Industry wants clarity on reserves, says SEC reserve rules out of date

Agency asked Gulf of Mexico operators in 2002 if they were using 1978-prescribed formation testing, historically interpreted as flow testing, to gauge deepwater reserves, a process that could take two years, cost upward of $35M

Ray Tyson

Petroleum News Houston Correspondent

In the year and half since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put companies on notice concerning their methods of accounting for oil and gas reserves, industry’s world has been turned upside down with a flurry of high-profile reserve write-downs that has both shaken investor confidence in r....

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SEC still evaluating responses

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Engineers joined SEC in 1999