The Deepwater Horizon explosion: non-technical skills,safety culture,and system complexity

The explosion and destruction of the Deepwater Horizon (DH) was a watershed moment for safety management in the US oil and gas industry. The 2011 National Oil Spill Commission investigation identified a range of operational behaviours and underlying safety management problems that were causal to the mishap. Yet, to date these have not been systematically considered within a human factors framework. To achieve this, we draw upon two applied psychology domains that are highly influential within safety research. First, we apply non-technical skills (NTS) (social and cognitive skills that underpin safe performance in complex work environments) theorem to understand operational activities in the lead-up and occurrence of the well blowout. NTS research is used to develop interventions for training and observing safety behaviours (e.g. decision-making, teamwork). Second, we apply safety culture theory to understand how the organisational and industry environment shaped the management of risk. Safety culture research is used to understand and change the socio-technical constraints and enablers of safety activity in high-risk workplaces. Finally, to integrate these perspectives, we take a systems-thinking perspective to understand the mishap. A common critique of accident narratives is their failure to systematically consider how the components of an incident interact together to escalate risk. From a systems-thinking perspective, understanding the interactions leading to the DH mishap is crucial for ensuring interventions are effective in preventing future mishaps. We develop an accident model that captures the various interactions and system factors leading to the blowout.     

HOW TO USE EVA IN THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

The use of EVA in the oil industry has lagged behind that in most other industries because the accounting information reported by oil and gas concerns does such a poor job of representing management's effectiveness in adding value for shareholders. The essence of the problem is that the exploration activities of oil companies create assets whose changes in value are recognized by the stock market long before they are reflected on income statements or balance sheets. As a result, all accountingbased performance measures, including generic measures of EVA (which are derived from accounting information), fail to provide meaningful goals, decision tools, or compensation benchmarks.
This article provides a new, EVAbased framework for performance measurement and incentive compensation for oil and gas firms—and for companies in extractive industries in general. The authors show that, when adjusted by a publicly available measure of hydrocarbon reserve value known as "SEC-10," EVA's ability to explain annual stock returns rises from under 10% to almost 50%. Moreover, because SEC-10 has several important limitations as a measure of reserve value, there is considerable additional room for improving EVA's explanatory power. And the actual implementation of an EVA financial management system for an individual oil company can and should be based on more precise estimates of reserve value than those provided by SEC-10.
To this end, the authors provide an approach to hydrocarbon reserve valuation that captures the "real option" value of undeveloped reserves. By incorporating real option values, this new EVA financial management system for oil companies aligns management's incentives with the goal of creating shareholder wealth by rewarding managers for creating real option value as well as current cash flow—and by forcing managers to consider the optimal "exercise" of such strategic options.     

Overcoming the Fear Factor: Workforce Involvement and Health and Safety Offshore

Despite recent campaigns to present the UK oil and gas industry as one with an ever-improving safety record, there is overwhelming evidence that there hasactually been little or no improvement. The data presented in this article show the degree to which victimization and intimidation of the workforce on offshoreplatforms acts to prevent an open and constructive approach to safety management. A number of particular problems in relation to workforce involvement and the safety representatives and committee system are identified. The article concludes by placing these empirical findings within a policy context.     

A statistical review of the risk associated with offshore support vessel/platform encounters in UK waters

Safety performance on the UK Continental Shelf is normally considered to be of a high standard, although there are still many incidents and accidents. This paper discusses some of the initial findings in an offshore support vessel safety research project. Following a brief review study of the uses of various types of existing offshore support vessels, a comprehensive statistical failure data analysis of the vessels is carried out mainly based on a Ship/Platform Incident Database drawn from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The variation of incident frequency with time for different types of offshore oil and gas installations, and for different vessel types has been established. A total of 394 records within the period 1980 to 1997 are investigated in this study. The variation of incident frequency with time and seasons, causation factors, incident with respect to geographical distribution, and sea conditions are discussed. The relationship between vessel types, sizes and operations is analysed; operating circumstances, reported primary failure cause, and impart orientation for different vessel types are also described. The statistical analysis reveals that safety culture in terms of good seamanship by vessel masters is probably responsible for mitigating the magnitude of many of the impacts that do occur and also that there is a need for improvement in safety performance. Issues pertaining to human element, the availability and reliability of data, risk criteria, and safety culture in the context of marine and offshore risk assessment are also discussed.     

To What Extent do United Kingdom Companies Provide Oil and Gas Reserves Information Sufficient to Satisfy Statement of Recommended Practice Requirements?

The uncertainty surrounding oil and gas reserves estimation and the cost of gathering reserves data discourage firms from disclosing sufficient data to satisfy SORP (statement of recommended practice) requirements, especially where oil and gas reserves disclosure is discretionary. However, the need to reduce agency cost and signal to stakeholders induces firms to disclose oil and gas reserves. The contrasting views on the rationale guiding the extent of disclosure were examined in this study. A sample was drawn from 83 United Kingdom (UK) oil and gas exploration and production companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Appropriate statistical tools were used to investigate the extent of oil and gas reserves disclosure. The findings provide mixed results about the extent of disclosure to meet SORP's requirements. There was no particular evidence that UK oil and gas companies provide qualitatively acceptable oil and gas reserves quantity information. The observed varying degrees of disclosure in the market could be attributed to a discretionary regime that allows firms to determine how and when to disclose. Policy makers and industry regulators could find the results useful in assessing the current extent of disclosure compliance.     

Political–security risk in the oil and gas industry: the impact of terrorism on risk management and mitigation

Oil and gas companies are experiencing an increase in terrorist attacks. The industry became a legitimate target for terrorist groups in the 1990s and the number of attacks have increased yearly, with a spike after the 9/11 attacks. In today’s interconnected world, political risk is not only about the relationship between the host government and the company. Oil and gas companies may experience risks on a transnational, national and human security level. The success of new investments often depends on the successful utilization of risk management strategies. This study focuses on the importance of political–security risk in the oil and gas industry. In January 2013, the oil and gas industry experienced one of its deadliest attacks at the In Amenas gas facility in Algeria, forcing firms to reconsider its focus on security management. Statoil undertook a thorough analysis of security at the site as well as of the company′s corporate security risk management. The report revealed a lack of focus on political–security risk. This study argues that political–security risk has not been used to its full potential in the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry has always focused on site security, but a broader more holistic approach to risk management has been lacking. As a result of the In Amenas incident, the industry has become more willing to have a new discussion on security and this has resulted in changes in the way companies operate.     

Using qualitative types of risk assessments in conjunction with FRAM to strengthen the resilience of systems

Abstract

In this paper, we look into how some qualitative types of risk assessments can be used in conjunction with functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) to strengthen the resilience of systems. In FRAM, variation in relation to meeting specified functions is central, but risk and uncertainty considerations are not an integral part. We suggest to add to FRAM an assessment of the modelling choices and judgements using strength of knowledge considerations and a qualitative sensitivity analysis. In this way, an improved basis for assessing and strengthening system resilience with FRAM is established. We illustrate the idea with a simple example from the oil and gas industry.     

美国油气法捕获规则的形成与发展——兼及对中国立法的启示

美国油气法捕获规则系判例法确立的一项产权制度,从野生动物捕获规则移植而来.该规则对美国石油天然气产业发展起到了极大的促进作用,但同时也产生了过度开采、资源浪费等问题.美国各州相继通过颁布强制联营规则、井间距规则、禁止浪费规则等一系列配套立法对油气法捕获规则进行修改和限制,提高了油气开采效率,保证了油气产业的有序发展.借鉴美国油气法捕获规则的立法与司法经验,我国未来石油天然气立法应当制定油气资源矿业权重叠情形下的联合开发规则,同时应当完善石油天然气上游产业市场准入制度和油气开采监管制度.     

BANKRUPTCY DISCRIMINATION WITH REAL VARIABLES

This paper reconsiders the accepted usage of nondeflated financial ratios in statistical models to differentiate between failed and nonfailed firms. Non-deflated ratios are hypothesized to inadequately reflect inter-temporal macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the ability of firm's to survive. Using a sample of 124 oil and gas companies between the period 1982–1988, the going concern assumption is evaluated with statistical logit models using either nondeflated or deflated financial ratios. Deflated company ratios are created by transforming data with price indices or by creating market value ratios. Empirical results suggest that a superior bankruptcy early warning model is developed for the oil and gas industry by creating real financial and reserve ratios and by introducing external factors, such as oil prices, interest rates and accounting method, as independent predictors. Overall classification accuracy is approximately 95 percent.     

Performance assessment of ensemble learning systems in financial data classification

Financial data classification plays an important role in investment and banking industry with the purpose to control default risk, improve cash and select the best customers. Ensemble learning and classification systems are becoming gradually more applied to classify financial data where outputs from different classification systems are combined. The objective of this research is to assess the relative performance of existing state‐of‐the‐art ensemble learning and classification systems with applications to corporate bankruptcy prediction and credit scoring. The considered ensemble systems include AdaBoost, LogitBoost, RUSBoost, subspace, and bagging ensemble system. The experimental results from three datasets: one is composed of quantitative attributes, one encompasses qualitative data, and another one combines both quantitative and qualitative attributes. By using ten‐fold cross‐validation method, the experimental results show that AdaBoost is effective in terms of low classification error, limited complexity, and short time processing of the data. In addition, the experimental results show that ensemble classification systems outperform existing models that were recently validated on the same databases. Therefore, ensemble classification system can be employed to increase the reliability and consistency of financial data classification task.     

Evaluating potential investments in new technologies: Balancing assessments of potential benefits with assessments of potential disbenefits, reliability and utilization

In recent years, the assessment of intangible benefits has become an explicit requirement of investment evaluation techniques. By contrast, assessments of three factors which can prevent the realization of any benefits have not become an explicit requirement. Those three factors are disbenefits, reliability and utilization. The importance of these factors may sometimes be identified prior to investment evaluation when exploratory methods such as contingency planning are used. However, evidence presented in this paper suggests that these three factors are often overlooked. Further, the evidence presented in this paper suggests that investment performance often suffers as a result. Accordingly, it is argued that investment evaluations need to be balanced by making assessments of disbenefits, reliability and utilization an explicit requirement. This argument is supported by reporting of experiences from action research. These experiences indicate that investment evaluations can be balanced by making assessments of disbenefits, reliability and utilization an explicit requirement.     

我国石油、天然气行业税费制度探析

本文首先介绍了我国石油、天然气行业的相关税费制度,归纳了国外石油税制的经验。在此基础上,对我国石油、天然气税费制度中存在的问题进行了分析,并对完善我国石油、天然气行业的税费制度提出了若干政策建议。     

Industry upheaval and valuation: Empirical evidence from the international oil and gas industry

Accounting literature suggests that contemporaneous earnings are more useful than current operating cash flow in predicting future cash flows and, therefore, also more relevant for company valuation. However, recent research indicates that elevated levels of merger and acquisition activity or a changing economic environment may reduce the value relevance of earnings. Using the oil and gas industry as a case, this paper examines how the oil industry upheaval in the late 1990s influenced the value relevance of financial statement information. We extend the literature by testing for a structural shift in the equity market valuation process. Our results provide evidence of a structural break in the value relevance of accounting information. In contrast to prior research, we find that the value relevance of cash flows actually decreased in the recent oil industry upheaval. On the other hand, the value relevance of book equity increased. Furthermore, we find that accounting-method choice (full cost versus successful efforts) affects the value relevance of accounting information.     

Firm Value and Hedging: Evidence from U.S. Oil and Gas Producers

This paper studies the hedging activities of 119 U.S. oil and gas producers from 1998 to 2001 and evaluates their effect on firm value. Theories of hedging based on market imperfections imply that hedging should increase the firm's market value (MV). To test this hypothesis, we collect detailed information on the extent of hedging and on the valuation of oil and gas reserves. We verify that hedging reduces the firm's stock price sensitivity to oil and gas prices. Contrary to previous studies, however, we find that hedging does not seem to affect MVs for this industry.     

我国石油行业需求影响因素动态计量分析

石油加工及炼焦业、化学原料及化学制品制造业这两个下游行业带给石油行业正向的冲击力度较大,而交通运输设备制造业、化学纤维制造业带给石油行业正向的冲击力度比较小;化学原料及化学制品制造业对石油行业的贡献率最大且逐渐递增;石油加工及炼焦业对石油行业的贡献率也比较大,并逐渐趋于平稳;化学纤维制造业对石油行业的贡献率比较小;交通运输设备制造业对石油行业的贡献率最小。因此,应根据各下游产业的产品需求变化情况制定产业政策和产业规划,调整石油行业的产业结构。     

Combining Life Table Data

Actuaries are often required to form opinions or make value assessments entailing data from several tables, possibly generated from different sources. Often, no formal methods of combining tables are used. This paper illustrates a method for combining tables of count data using maximum likelihood methods. Combining data tables can be problematic for several reasons. Often, not all cells will contain data when multiple tables are combined. Also, since the same level of aggregation over covariates is often not available in each of the constituent tables, some data will exist only on the margins. The method we present is appropriate when data for some cells are missing and even when data are available only on the margins. To illustrate the method, we combine mortality tables from three different sources with different classification information. The analysis indicates the possible presence of a health risk factor beyond the use of alcohol and tobacco in a population of active members of a church.     

The impact of industrial incidents on stock market volatility

We examine stock market volatility attributed to industrial incidents involving publicly traded US companies, with contributing factors identified as company violations and safety errors, equipment failure, human error and vandalism. Incidents identified as safety violations elicited the highest costs in terms of equity price reductions, but the volatility effects of these incidents tend to mitigate within two weeks. Incidents caused by vandalism experience the sharpest volatility increases, but reduce within two days. Volatility associated with incidents caused by equipment failure tends to persist for almost four weeks. Injuries cost publicly traded companies $14 million each while fatalities lead to equity market capitalisation reductions of between $465 and $720 million. These results shed light on the equity market's role as a driver for enhanced compliance with health and safety regulation and with industry good practice.     

Accounting in the London Stock Exchange's extractive industry: The effect of policy diversity on the value relevance of exploration-related disclosures

The accounting treatment of exploration expenditure in the extractive industry has historically been a challenging issue for regulators. This paper examines the accounting policies for, and value relevance of, the exploration assets of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange from the oil & gas and mining sectors. The policies used by oil & gas firms range from the relatively conservative Successful Efforts to the most aggressive Full Cost method, whereas mining firms employ a range of policies from the Successful Efforts to the most conservative Expense All method. The results suggest that the income statements of Main Market-listed extractive firms contain value relevant information regardless of the policy followed by the firm. There is no significant difference between the value relevance of exploration asset disclosures by Main Market-listed oil & gas firms following the Successful Efforts or Full Cost methods. For AIM-listed oil & gas companies only the Full Cost method provides value relevant information on exploration assets. In the mining sector, exploration-related asset disclosures are only value relevant for AIM-listed firms following the Expense All method. The results suggest that flexibility in accounting for exploration expenditure is necessary to facilitate the disclosure of value relevant accounting information.     

The energy revolution in the USA and the pre-salt reserves in Brazil: Risks and opportunities for the Brazilian petrochemical industry

The petrochemical industry is known for its interrelations with the oil industry. In recent years the world has witnessed the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and an associated surge in demand for petroleum and oil products, alongside the emergence of alternative sources of oil and natural gas to those produced by OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and Russia, such as Brazil’s pre-salt reserves and shale gas in the United States. The US is undergoing a veritable energy revolution with its use of unconventional oil and natural gas production techniques in low-permeability reservoirs, chiefly shale gas. Brazil’s prospects as an international player are on the rise thanks to the exploration of oil and natural gas from its pre-salt reserves, which could lead to exports of petroleum of over 2 million barrels/day. All these movements have a direct influence on the petrochemical industry. This article aims to foster discussions about the risks and opportunities facing the Brazilian petrochemical industry with the exploration of oil and natural gas in Brazil and unconventional sources in the United States. Systemic thinking and scenario-based planning were used as the basis for the analysis.     

Value Relevance of Environmental Provisions Pre‐ and Post‐IFRS

The purpose of this paper is to compare the value relevance of environmental provisions as recorded under Canadian/U.S. GAAP and IFRS accounting frameworks with consideration of the impact of voluntarily issuing stand‐alone sustainability reports. The value relevance of environmental provisions is tested using a modified Ohlson (1995) model. We exploit IFRS reconciliations as a quasi‐experimental setting to conduct this comparison. Results indicate that environmental provisions recorded under either framework only act as liabilities for oil and gas firms that release stand‐alone sustainability reports. For other firms in the oil and gas industry, and the mining industry, the liability nature of these provisions appears to be discounted by the market. Furthermore, for firms in the oil and gas industry that do not have stand‐alone CSR reports, provisions appear to be interpreted by the market as a costly signal about future growth. Instead of downwardly affecting market values, this information is associated with higher market values. In terms of the transition to IFRS, we find that, while the IFRS provisions are significantly higher than under former GAAP, they do not improve value relevance for investors. Accounting standard setters should consider examining the changes in the current standards from the original Canadian environmental provision reporting requirements under Capital Assets section 3060.39, as it was rightfully shown to be a relevant proxy for unbooked liabilities (Li and McConomy, 1999; Bewley, 2005) rather than earnings expectancy. The study builds upon prior research to examine the value of accounting standards that have gone through significant changes.