Nature of Oil and Gas Reserves

A focal point on adding modesty value

Petroleum geographic expedition and production economic sciences centre on the size and nature of oil and gas militias in relation to oil and gas monetary values. An E & A ; P company may be said to hold two cardinal assets:

1. Its people and their ability to productively happen ( or get ) , develop, and bring forth oil and gas militias and
2. Its bing militias and their ability, when produced, to bring forth positive hard currency flow.

The ability to use new engineering ( such as 3D seismal, horizontal boring, deep H2O boring and production techniques and planetary cyberspace cognition sharing ) will be a cardinal to pull offing hazards and adding one million millions in modesty value for the E & A ; P industry in the coming decennary.

E & A ; P company directions appreciate that true geographic expedition success is non measured by the success ratio, i.e. , the figure of producible Wellss to entire Wellss drilled. A ten-well plan with find of a individual big reservoir may be far more profitable than a ten-well plan discovering five marginally economic reservoirs. Not that geographic expedition success genuinely measured by the measure of militias found. In many distant parts of the universe, big measures of gas militias have been found that have comparatively limited value because transit costs to gas markets are so high.

A U.S. belongings with one million barrels of proven heavy, rancid petroleum oil militias with high hereafter development and production costs might sell for merely $ 1 million, while a to the full developed U.S. belongings with one million barrels of proven visible radiation, sweet rough oil and low production costs might sell for $ 6 million. Hence, an E & A ; P company frequently must measure possible

E & A ; P investings utilizing sophisticated computer-generated, present value analyses of expected future hard currency flows. These analyses can project estimated future monthly production volumes, grosss, and production disbursals per good over the well ‘s economic life of many old ages. From these projected hard currency flows and the needed investing, an expected one-year rate of return and other net income indexs can be calculated to measure the investing ‘s economic virtues.

Often a company ‘s records of historical production, gross, and cost classs by good and by field are instrumental in developing sensible hard currency flow projections for investing determination doing. Such analysis is illustrated in Chapter Thirty on rating of proven oil and gas belongingss.

Historical cost may be dramatically greater or less than the value of militias found. E & A ; P fiscal statement accounting recognizes the economic importance of militias in three ways:

1. Capitalized costs of belongingss with proven militias ( proven belongingss ) are amortized on a units-of-production method based on the ratio of volumes presently produced to the amount of those volumes and staying proven militias ;
2. Proved belongingss ‘ cyberspace capitalized costs are limited to certain calculations of value of the underlying proven militias ; and
3. Public companies must unwrap, with audited fiscal statements, certain auxiliary unaudited information on the proven modesty volumes and certain related values.

Even so, an E & A ; P company ‘s stock monetary value is more closely correlated to historical and expected hard currency flow from production of militias and to estimated values of militias than to historical net incomes measured under by and large accepted accounting rules, as farther discussed at the terminal of Chapter Twenty-Nine.

General accounting construction of an integrated company

The typical accounting organisational construction for an integrated oil company includes several corporate accounting subdivisions every bit good as functional accounting subdivisions.

Accounting rules for oil and gas bring forthing activities

U.S. companies follow one of two methods of fiscal accounting for crude oil E & A ; P activities: successful attempts or full cost. The successful attempts method has merely the cost of successful attempts capitalized as oil and gas belongingss. Costss of explorative dry holes, geological and geophysical ( G & A ; G ) costs in general, hold leases, and other belongings carrying costs are expensed. The net unamortized capitalized costs are besides amortized on unit-of-production methods whereby belongings acquisition costs are amortized over proven militias and belongings development costs are amortized over proven developed militias. Amortization is computed by rental ( or belongings ) or certain collections of belongingss every bit big as a field.

Under the full cost method all belongings acquisition, geographic expedition, and development costs, even dry hole costs, are capitalized as oil and gas belongingss. These costs represent fixed assets, amortized on a state by state footing utilizing a unit-of-production method based on volumes produced and staying proven militias. The net unamortized capitalized costs of oil and gas belongingss less related deferred income revenue enhancements may non transcend a ceiling dwelling chiefly of a computed present value of jutting hereafter hard currency flows, after income revenue enhancements, from the proven militias. If a company drills five exploratory Wellss for $ 1 million each and merely one finds proven militias, the successful attempts method recognizes a $ 1 million plus, whereas the full cost method would acknowledge a $ 5 million plus. However, investors and stock analysts should be concerned about what the proven militias ( the existent plus ) are worthaa‚¬ ” an sum that may be well different from the capitalized historical costs.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Successful attempts accounting in assorted signifiers has been used for over 60 old ages. Full cost accounting arose in the fiftiess. Today, about all of the 20 largest publically traded U.S. crude oil companies use successful attempts, but of the following 150 largest, about half usage successful attempts and half use full cost. By the mid-1960s many comptrollers and analysts had become concerned about the diverse accounting methods being used by oil and gas manufacturers. Not merely were both the full cost and the successful attempts methods being followed, but many fluctuations in using these two basic methods had evolved. As a consequence, it was hard to realistically compare the fiscal statements of different oil and gas companies. The AICPA ‘s 1969 Accounting Research Study No. 11 ( ARS 11 ) suggested that the full cost method of accounting should be eliminated and that merely the successful attempts method should be acceptable.

The Arab oil trade stoppage at 1973 generated intense public and Congressional involvement in the oil and gas industry. This involvement culminated in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 ( EPCA ) . Part of the Act called for the constitution of a national energy database including fiscal information. The Act required development of accounting patterns to be used by all manufacturers of oil and gas in studies to be filed with the Department of Energy. The Act provided that these accounting patterns were to be developed by the Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) but permitted the SEC to trust on accounting criterions to be developed by the bing Financial Accounting Standards Board ( FASB ) if the SEC felt those criterions were acceptable.

In December 1977 the FASB issued Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 19, entitled Financial Accounting and Reporting for Oil and Gas Producing Companies ( FAS 19 ) . This statement prescribed a version of the successful attempts method of accounting to be followed in finding which costs should be capitalized, established rules of accounting for conveyances of mineral involvements, required comprehensive deferred income revenue enhancement allotment, and required specific audited revelations of proven militias of oil and gas and of certain costs related to mineral activities. FAS 19 were to be effectual for financial old ages get downing after December 15, 1978.

FAS 19 were repeatedly criticized by crude oil company representatives at SEC hearings in March and April 1978. In August 1978, the SEC issued Accounting Series Release 253 reasoning that neither successful attempts nor full cost accounting provided meaningful fiscal statements because neither recognized the value of the oil and gas militias discovered, or reflected the find activity ‘s true income, i.e. , reserve value added less related find costs. Therefore, the SEC proposed that a new, radical method called modesty acknowledgment accounting ( RRA ) be explored.

RRA would delegate a value ( computed under instead arbitrary regulations ) to proved oil and gas militias and would reflect the alterations in value of proven oil and gas militias in net incomes as the alterations occurred. Until the RRA method and criterions for valuing new militias could be developed, the SEC would let publically held companies and other SEC registrants to utilize either the FAS 19 successful attempts method or a full cost method prescribed by the SEC for the audited primary fiscal statements. However, statements based on RRA were required to be included as auxiliary information.

In December 1978 the SEC issued Accounting Series Releases 257 and 258 on regulations for successful attempts and full cost accounting, severally. The successful attempts regulations were basically the same as those in FAS 19.

The SEC ‘s regulations appear in Appendix 1 and are referred to herein as Reg. S-X Rule 4-10.10 In May 1996 the SEC amended Reg. S-X Rule 4- 10 to cancel the specific successful attempts regulations, i.e. , Rule 4-10 ( B ) through ( H ) , and add a new Rule 4-10 ( B ) that requires those describing entities utilizing the successful attempts method to follow with FAS 19, as amended. The amended FAS 19 is reflected in Appendix 3 which presents the FASB Current Text ; subdivision Oi5 entitled Oil and Gas Producing Activities ( Oi5 ) .

Following the SEC ‘s action to let publically held companies to utilize either the full cost method or the successful attempts method of accounting, the FASB, in February 1979, issued Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 25 ( FAS 25 ) . This statement suspended for an indefinite period most of the accounting commissariats of FAS 19. FAS 25 ( which applies to public and private companies ) made the FAS 19 successful attempts method preferred but non compulsory. Certain commissariats of FAS 19 associating to deferred income revenue enhancements, mineral belongings conveyances, and the revelation demands were well retained and became effectual.

Overview OF FULL COST Accounting

The full cost method respects all costs of acquisition, geographic expedition, and development activities as being necessary for the ultimate production of militias. All of those costs are incurred with the cognition that many of them relate to activities that do non ensue straight in happening and developing militias. However, the company expects that the benefits obtained from the chances that do turn out successful, together with benefits from past finds, will be equal to retrieve the costs of all activities, both successful and unsuccessful, and give a net income. Therefore, all costs incurred in those activities are regarded as built-in to the acquisition, find, and development of militias that finally result from the attempts as a whole and are, thereby, associated with the company ‘s proven militias. Establishing a direct cause-and-effect relationship between costs incurred and specific militias discovered is non relevant to the full cost construct.

THE COST CENTER

Capitalized costs are aggregated and amortized by cost centre. Under the SEC ‘s full cost regulations, cost centres are established on a state by state footing. A stiff reading of this regulation would forbid the combine or grouping of states in a geographical country. For illustration, it would be improper to unite, as North Sea operations, activities in the Norse, U.K. , Dutch, and Danish territorial countries.

COSTS TO BE CAPITALIZED

Reg. S-X Rule 4-10 ( degree Celsius ) ( 2 ) specifies the costs to be capitalized under full cost: Costss to be capitalized. All costs associated with belongings acquisition, geographic expedition, and development activities shall be capitalized within the appropriate cost centre. Any internal costs that are capitalized shall be limited to those costs that can be straight identified with acquisition, geographic expedition, and development activities undertaken by the coverage entity for its ain history, and shall non include any costs related to production, general corporate operating expense, or similar activities.

Under these regulations, all geological and geophysical costs, transporting costs

( such as hold lease and care of land and rent records ) , dry-hole and bottom hole parts, costs of explorative Wellss ( both prohibitionist and successful ) , costs of stratigraphic trial Wellss, costs of geting belongingss, and all development costs are capitalized. When rentals are surrendered or abandoned, their costs remain a portion of the net capitalized costs of the cost centre.

Histories for full cost accounting

Few histories are alone to full cost accounting. Since all costs incurred in geographic expedition, acquisition and development activities are capitalized, there are no geographic expedition disbursal histories for a full cost company. When an unproven rental is abandoned as unsuccessful, related costs are moved from the Unproved Property Acquisition Costs history and charged to the appropriate cost centre ‘s Account 227 as a capitalized cost of unsuccessful attempts.

Exploration costs and similar carrying costs are allocated to single unproven belongingss or proved belongingss and go portion of the cost of single belongingss. Some costs, such as regional G & A ; G costs, can non be moderately allocated and may merely be charged to Account 229, Unsuccessful Exploration Costss. Account 236 is used to roll up amortisation as a individual figure for each cost centre ( each state ) , and Account 725 reflects this charge. Therefore there is no separate allowance for amortisation for each type of capitalized cost. Under the full cost method, a ceiling is placed on capitalized costs. Any write-down required because a cost centre ceiling is less than net capitalized costs is charged to Account 761 and credited to Account 237 with appropriate accommodation of deferred income revenue enhancements. No addition or loss is customarily recognized on the sale or forsaking of oil and gas assets under the full cost method. Chapter Nineteen more to the full addresses these issues in using the full cost method.

Overview of income revenue enhancement accounting

Fiscal accounting under successful attempts or full cost differs from the accounting required to calculate nonexempt income for finding regular income revenue enhancement and alternate minimal income revenue enhancement under the Internal Revenue Code. Key facets of income revenue enhancement accounting are as follows:

1. Intangible boring costs ( IDC ) for U.S. Wellss may be deducted when incurred except that certain incorporate companies must capitalise 30 per centum of the intangibles for amortisation over 60 months.
2. Taxpayers electing ab initio to subtract IDC presently have an extra one-year election to capitalise all or a part of the IDC incurred in that revenue enhancement twelvemonth. The capitalized part is amortized ratably over a 60-month period get downing in the month the costs are paid or incurred.
3. Dry hole costs for geographic expedition and development Wellss are to the full deductible when the well is determined to be dry.
4. Except for certain incorporate companies, a taxpayer bring forthing oil or gas may acquire a per centum depletion tax write-off. It by and large equals 15 per centum of well-head gross for up to 1,000 tantamount barrels per twenty-four hours of production sold but is limited by belongings to 100 per centum of nonexempt income and limited by taxpayer to 65 per centum of the taxpayer ‘s nonexempt income before subtracting depletion. The taxpayer ‘s recorded depletion tax write-off is the greater of the deliberate per centum depletion tax write-off or a cost depletion sum. Cost depletion is similar to acquisition cost amortisation under successful attempts.
5. Unproved belongings damages are non deductible ; unproven belongings costs are deducted when the belongings is abandoned.
6. Proved belongings damages and ceiling write-offs are non deductible.
7. Tangible good and development costs are depreciated, by and large over seven old ages, but may be depreciated over proven militias utilizing the unit-of-production method.