We would like to think that statistics have been one of Oil & Gas Journal's strong points for a number of years.
From the statistics pages in the back of each weekly issue to the scoreboard attached to the Newsletter to tables and charts in dedicated news stories, OGJ tries to cover the broad range of upstream and downstream data our readers need.
The credit for providing, compiling, maintaining, then extracting value from this vast body of information goes to many people in our company and many more people in oil companies, governments, associations, consulting firms, and other organizations around the world. OGJ Energy Database, OGJ statistics and survey editors, and the other OGJ editors all contribute.
Behind the numbers
Reporting raw numbers is one practice, and analyzing them quite another.
For instance, OGJ's Worldwide Production annual report, to be published Dec. 20, will contain raw numbers that will remind readers of Mexico's reduction in oil and gas reserves published earlier this year. The reduction to 24.7 billion bbl from 45 billion bbl got much attention.
Pemex released the new estimate in April at the Mexican Petroleum Engineers annual meeting in Merida.
Pemex, for the first time in its 60-year history, issued a book-length publication that covers its petroleum geology. That publication was titled, "Las reservas de hidrocarburos de Mexico" but should have been titled "Las reservas de hidrocarburos de Pemex," says sharp-eyed observer and OGJ contributor George Baker, president of Mexico Energy Intelligence, Houston.
The latest reserve estimates, effective Jan. 1, 1999, emanate from audits by Netherland, Sewell and DeGolyer & McNaughton, both Dallas-based reservoir engineering companies.
Only under Pemex
Baker points out that any reserve estimate reflects the unique cost structure and efficiencies of the developer.
"Were other production companies to operate in Mexico, additional reserves corresponding to those developers' costs and efficiencies would be discovered," Baker said.
Reserves of 23 billion bbl will last Mexico 15-20 years at 1998-99 production rates. That is plenty of time for Mexico to consider other options, including opening its upstream sector to outside operators.
So the country likely has one reserve outlook defined by Pemex's finding and lifting cost structure and a much higher reserve figure "were the efficiencies of both smaller and larger companies to be brought to bear on Mexico's resource base, in addition to those of Pemex," Baker pointed out.
In Mexico, too much attention is paid to the volume of reserves and too little is paid to the philosophy and economics of resource management, he says.
On an unrelated note, but in keeping with the notion of resource management, OGJ this week found a different way to manage its primary resource-information our readers use in their jobs-by splitting the Applied Geophysics Report into two sections after intractable deadlines tripped us up: two of the articles in the usual, center-of-the-book section reserved for special reports and a third article is in the regular exploration section.
Alan Petzet
Chief Editor-Exploration and Economics
