Technology Focus: Reserves Management (December 2021)
Authors: Pribyl Barbara , Horton Greg 
Published: January 2022

The year 2021 has seen improvement in the market fundamentals for the petroleum industry, and merger and acquisition activity has increased. Market volatility and project investment caution, however, are expected to continue as the world adjusts to the “new normal” of the societal, environmental, and economic effects of living with COVID-19 and the climate challenge. Pressure to address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues increasingly affects the commercial viability of projects and their corresponding chance of development. Further, entities face reputational, financial, and litigation risk from not maintaining high ESG standards.

The papers selected highlight some of these considerations and the importance of using all the tools provided by the industry resource classification systems to navigate projects through to viable and sustainable development reasonably and transparently for all stakeholders.

Paper SPE 203422 provides a systematic approach to gathering data consistently and benchmarking projects based on reservoir performance that allows efficient data mining to help identify opportunities. It also highlights the importance of appropriate analogs to underpin recovery potential and field development planning.

Paper SPE 206104 highlights the deterministic incremental method for resource evaluation, specifically that it is often difficult to reconcile the incremental method with the deterministic scenario method with forecasts for a different range of uncertainty and commercial projections for the same project. These differences should be mitigated by clearly defining the project that under-pins the evaluation and applying principles from the SPE Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS).

Paper SPE 206322 illustrates the challenges faced when combining reserves and resources management systems in a merger scenario that involves classified or evaluated projects in different ways. Pleasingly, it highlights the use of subclasses, recommended by the PRMS and other global classification systems and increasingly a standard practice. Caution should be taken to ensure consistency and alignment with the PRMS subclasses. Governments globally are announcing net-zero targets and other initiatives for reaching sustainable development goals. Two recommended reading papers focus on the effect of carbon pricing and stream-lining reporting. Paper SPE 205847 describes the new Petroleum Resource Specifications and Guidelines (PRSG) published as supporting documentation for the United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC). The UNFC system is unique in considering technical feasibility separately from economic, environmental, and social viability to provide greater transparency. The UNFC framework and PRSG can be used independently or in conjunction with other classification systems for individual projects and for comparisons between petroleum and other emerging energy projects.

Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org.

SPE 202458 - What Does a Carbon Price Do to Your Reserves and Development Plans? by Daniel Lorng Wong, Gaffney Cline, et al.

SPE 203182 - Intelligent Annual Reservoir Performance Reporting System i-ARPR— A Fascinating Journey From a Concept to Reality by Muhammad Navaid Khan, ADNOC, et al.

SPE 205847 - Development of the Petroleum Resource Specifications and Guidelines (PRSG)—A Petroleum Classification System for the Energy Transition by Barbara Pribyl, Independent, et al.