Abstract
This paper presents four criteria suggested for selecting international petroleum E&P investment opportunities. It will be demonstrated how these criteria facilitate economic evaluation of E&P new business development opportunities. The two types of opportunities for which the utility of these criteria will be demonstrated, are exploration and discovered reserve opportunities, which require development, in various different fiscal regimes.
The four criteria presented are Expected Net Present Value (ENV), Risked Present Value Ratio (RPVR), Value-to-Buy-in Ratio (VBR) and Earnings per Gross-Working-Interest Barrel (E/GwiB). Earnings per Net-Working-Interest Barrel (E/NwiB) is not recommended for the screening criterion because of distortions caused by the fact that NWI Reserve calculations can be quite different for different fiscal regimes.
Three XY plots are suggested for use: (1) ENV vs. Risked Net Cost, with a slope of RPVR, (2) ENV vs. Buy-in Cost with a slope of VBR, and (3) Risked Earnings vs. Risked GWI Reserves with a slope of E/GwiB. Some examples will be shown how these plots can be used to evaluate opportunities for investment
A GWI-Barrel-Split method is also demonstrated that facilitates comparison of investment opportunities. This method splits the project BOE price into four per GwiB ratios: F&D/B, Opex/B, Government Take/B and Earnings/B. A plot showing the comparisons of the five ratios provides comprehensive information of project economics.
