oa Capacity Building for National Exploration Risk and Resource Assessment Programs

Petroleum Resource Assessments, which quantify and demonstrate the overall potential of a prospective area or country, are essential to a Government’s efforts to effectively evaluate and market their petroleum resources and to get them explored and ultimately produced. A rigorous Petroleum Resource Assessment is, therefore not only an academic or scientific effort, but an essential tool for a national agency to manage the country’s hydrocarbon wealth.

The authors present capacity building programs which enable regulatory authorities to more completely understand the true potential of the areas offered, so that the agency can set terms that will get fair value for the country from any hydrocarbons that are discovered, to decide which areas to offer that are most likely to attract investment, and to present a technical prospectus that will convince investors that the areas being offered have significant hydrocarbon potential AND are superior to other areas inside or outside the country that may be in competition for investment funds.