Abstract
Stretching the availability of non-renewable resources at reasonable prices is critical. A number of principles for achieving this are explained by reference to examples. They point to the importance of efficiency and to the need for governments, industry and financiers to act in concert to achieve it.
A classification of resources that is both complete and coherent with other management information is reviewed for its potential both to allow existing resource inventories to be compared and for its potential to serve key stakeholders as a global standard facilitating efficient operations. This is the United Nations Framework Classification for Fossil Energy and Mineral Reserves and Resources (UNFC 2009). It provides a framework for communicating information on reserves and resources by seeing recoverable quantities in light of the projects that recover them. It is reflective of economic and social conditions, industrial and technical conditions and, of course, the natural endowment – the geological conditions.
An account is given of how government and industry have been able to act in concert over nearly four decades to stretch the petroleum resources of Norway while reducing emissions and improving the return on capital employed through staging the developments.
Finally, the need for improved efficiency, demanding common standards for common markets is reiterated. The introduction of international financial reporting standards for extractive activities, now in preparation, is seen as a golden opportunity to implement this.
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Notes
- 1.
While reserves are often used to designate the quantities to be recovered by commercial projects, the use of the term is diverse. This has led to a loss of precision in the use of the term and a replacement of it by other terms in the United Nations Framework Classification for Fossil Energy and Mineral Reserves and Resources 2009. The terms “reserves” and “resources” are used here in their generic and commonly understood way.
- 2.
One of the six principal bodies of the UN (http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/).
- 3.
Now the UNECE Expert Group on Resource Classification.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter summarises intense efforts over many years and by many good teams of professionals and friends. The teams of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, of The Ministry of Water, Energy and Minerals of Tanzania, of Statoil, of the Oil and Gas Reserves Committee of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and most importantly of the UNECE’s Sustainable Energy Division and the UNECE Ad Hoc Group of Experts on the Harmonization of Fossil Energy and Mineral Resources TerminologyFootnote 3 have all made their important contributions to the understanding expressed here. Great thanks are due to Professor Richard Sinding-Larsen for taking the initiative to produce this chapter and for his constructive encouragement and comments. The views are, however, those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions named. Special acknowledgement is due to the UNECE for placing many of the issues presented in this chapter on the agenda for their 63rd Session in 2009.
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Heiberg, S., Wellmer, FW. (2012). Stretching the Availability of Non-renewable Resources. In: Sinding-Larsen, R., Wellmer, FW. (eds) Non-Renewable Resource Issues. International Year of Planet Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8679-2_9
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