days off. In fact, Sunday was a ridiculous mash up of semi-panicked activity to get a few things out the door. In the end, it's yet another day off added to the already absurdly long list of public holidays in Turkmenistan.
Of course, since you are reading this, you are literate. It also means I'm back after a four week hiatus. I'm not sure where I have been. It was dark and a bit stuffy, so perhaps a broom closet or stuck under a large tea cozy, but I'm free once again. Free to post intermittent and irregular updates and also free to travel back Stateside on Friday. Eight weeks in this time and it is time to start taking some of my accrued days off. I have a few small items for myself, but do wish to share with people when I get back. The most novel one is the English-language Turkmen newspaper I snagged while I stayed in a hotel in Ashgabat earlier in my rotation. (Why was I in a hotel and not a staff house? The staff houses were full since several people were in town. Why was I in Ashgabat? Business totally and in no way related to activities of the CIA. Yes, that sounds right.)
I'm not sure what the game plan is while I am in the U.S. There are some nebulous plans to visit a guy from work who lives out in South Carolina. Perhaps a swing through my storage place and then a drive back across the Southwest with a stop in Los Angeles. It's all quite wonderfully vague. And something about furniture moving.
Interestingly enough, yesterday was a holiday in Turkmenistan. Well, sort of. By decree from the great and glorious neutral leader of Turkmenistan, they did a bit of horse-trading for the days. Basically, Saturday was a "normal" working day and Monday become part of the weekend in its place. So people with "normal" jobs had Sunday (as is typical), Monday (traded for Saturday), and today (New Year) off. Strange and magical indeed. Of course, the business I'm in does not take days off. In fact, Sunday was a ridiculous mash up of semi-panicked activity to get a few things out the door. In the end, it's yet another day off added to the already absurdly long list of public holidays in Turkmenistan.
Of course, since you are reading this, you are literate. It also means I'm back after a four week hiatus. I'm not sure where I have been. It was dark and a bit stuffy, so perhaps a broom closet or stuck under a large tea cozy, but I'm free once again. Free to post intermittent and irregular updates and also free to travel back Stateside on Friday. Eight weeks in this time and it is time to start taking some of my accrued days off. I have a few small items for myself, but do wish to share with people when I get back. The most novel one is the English-language Turkmen newspaper I snagged while I stayed in a hotel in Ashgabat earlier in my rotation. (Why was I in a hotel and not a staff house? The staff houses were full since several people were in town. Why was I in Ashgabat? Business totally and in no way related to activities of the CIA. Yes, that sounds right.)
I'm not sure what the game plan is while I am in the U.S. There are some nebulous plans to visit a guy from work who lives out in South Carolina. Perhaps a swing through my storage place and then a drive back across the Southwest with a stop in Los Angeles. It's all quite wonderfully vague. And something about furniture moving.
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: wrong ali
There's someone who works for one of our clients with the name Muhammad Ali. Actually, it's not spelled exactly like that, and he's obviously not the boxer, but every time I hear his name, it makes me want to say, "You spoke with Muhammad Ali? How was that?" This must be the curse of people who share names with famous people. You hear the same jokes time and time again so no matter how original someone thinks they are being, you have already heard the line before.
Even a seemingly not-especially-unique name like my last name attracts countless comments. (According the 1990 U.S. census, the last name of Love was the 330-something most common. I'd find you a link, but our network here has become insufferably slow.) For the most part, the comments are positive:
Someone: "Love? Really? That's such a cool name."
Me: "Yeah, it's working out pretty well so I've decided to keep it."
In all fairness, it is a good name. Short, rarely mispronounced, makes you memorable in a non-negative way, women seem interested in pairing their first name with it, etc. You learn to take it in stride, though the jokes do get old. I cannot recall the last original one someone said when referencing my last name. Still, better than being named Smith or Jones.
Even a seemingly not-especially-unique name like my last name attracts countless comments. (According the 1990 U.S. census, the last name of Love was the 330-something most common. I'd find you a link, but our network here has become insufferably slow.) For the most part, the comments are positive:
Someone: "Love? Really? That's such a cool name."
Me: "Yeah, it's working out pretty well so I've decided to keep it."
In all fairness, it is a good name. Short, rarely mispronounced, makes you memorable in a non-negative way, women seem interested in pairing their first name with it, etc. You learn to take it in stride, though the jokes do get old. I cannot recall the last original one someone said when referencing my last name. Still, better than being named Smith or Jones.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: where there was no thanksgiving
And never will be.
That sounds a bit gloomy. Actually, I did get something from my embassy while I was in Ashgabat last week. I received an invitation to U.S. Culture Days in Ashgabat. Sadly, but not really as that is not the emotion I experienced, I flew back to Balkanabat a day before the series of events started. I actually passed the invitation along to my manager. While he is not from the U.S., he previously worked there and his children were born there so they are U.S. citizens.
Interestingly enough, I saw a news piece on the event last night while flipping through the channels. Wait, first a bit about the channels.
We used to have various television channels. Let's say about 12-15 working channels. Over time, fewer and fewer of them were working owing to poor service and whatever kind of chicanery goes on here that I would rather not know about. This past weekend, just three days ago, they restored channels, though not all the same ones as we had before. One of them happens to be a local Turkmenistan television channel and this is what I saw last night.
During the segment, there was a voice-over presumably describing the performance. I assume the performers were part of the Della Mae bluegrass group based on some rigorous process of elimination while looking at the schedule in the link above. In shots that showed the audience, they seemed to be comprised of politely sitting schoolchildren, perhaps ages 11-14, who were not there on their own volition. Despite it being a Saturday, there were all wearing the traditional schoolgirl dress and hat, much like these students though they are older. And while they were a polite audience, they seemed less than enthused, no doubt attending not entirely on their own accord.
I wish I could get a TV Guide equivalent for the local news channel. I only know a few shows that will be on at certain times and this is because they are on the TVs in the airports while I wait for my flights to and from Balkanabat. Around 13:00, there is a program where performers play some sort of traditional stringed instrument. I believe they are called dutars. That's what we see while waiting for the ASB-BLK flight. The return leg usually has a news program on around 15:00. It often features government officials standing in front of either a carpet or a picture of the President or both while they update the President with various reports. I cannot tell if the news does a voice-over of this or not as the audio is never on in the BLK airport. Sometimes, they cutaway to show the President sitting at a large U-shaped desk with three monitors along one side, a laptop on the other side, and him looking very serious. His computer setup is undoubtedly pretty sweet, for sure he's a big Minecraft fan.
What I find most fascinating is the English-language reporting they did for a while last night. Two questions came to me. First, who is the target audience of an English-language broadcast that only airs in Turkmenistan? (Related question is why anyone like myself would consider the news to be impartial.) Second, could they have found someone with better English-language skills to read that segment. The fellow's accent was thick and the enunciation non-existent. I had to listen for a while to be sure he was actually speaking English.
In summary, I had curry for Thanksgiving.
That sounds a bit gloomy. Actually, I did get something from my embassy while I was in Ashgabat last week. I received an invitation to U.S. Culture Days in Ashgabat. Sadly, but not really as that is not the emotion I experienced, I flew back to Balkanabat a day before the series of events started. I actually passed the invitation along to my manager. While he is not from the U.S., he previously worked there and his children were born there so they are U.S. citizens.
Interestingly enough, I saw a news piece on the event last night while flipping through the channels. Wait, first a bit about the channels.
We used to have various television channels. Let's say about 12-15 working channels. Over time, fewer and fewer of them were working owing to poor service and whatever kind of chicanery goes on here that I would rather not know about. This past weekend, just three days ago, they restored channels, though not all the same ones as we had before. One of them happens to be a local Turkmenistan television channel and this is what I saw last night.
During the segment, there was a voice-over presumably describing the performance. I assume the performers were part of the Della Mae bluegrass group based on some rigorous process of elimination while looking at the schedule in the link above. In shots that showed the audience, they seemed to be comprised of politely sitting schoolchildren, perhaps ages 11-14, who were not there on their own volition. Despite it being a Saturday, there were all wearing the traditional schoolgirl dress and hat, much like these students though they are older. And while they were a polite audience, they seemed less than enthused, no doubt attending not entirely on their own accord.
I wish I could get a TV Guide equivalent for the local news channel. I only know a few shows that will be on at certain times and this is because they are on the TVs in the airports while I wait for my flights to and from Balkanabat. Around 13:00, there is a program where performers play some sort of traditional stringed instrument. I believe they are called dutars. That's what we see while waiting for the ASB-BLK flight. The return leg usually has a news program on around 15:00. It often features government officials standing in front of either a carpet or a picture of the President or both while they update the President with various reports. I cannot tell if the news does a voice-over of this or not as the audio is never on in the BLK airport. Sometimes, they cutaway to show the President sitting at a large U-shaped desk with three monitors along one side, a laptop on the other side, and him looking very serious. His computer setup is undoubtedly pretty sweet, for sure he's a big Minecraft fan.
What I find most fascinating is the English-language reporting they did for a while last night. Two questions came to me. First, who is the target audience of an English-language broadcast that only airs in Turkmenistan? (Related question is why anyone like myself would consider the news to be impartial.) Second, could they have found someone with better English-language skills to read that segment. The fellow's accent was thick and the enunciation non-existent. I had to listen for a while to be sure he was actually speaking English.
In summary, I had curry for Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: airport shenanigans
The Ashgabat airport was a hot mess if silliness today when we arrived from Balkanabat this afternoon. It was evidently in the starting throes of a closure as the President will be arriving from Turkmenbasy later this evening (but hopefully before my own departure). When we landed, we were shunted away from the normal egress points of the airport for arriving flights back upstairs to the departing flight area. And then loaded onto buses. Buses that took us beyond the grounds of the airport and then we got off. Simple. Makes total sense.
Admittedly, our drivers who were supposed to pick us up rode in on the buses and then told us to get on since they had parked the cars near where the buses would be dropping us off. What I found amusing is that a group of about 15 Chinese guys who were on the flight from Balkanabat to Ashgabat refused to get on the buses. The police were yelling at them, they were yelling back, obviously no one was understanding anyone. They ended up going back inside the airport. I hope that worked out well for them.
Admittedly, our drivers who were supposed to pick us up rode in on the buses and then told us to get on since they had parked the cars near where the buses would be dropping us off. What I found amusing is that a group of about 15 Chinese guys who were on the flight from Balkanabat to Ashgabat refused to get on the buses. The police were yelling at them, they were yelling back, obviously no one was understanding anyone. They ended up going back inside the airport. I hope that worked out well for them.
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: wherein Turkish Airlines has let me down
I want to preface this post by stating that I have never flown on Turkish Airlines. However, I have spent several hours and called them 47 different times in an attempt to find a missing bag belonging to a colleague. It is a near universal truth that airlines typically have terrible customer service. Outside of a couple of the higher-end airlines (Qatar Airlines, Cathay Pacific perhaps) or possession of elite status, the call center experience is a byzantine maze of recursive despair. First, some back story!
Actually, this fellow is not technically a colleague. He is a contractor from Aberdeen who was here to perform some calibrations on equipment but I say colleague in my communiques to Turkish Airlines to keep it simple and will do the same here. He arrived to Ashgabat and his bag did not make it with him. He came to Balkanabat, spent a week here, then went back to Ashgabat. His bag had still not been found. He then flew to Almaty, Kazakhstan (for more calibration work) and his bag finally turned up in Ashgabat the day after he left. Wonderful timing. A plan was hatched, evidently a deeply complicated one, to send his bag from Ashgabat to Almaty via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. Sadly, the tale of woe continued for my colleague as his bag never arrived in Almaty. There was quite a bit of insistence that it had, but several checks of the Almaty airport, luggage claim area, and lost and found told a different story.
At this point, I was probably 10-15 calls in already. It is astonishingly hard to find a phone number for the Turkish Airlines desk at the Almaty airport. The numbers on their website are definitely not the same as what their customer service line provided. Either way, no one picked up any of the numbers and people from our office in Almaty went down to the airport to check in person. Now was the time for further calls. I was armed with the certainty that the bag was not in Almaty and a scan of the baggage tag so I definitely had all the correct numbers, dates, flights to provide to Turkish Airlines. Good golly, what a mess. There are three primary numbers I have been calling, though only one of them leads to anyone remotely helpful. General customer service is a debacle. Some second number for luggage issues is not passable. A third number with an extension is marginal and depending on who you speak with, might yield some semblance of progress.
A word of advice to Turkish Airlines is that your departments should be staffed during business hours. If I call and everyone is busy, then put me on hold where I can listen to that snazzy two-line jingle of yours over and over and over. We are Turkish Airlines. We are globally yours. What you should not do is let the phone ring 11 times, then have the call end at the start of a 12th ring. I did not enter my pin code to call internationally, dial your 12-digit number, press 9 for English and then a 5-digit extension just so your system could hang up on me after 54 seconds. A second word of advice is that you should properly train whoever I spoke with on Saturday as he was incredibly rude and condescending. Also, I found his insistence that the airline possessed no system for tracking baggage utterly bizarre. Seriously, the guy insisted that the airline could not track baggage. Maybe my dear readers are thinking that he did not have access to the system to track the baggage based on the bar code and number. That’s what I thought too so I asked him if he could tell me what number to call to get someone who could track the baggage based on the luggage tag information. No one! Well, no one can according to him. The only logical conclusion based on this information is that nearly every bag reaches its final destination through nothing short of sheer happenstance and luck of the utmost proportions.
I try, I really do try to be polite when I’m on the phone with customer service. I understand it’s a generally shitty job and 90% of the complaints are routine and most of the callers are angry and frustrated so they are not very polite. Knowing all this makes me want to be as polite as possible because I want to live by the no-asshole rule. I realize the world is not so simple and that abiding by Bill and Ted’s insistence that we “be excellent to each other” is not always easy, but there is no reason to be rude on the phone. It will not improve the level of assistance you receive and it will not make the process go faster. If anything, being rude will lead to a lower level of service as why would anyone want to go above and beyond for a jerk? Back the fellow who said bags could not be tracked. He tried my patience and I was compelled to interrupt him more than once since it was clear he was not listening to me. Part of one of the baggage codes is ASBTK. ASB stands for Ashgabat and TK stands for Turkish Airlines. I was trying to explain to him that during one of the prior times I called, the code was read to me as ASETK and I was concerned that the reason he could not see the bag in his system (which is apparently NOT a system to track bags, but only a system to log missing bags) was that perhaps the code had been mistyped. Instead of hearing me out, he kept saying that ASE is not a valid airport code and that I was wrong and should call back when I had the correct information. I was looking at a picture of the baggage tag while I was on the phone with him so I most definitely had the correct information. His continued insistence that I was wrong was very off-putting.
Sunday yielded better luck. Recall that I previously mentioned having been given some information on an even earlier call. Yeah, that was last Wednesday. Six days ago, I spoke with “Hasan” who was helpful and told me they had the bag in Istanbul. Hot damn, we were in business! I e-mailed all this to the owner of the bag along with an e-mail address he needed to send his address to and provide his claim reference number. He called, spoke with a different person, and was told they had no record of his bag. Uh, ok, that’s a bit odd, but maybe someone misunderstood and perhaps “B” does sound like “E”. (By the way, this is why I use the NATO phonetic alphabet when reading letters on the phone so ASBTK is actually Alfa-Sierra-Bravo-Tango-Kilo.) Anyway, this info on failure to find his bag came back to me on Saturday which is when I resumed my call saga and ended up with the haughty fellow who claimed the airline had no way to track bags. Sunday, I spoke with the same “Hasan” again! This time, I was armed with the shipping address to get the bag home so I gave my own e-mail and phone number and took down the information again to ensure it was correct and sent my own e-mail to atalf@tgs.aero. (TGS = Turkish Ground Services.) Two days later (today) and still no reply has led me to spend an uncannily large portion of my afternoon on the phone trying to speak with a real human instead of 11 rings and then dial tone.
I have made 25 calls today. I am sure of this, much like I am sure I possess the correct bag documentation, because I get an e-mail every time I use my PIN to make an international call. (The cost is not the issue as these route through our network, so the incremental cost is negligible, but the satellite routing does result in a bit of a lag during calls that adds to the difficulty.) I believe I have spoken to an actual person about four times. All other calls have not been answered. The sum total of my experience today is that my will to live has been crushed by the heartless automatons of the Turkish Airlines phone system. In all seriousness, this has been the most demoralizing customer service experience of my life. I called the number and extension to reach the department where “Hasan” works. I did not get a chance to speak with Hasan. Instead, providing the same information today as I had previously given to Hasan, I was told that the claim was now too old for them to see in their system and that they would transfer me to the Insurance (?) department. Sigh. I used the word recursive earlier so you might be able to guess what happened when I spoke with the folks in the Insurance department. That's right, they referred me back to where I had come from. If you ever call Turkish Airlines at +90 212 463 6363, press 9 for English then extension 15740 you get the starting department. If you enter extension 15640, you get Insurance or whoever they are. The sad thing is that I have called these numbers so often, I do not have to look them up to enter them here. They are now deeply burned into my damaged psyche. Also, if you're ever in a similar situation, you can try +90 212 468 4848, press 9 for English, then press 7 for missing luggage and +90 212 444 0849 and again press 9 for English, then press 7 for missing luggage but neither of those numbers were particularly helpful.
And now I am here. I have just entered all the relevant information into the Turkish Airlines web form and received their delightful automated reply. At least I know their system has this claim somewhere in the queue. However, even their online form is quite aggravating. It could not accept any phone number unless it was entered with no spaces. However, it had no separate field for the country code so it’s just one continuous number that is not clearly a non-Turkish number. Additionally, the flight information fields are required, but there was no red asterisk by those field indicating they were required. Also, you can only enter one flight number, which is silly since you cannot easily indicate your trip had multiple legs. All this was clarified in the text I could enter along with the recourse I have attempted thus far. We shall see if any headway can be made via this method. I can only hope for a resolution by next Tuesday lest I spend another post lambasting the shoddy customer service of Turkish Airlines.
Edit: I am aware that ASE is actually the airport code to the airport in Aspen, Colorado. The guy mentioned it was a U.S. airport during the call in the context that ASETK could not possibly be the code on the tag since Turkish Airlines does not fly there.
Actually, this fellow is not technically a colleague. He is a contractor from Aberdeen who was here to perform some calibrations on equipment but I say colleague in my communiques to Turkish Airlines to keep it simple and will do the same here. He arrived to Ashgabat and his bag did not make it with him. He came to Balkanabat, spent a week here, then went back to Ashgabat. His bag had still not been found. He then flew to Almaty, Kazakhstan (for more calibration work) and his bag finally turned up in Ashgabat the day after he left. Wonderful timing. A plan was hatched, evidently a deeply complicated one, to send his bag from Ashgabat to Almaty via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. Sadly, the tale of woe continued for my colleague as his bag never arrived in Almaty. There was quite a bit of insistence that it had, but several checks of the Almaty airport, luggage claim area, and lost and found told a different story.
At this point, I was probably 10-15 calls in already. It is astonishingly hard to find a phone number for the Turkish Airlines desk at the Almaty airport. The numbers on their website are definitely not the same as what their customer service line provided. Either way, no one picked up any of the numbers and people from our office in Almaty went down to the airport to check in person. Now was the time for further calls. I was armed with the certainty that the bag was not in Almaty and a scan of the baggage tag so I definitely had all the correct numbers, dates, flights to provide to Turkish Airlines. Good golly, what a mess. There are three primary numbers I have been calling, though only one of them leads to anyone remotely helpful. General customer service is a debacle. Some second number for luggage issues is not passable. A third number with an extension is marginal and depending on who you speak with, might yield some semblance of progress.
A word of advice to Turkish Airlines is that your departments should be staffed during business hours. If I call and everyone is busy, then put me on hold where I can listen to that snazzy two-line jingle of yours over and over and over. We are Turkish Airlines. We are globally yours. What you should not do is let the phone ring 11 times, then have the call end at the start of a 12th ring. I did not enter my pin code to call internationally, dial your 12-digit number, press 9 for English and then a 5-digit extension just so your system could hang up on me after 54 seconds. A second word of advice is that you should properly train whoever I spoke with on Saturday as he was incredibly rude and condescending. Also, I found his insistence that the airline possessed no system for tracking baggage utterly bizarre. Seriously, the guy insisted that the airline could not track baggage. Maybe my dear readers are thinking that he did not have access to the system to track the baggage based on the bar code and number. That’s what I thought too so I asked him if he could tell me what number to call to get someone who could track the baggage based on the luggage tag information. No one! Well, no one can according to him. The only logical conclusion based on this information is that nearly every bag reaches its final destination through nothing short of sheer happenstance and luck of the utmost proportions.
I try, I really do try to be polite when I’m on the phone with customer service. I understand it’s a generally shitty job and 90% of the complaints are routine and most of the callers are angry and frustrated so they are not very polite. Knowing all this makes me want to be as polite as possible because I want to live by the no-asshole rule. I realize the world is not so simple and that abiding by Bill and Ted’s insistence that we “be excellent to each other” is not always easy, but there is no reason to be rude on the phone. It will not improve the level of assistance you receive and it will not make the process go faster. If anything, being rude will lead to a lower level of service as why would anyone want to go above and beyond for a jerk? Back the fellow who said bags could not be tracked. He tried my patience and I was compelled to interrupt him more than once since it was clear he was not listening to me. Part of one of the baggage codes is ASBTK. ASB stands for Ashgabat and TK stands for Turkish Airlines. I was trying to explain to him that during one of the prior times I called, the code was read to me as ASETK and I was concerned that the reason he could not see the bag in his system (which is apparently NOT a system to track bags, but only a system to log missing bags) was that perhaps the code had been mistyped. Instead of hearing me out, he kept saying that ASE is not a valid airport code and that I was wrong and should call back when I had the correct information. I was looking at a picture of the baggage tag while I was on the phone with him so I most definitely had the correct information. His continued insistence that I was wrong was very off-putting.
Sunday yielded better luck. Recall that I previously mentioned having been given some information on an even earlier call. Yeah, that was last Wednesday. Six days ago, I spoke with “Hasan” who was helpful and told me they had the bag in Istanbul. Hot damn, we were in business! I e-mailed all this to the owner of the bag along with an e-mail address he needed to send his address to and provide his claim reference number. He called, spoke with a different person, and was told they had no record of his bag. Uh, ok, that’s a bit odd, but maybe someone misunderstood and perhaps “B” does sound like “E”. (By the way, this is why I use the NATO phonetic alphabet when reading letters on the phone so ASBTK is actually Alfa-Sierra-Bravo-Tango-Kilo.) Anyway, this info on failure to find his bag came back to me on Saturday which is when I resumed my call saga and ended up with the haughty fellow who claimed the airline had no way to track bags. Sunday, I spoke with the same “Hasan” again! This time, I was armed with the shipping address to get the bag home so I gave my own e-mail and phone number and took down the information again to ensure it was correct and sent my own e-mail to atalf@tgs.aero. (TGS = Turkish Ground Services.) Two days later (today) and still no reply has led me to spend an uncannily large portion of my afternoon on the phone trying to speak with a real human instead of 11 rings and then dial tone.
I have made 25 calls today. I am sure of this, much like I am sure I possess the correct bag documentation, because I get an e-mail every time I use my PIN to make an international call. (The cost is not the issue as these route through our network, so the incremental cost is negligible, but the satellite routing does result in a bit of a lag during calls that adds to the difficulty.) I believe I have spoken to an actual person about four times. All other calls have not been answered. The sum total of my experience today is that my will to live has been crushed by the heartless automatons of the Turkish Airlines phone system. In all seriousness, this has been the most demoralizing customer service experience of my life. I called the number and extension to reach the department where “Hasan” works. I did not get a chance to speak with Hasan. Instead, providing the same information today as I had previously given to Hasan, I was told that the claim was now too old for them to see in their system and that they would transfer me to the Insurance (?) department. Sigh. I used the word recursive earlier so you might be able to guess what happened when I spoke with the folks in the Insurance department. That's right, they referred me back to where I had come from. If you ever call Turkish Airlines at +90 212 463 6363, press 9 for English then extension 15740 you get the starting department. If you enter extension 15640, you get Insurance or whoever they are. The sad thing is that I have called these numbers so often, I do not have to look them up to enter them here. They are now deeply burned into my damaged psyche. Also, if you're ever in a similar situation, you can try +90 212 468 4848, press 9 for English, then press 7 for missing luggage and +90 212 444 0849 and again press 9 for English, then press 7 for missing luggage but neither of those numbers were particularly helpful.
And now I am here. I have just entered all the relevant information into the Turkish Airlines web form and received their delightful automated reply. At least I know their system has this claim somewhere in the queue. However, even their online form is quite aggravating. It could not accept any phone number unless it was entered with no spaces. However, it had no separate field for the country code so it’s just one continuous number that is not clearly a non-Turkish number. Additionally, the flight information fields are required, but there was no red asterisk by those field indicating they were required. Also, you can only enter one flight number, which is silly since you cannot easily indicate your trip had multiple legs. All this was clarified in the text I could enter along with the recourse I have attempted thus far. We shall see if any headway can be made via this method. I can only hope for a resolution by next Tuesday lest I spend another post lambasting the shoddy customer service of Turkish Airlines.
Edit: I am aware that ASE is actually the airport code to the airport in Aspen, Colorado. The guy mentioned it was a U.S. airport during the call in the context that ASETK could not possibly be the code on the tag since Turkish Airlines does not fly there.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: deportation (not me)
Don't worry, or worry the same amount you had previously, for I am not one of the few being deported (and neither are any of my coworkers). Perhaps that is an outcome some of you slightly hope for, presumably only because you want me to come home and not because you would like to see me spend 15 days in jail before coming home. This is the outcome, or seems to be the likely outcome, for some individuals currently in the clink. Two weeks ago, there was an industry event attended by at least one of the major operators and many service companies. Post-event, there were post-events that evidently took on an adult theme. The word is that four people, a mix of operator and service company employees, are being deported as a result of the evening's "festivities" as I shall so discretely call them.
This is the real deal. This is why newly arrived expats get the lecture about being on good behavior and not metaphorically or literally screwing around. This is why we have an informal 11pm curfew. We get well compensated for being here and it is not because it is dangerous or there is some pervasive risk of malaria. It is because when you are here, it's not that there is no freedom, but there is a distinct decrease in the amount to which I am accustomed. It would sound much more dramatic if I could boldly proclaim that that there is no freedom here, but that would not be true.
What they have is much more watching. Sure, I can walk around the street and, if I am by myself and dressed discretely, I can blend in and won't attract a second look. Well, only if a walk suitably slow enough. My typical fast and purposeful walk seems to draw quite a bit of attention since fast-walking was evidently banned. However, in any sort of expat group, our English and everyone else's appearance will out us very quickly as foreigners. That's not really a problem, but it simply means you cannot lose yourself in a sea of anonymity. People will look, some will stare. Most of the ones who stare are likely staring at the arm sleeve of tattoos belonging to a colleague. I have no doubts that the security guards at the base make a note of every time I/we exit the base and return to the base in the evenings. My presence (and that of every expat) here must be registered. If we go somewhere else like Ashgabat or one of the port cities to go offshore, then that move must be registered. I am being watched. It is not sophisticated. In fact, it is rather clumsy at times. But being in a country with very few foreigners leads to a pervasive sense of always sticking out and attracting attention, not for what you are doing, but for simply existing in this place.
I will have to take solace in the knowledge that at least I am not a spy, because this would make it terrible to do my job. Maybe.
This is the real deal. This is why newly arrived expats get the lecture about being on good behavior and not metaphorically or literally screwing around. This is why we have an informal 11pm curfew. We get well compensated for being here and it is not because it is dangerous or there is some pervasive risk of malaria. It is because when you are here, it's not that there is no freedom, but there is a distinct decrease in the amount to which I am accustomed. It would sound much more dramatic if I could boldly proclaim that that there is no freedom here, but that would not be true.
What they have is much more watching. Sure, I can walk around the street and, if I am by myself and dressed discretely, I can blend in and won't attract a second look. Well, only if a walk suitably slow enough. My typical fast and purposeful walk seems to draw quite a bit of attention since fast-walking was evidently banned. However, in any sort of expat group, our English and everyone else's appearance will out us very quickly as foreigners. That's not really a problem, but it simply means you cannot lose yourself in a sea of anonymity. People will look, some will stare. Most of the ones who stare are likely staring at the arm sleeve of tattoos belonging to a colleague. I have no doubts that the security guards at the base make a note of every time I/we exit the base and return to the base in the evenings. My presence (and that of every expat) here must be registered. If we go somewhere else like Ashgabat or one of the port cities to go offshore, then that move must be registered. I am being watched. It is not sophisticated. In fact, it is rather clumsy at times. But being in a country with very few foreigners leads to a pervasive sense of always sticking out and attracting attention, not for what you are doing, but for simply existing in this place.
I will have to take solace in the knowledge that at least I am not a spy, because this would make it terrible to do my job. Maybe.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
natural gas, working through the overhang
Natural gas storage is almost off the record high levels that have persisted since November of last year. You can see pretty clearly here or here that storage levels are nearly back to the previous highs set in the last two years. It is not so much that production has declined (because it has not as seen here, though it did decline a bit late last year before rebounding early this year) but that the market is starting to stabilize when it comes to demand and the import/export market. With domestic production up (even with fewer rigs drilling for gas), it should be no surprise that net imports are down to their lowest levels in almost 20 years.
(Many of the rigs no longer drilling for natural gas have moved to liquid, read: oil, plays. Perhaps more on this later.)
What does any of this mean? To the consumer, will you spend more or less on heating gas this winter? To the investor, how can you invest into (or out of) these changes? To the voter, are you really basing your electoral decision on this single issue?
(Many of the rigs no longer drilling for natural gas have moved to liquid, read: oil, plays. Perhaps more on this later.)
What does any of this mean? To the consumer, will you spend more or less on heating gas this winter? To the investor, how can you invest into (or out of) these changes? To the voter, are you really basing your electoral decision on this single issue?
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
tuesdays in turkmenistan: a slow recovery
Been back nearly a week and I am still not quite fully adjusted. The hectic pace of my time back in the U.S. left me with a mild cold that persisted through the trip back. Flights seem to drag out an illness, however minor it may seem. One day becomes four days. The sore throat doesn't disappear. And you're always tired.
Everything here is the same, more or less. Work is work, people are people. Same in the sense that a certain degree of change is to be expected. Activity, clients, people, projects, etc. As boring as it may seem, the mundane is needed at times. Routine is part of progress. Even the weather is mundane, finally. We are done with Summer's 40+ degC days and Winter's icy touch is not yet here. Perfect weather to go for walk's in the evening, out on some Sunday Sundae strolls in our quests to get ice cream. In a country that is seemingly unpredictable, the sameness offers a bit of calm. A calm before the storm.
Everything here is the same, more or less. Work is work, people are people. Same in the sense that a certain degree of change is to be expected. Activity, clients, people, projects, etc. As boring as it may seem, the mundane is needed at times. Routine is part of progress. Even the weather is mundane, finally. We are done with Summer's 40+ degC days and Winter's icy touch is not yet here. Perfect weather to go for walk's in the evening, out on some Sunday Sundae strolls in our quests to get ice cream. In a country that is seemingly unpredictable, the sameness offers a bit of calm. A calm before the storm.
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