Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) board members approved a new Petroleum Resources Management System, ending 2 years of collaboration by SPE, the World Petroleum Council (WPC), the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), and the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers (SPEE).
The boards of the other societies also approved the system following industry review and comment. Coordinated by the SPE Oil and Gas Reserves Committee (OGRC), the new system consolidates and replaces guidance contained in the 1997 SPE-WPC Petroleum Reserves Definitions, the 2000 SPE-WPC-AAPG Petroleum Resources Classification and Definitions publications, and the 2001 SPE-WPC-SPEE Guidelines for the Evaluation of Petroleum Reserves and Resources. The new system also includes the 2005 SPE-WPC-AAPG Glossary.
ORGC Chairman John Ritter, senior director, worldwide reserves and reservoir engineering, Occidental Petroleum, said previous guidelines were “not sufficiently rigorous or encompassing to meet the requirements of industry stakeholders due to advancements in technology, the international expansion of the industry, and the increasing role of unconventional resources.” The 2007 system builds on industry efforts to achieve consistency in estimating reserves (OGJ, Oct. 23, 2006, Newsletter).
The old and new resource classification remains basically the same. The new system explains the classification in 30 pages, plus a glossary, compared with a 4-page explanation for the 2000 classification. The new explanation emphasizes project-based resources and makes recommendations on various topics, including aggregating methods and economic criteria.
The primary updates are:
- Categorization is based on quantities recovered by applying a defined project to a reservoir base case that uses the evaluator’s forecast of future conditions (including prices and costs, technology available, environmental standards, fiscal terms, and regulatory constraints) but permits an option to use constant conditions.
- Recognition of the growing importance of unconventional resources (including bitumen, oil shale, coalbed methane, and gas hydrates).
- A way to enable low, middle, and high categories of contingent resources.
- An introduction of classification modifiers.