The Value Relevance of Oil and Gas Disclosures: An Assessment of the Market's Perception of Firms' Effort and Ability to Discover Reserves

The purpose of this study is to determine whether supplemental reserve disclosures contain value-relevant information by examining the extent to which they convey information regarding firms' effort and ability to discover reserves. Using Ohlson's (1995) model as a framework, two hypotheses were developed and tested. The empirical results indicate that both effort and ability to discover reserves are significant in explaining the market value of full cost firms. However, only effort is significant (marginally) in explaining the market value of successful efforts firms.