Question 1: The following question concerns the roles of the various organizations involved in the oil & gas industry.  

Your company specializes in managing the decommissioning of fixed production platforms operated by smaller production companies that have no in-house decommissioning expertise. Assume you are approached by such a production company that wants to decommission an offshore platform.

Outline the key considerations and identify the most suitable contractual arrangements between your company, the client, and any subcontractors during:

1. The initial scoping and development work leading to the decommissioning plan being submitted to the regulator for approval (15%) 

The actual platform decommissioning after regulator approval (15%) 

Question 2: The following questions concern petroleum economics and taxation regimes, legal arrangements, and contractual relationships.  

1. Explain the fiscal terms usually included within the structure of a PSA and assess the importance of each of these to the revenue to be earned by the government. (30%) 

1. Using the evaluation model provided, vary each of the oil production operation efficiency (Cell F24) and gas production efficiency factor (Cell F32) in turn through a range from 95% to 65% and identify the investing company NPV associated with each percentage selected. Comment on the level of importance of managing production efficiencies to the investment return.  (10%) 

Question 3: The following question concerns the risks faced by the industry and the means of identifying and managing them.  

Describe the main types of risk faced by oil and gas operating companies through the entire lifecycle of an oilfield, from initial access through to decommissioning.   (15%) 

Question 4: The following question concerns future oil and gas sources, social responsibility, and climate change issues.  

You are an advisor to the government of a country with a very low GDP, whose national budget is dominated by foreign aid receipts.  Oil has just been discovered onshore in your country, and you anticipate a significant level of oil production in the next 5 years. 

Propose what the government’s national development goals should be over the next 10 years and what steps your government could take to prevent the “curse of oil” from affecting your country (15%).