How many booms and busts should we expect? Can we survive the ups and downs? These answers are written in our industry’s history. Take a look at oil price charts from 1861 to the present. Although, these are very unscientific statements from a professional consultant, but probably about right, my limited exposure says we have a good boom and a bad bust about every 10 years.
Hal Collins, 43 years with Gulf Oil Company, retired in 1970, often commented on ‘steak some years and beans the rest’. While you were eating steak and smiling in early 2014 you may yet have that meal again in 2021. My first sorties were in the early 1970’s when the boom was on and hit the bottom a couple of times in the early 1980’s before the 1998 crash.
Who can ever forget the day oil prices went negative?
Quiet, I think I hear a boom.
We must remember the cyclical nature of our business. Life, too, seems to come in cycles, so we need only remind ourselves that surviving the tumultuous nature of the energy industry requires the same dedication and flexibility that living necessitates.
Onward has been changing with the times, suffered the busts and eaten well in the booms. We intend to remain actively engaged in our clients’ success and fervently hope that you do the same. Whether compliance, safety, logistics or continuous improvement, our people will support your operations.
This new virtual age presents challenges like no other when you are in the business of people. No matter how far technology reaches, people will still be the forefront of businesses. ‘Good’ people aren’t necessarily hard to come by but ‘great’ people require training, development, nurturing and stimulation. Whether we are in a boom or a bust we still carry on. We will continue to invest in our people for the benefit of our clients, as we believe they are not just the core of what we do but the industry as a whole.
Churchill famously spoke words we can all live by: “This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never —”
So, join Onward in that pledge. We will never give in.