Ed - there is a little wriggle room, but not much. You can show December rates to the engineering auditors in January, but January rates are likely to be disregarded or only used to support and affirm the December rates.
The SEC tries to keep a level reporting field. Companies that report reserves early like UPL who historically reports reserves in mid-late January, will not be penalized or benefit from price (rig rate) changes in Jan or Feb versus other companies who issue their reserve reports in March.
In the past, our year end schedule looked like this. Build and update the location reserves, production type curves, location interest, reserve category in October and November. Update most operating costs and drilling/completion costs a week or two later (early December), although these can be readily tweaked. Normally, not much new contract data (drilling completion rates/bids) comes in December, but this is an exceptional year, so there may be some wiggle here.
Most of November and December is focused on iterating the 2009/10budget, the resulting drilling schedule, cashflow at various prices, and reallocating between various capital requests. Hopefully this is complete in mid-late December, so during the first week of January a preliminary reserve run can be made.
Most of January is spent comparing company reserve estimates to the external auditors/engineers and reconciling differences and glitches. Recent key wells (initial rates, well logs, and drilling costs) are scrutinized to potentially shift reserves from probable to proved and tweak projected capital expenditures for PUDs. By mid to late January you can crank out FASB 69, finalize corporate DDA rates and make presentations to management and the BOD. If there are corporate issues, you have a few weeks of lan-yap to fix. Hopefully you are done in late January. |
