UNCERTAINTY ANALYSES IN ALBPETROL COMPANY

Large companies like Albpetrol often deal with big projects. The decision to invest is based on the evaluation of the project profitability. But how certain is the calculated profitability? What if the costs overrun during implementation of the project? What if the reservoir performance is less than estimated? And what if the project completion is delayed? The focus will be on how to make people more aware of the risks and uncertainties in economic evaluations and to show the influence of these uncertainties on the economic indicators. Economic evaluations in the oil industry are carried out with cash flow models. Traditionally, these evaluations are carried out with the estimated (most likely) set of parameters. Usually some parameters, such as project costs or reserves, are varied manually as ‘sensitivities’ to show the potential impact on profitability. In this report, it is proposed to treat the uncertainties by defining stochastic parameters with carefully specified supports based on inputs from discipline experts. In this manner a better insight is gained in the distribution of the project profitability. Some of the key uncertainties in oil and gas investments have been investigated in detail. Thinking in terms of scenarios will help to take better decisions (e.g. about field development concepts) that are robust against a range of scenarios.