Oil and Gas Reserves: What’s it all about?

Natural resources are growing scarcer by the day, and consultants are called upon in increasing numbers to provide audits for prospect studies, contingent resource evaluations such as oil and gas reserves and resource evaluation - as well as commercial reserve estimation.

It’s a very specialist field, with Reservoir Simulation experts in high demand globally. Reserves of course can be estimated and measured for a single reservoir, a field, a nation, or even the entire world.

Oil reserves are generally considered the amount of technically and economically recoverable oil. Economically recoverable oil, as the name implies, is denoted to reserves where viability is first and foremost. Having an expert in the field, let alone a team of them, can prevent oil companies from making very costly mistakes.

The total estimation of an amount of oil in an oil reservoir is generally called “oil in place.” This applies to both producible and non-producible oil.

Of course, this is very often, if not certainly, not an indication of how much oil can actually be extracted from a reservoir. The process is not perfect, and it is a sad fact that within current petroleum extraction technologies (and the characteristics of each and every reservoir being very different, even if found in the same continent) only a fraction of what is actually there can be reached, let alone obtained.

Therefore, an Energy Resource Consultant is absolutely vital when it comes to working out how much can be gained, and whether a project is even viable. When you’re looking for a resource evaluation service, you’ll most likely turn to the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, which is a large group of professionals dedicated to oil and gas reserves and reserve evaluation. Your professional should have a proven track record of generating evaluations for public disclosure or for confidential purposes.

Whether you’re after an evaluation for the purpose of Public Reserves and Resource Reporting Audits, Acquisitions, Divestments, Mergers, Bond issues, Reserve based lending, or Portfolio management, a resource evaluation professional such as London-based ERC Equipoise will be able to assist with audits of assets of all types.