Upstream Petroleum Accounting in Oil & Gas Industry

Upstream accounting is unlike the rest of the discipline because the contract usually determines the treatment. A joint operating agreement, a production sharing contract and a concession produce different answers from identical physical facts, and the accounting follows the agreement before it follows the standard. Add successful efforts against full cost, depletion over reserves that get restated, decommissioning provisions decades out, and joint venture billing that a partner will audit, and the result is a specialism. This week works through it in that order: the agreement, the entries, then the reporting.

It runs 7 times over the published calendar, in 6 cities and live online. Every date is the same programme with the same content and the same certificate.

• Read a production sharing contract or joint operating agreement for what it determines about the accounts.
• Account for exploration and evaluation cost under successful efforts and under full cost, and explain the difference.
• Calculate depletion on a reserve base that has been restated.
• Recognise and remeasure a decommissioning provision.
• Prepare and challenge a joint venture billing and a cash call.

Accountants and finance staff in exploration and production companies, joint venture and revenue accountants, auditors with upstream clients, and finance staff at national oil companies and regulators.

Short input, then work. Across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each, the balance sits deliberately with the second: a programme where the trainer talks for six hours produces notes rather than capability.

• Your own material

  Exercises run on situations delegates bring, not on a case study written for a different organisation in a different decade.

• A capped cohort

  Small enough that everybody is asked something. Executive programmes are capped tighter still.

• Practice under scrutiny

  The difficult conversation, the challenged assumption, the decision defended out loud. Judgement is not built by watching.

• Something to take back

  Each day ends with a thing you can use on Monday rather than a slide deck you will not reopen.

• A treatment note for one of the delegate's own agreements, tracing each entry to a clause.
• A worked depletion and decommissioning calculation on real reserve and cost data.
• A review checklist for an incoming partner billing.

A GATI certificate recording what you attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended.

Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record, which is what makes it worth holding. It records participation. This site will not imply one it does not have.