Oil and Gas Accounting – SEC Issues SAB 113

Oil & Gas IndustryThe Office of the Chief Accountant through Corp Fin recently published Staff Accounting Bulletin 113.  There are four main areas of focus within this SAB which will likely affect everyone to some degree:  valuation methodology of oil and gas reserves; clarification of methodology related to write-offs of excess capitalized costs under the full cost method; extending appliability of guidance to include unconventional methods of extracting oil and gas from sand and shale;  and removing information from the guidance which is no longer necessary.

For the most part SAB 113 is pretty straight forward, however, as is the case with many of the SABs, hidden in the minutiae are land mines for the unwary or uninformed.  Correspondingly you would be well served to skim through it for any matters that might affect your company, and then discuss them with your audit firm.

Additionally, on October 26, 2009 additional Oil and Gas Rules were released.  These compliance and disclosure interpretations (C & DIs) relate to Regs S-X and S-K.  There is some important information here which is very relevant and brief!

Oil and Gas Accounting and Disclosure Rules Revised under SEC Release 33-8995

Oil & Gas AccountingLast Friday, the AICPA released a discussion draft of the audit and accounting guide for Entities with Oil and Gas  Producing Activities. While not authoritative  it is anticipated to reflect the current standards being revised by both the Financial Accounting Standards Board which sets US GAAP, and the International Accounting Standards Board, all of which is being done in response to SEC Release 33-8995.

While the changes are too voluminous and complex to even summarize here, I’ve included links and welcome questions,comments to this post or phone calls to discuss the implications.

The definitions in Rule 4-10 have been significantly changed. The pricing mechanism for reserves has been defined as a twelve month average. The definition of what is and is not considered ‘oil and gas’ has been clarified to include bitumen and other saleable hydrocarbon resources (geothermal has been excluded); the definitions of ‘proved’ ‘unproved’, ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ reserves has been amended and clarified; and the disclosure requirements under Regulation S-K has been expanded.

Additionally, the disclosure requirements within the financials and for the K’s and Q’s  have been expanded and clarified including the disclosure requirements for MD & A. The SEC continues to coordinate with the FASB and the IASB who continue to develop their standards for the oil and gas entities. Given the SEC has come to the party first, it’s hard to imagine the other standard setting bodies will do anything but comply.

Foreign filers using Form 20-F will be subject to the same disclosure as opposed to the previous disclosure requirements summarized under Appendix A. Canadian filers, however, will not be subject to the new disclosure rules given that the requirements under the Multi-Jurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS) using form 40-F are already consistent.

Now some good news. The implementation date  for registrations filed and for annual reports on Forms 10-K and 20-F is for fiscal years ending on or  after January 1, 2010. While the implementation is mandatory, “a company may not apply the new rules to disclosures in quarterly reports prior to the first annual report in which the revised disclosures are required”.  Implementation may  be deferred as discussions between the SEC, FASB and IASB go forward.