Significant Differences Between Accounting and Oil and Gas Operations and the Conventional Accounting for Manufacturing or Mechanize Operation.

SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCOUNTING AND OIL AND GAS OPERATIONS AND THE CONVENTIONAL ACCOUNTING FOR MANUFACTURING OR MECHANIZE OPERATION. By Demoore Suleman ———————– Conventional Manufacturing Account 1. Definition: Manufacturing account, the term I use to describe business organizations engaged in the manufacture of goods for sale. These company maintain a manufacturing account. 2. Cost Method: Expenses are the cost of unsold products and are reported as assets. These expenses include wages, electricity in offices outside of the factory (sales and marketing, general administrative offices) are reported immediately as expenses in the accounting period that they are used cost outside of the factory do not become part o the product cost. Under the accrual method of accounting, period cost such as selling, general and administrative expenses are reported in the income statement in the accounting period in which they are used up or explore. Variances from purchase are recorded at that time the raw materials are purchased and re – classified into raw materials inventory, Accounting for oil and gas operation 1. Definition : Oil and Gas Account: The term is used to describe the books of account of companies involved in the exploration an development of crude oil and natural gas. 2. Cost Method Accounting for oil and gas operations follow one of two methods of financial accounting. a. Full Cost Method: All property acquisition exploration and development cost, even dry hole cost are capitalized as oil and gas properties. These cost represent fixed asset, amortized on a country – by country basis using a unit of production method based on volume produced and emaining proved reserves. Acquisition and development activities are capitalized expenses irrespective of whether or not the activities resulted in the discovery of reserve. b. The successful effort (SE) method: allows a company to capitalize only those expenses associated with successful locating new oil and natural gas reserves. automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic indu stries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale v. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c 3. Accounting Policies Goodwill is not subject to amortization instead the companies must conduct periodic impairment testing. The Net unauthorized capitalized costs are also amortized on unit of production method whereby property acquisition cost are amortized over proved reserves and property development cost are amortized over proved developed reserves. The Net Unamortized capitalized cost of oil and gas properties less related deffered income taxes may not exceed a ceiling consisting primarily of a computed present value of projected future cash flows, after income taxes , from the proved reserves. Amortization is computed by lease or property) or field. Accounting standard disclose for the petroleum downstream activities engaged in a. Refining and petrochemical b. Marketing and Distribution c. Liquefied Natural Gas Accounting Policies are captioned rather than as notes in the financial statements. ork in process inventory, finished goods inventory, and cost of good sold. Profit margins set are Standardized cost and represented graphically as break even point analysis. 3. Accounting Policies a. Disclosure requirement for balance sheet:- Goodwill are reported in the balance sheet as deffered charges and are long term asset. Accounting policies prominently disclosed as note to individual items in the financial statement of convention al manufacturing accounting. Disclosure requirement refers to the minimum amount of information which should be presented on financial statement. The disclosure requirement for balance sheet and profit and lost account is regulated by the second schedule of the company And Allied Matters Act in Nigeria (CAMA) 1990 while for the others part of the financial statement, it is regulated by the statement of accounting standard issued by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board. They act under Section 335 sub-section 1 provides: For unsuccessful or (dry hole) results, the associated operating cost are immediately changed against revenue for that period. Acquisition and Mineral Right Prospecting cost associated with pre licensing are incurred in the period prior to the acquisition of legal right to explore for oil and gas in a particular location, such cost include the acquisition of speculative seismic data and expenditures on the subsequent geological and geophysical analysis of the data. Other licensing faces are oil exploration license, oil mining lease license. Oil prospecting license (OPL). In the course of acquiring the right to explore, develop and produce oil or natural gas, expenses relating to either purchase or lease to the right to extract the oil and gas from a property not owned by the company. Acquisition costs also includes any lease bonus payment to the property owner along with legal expenses, and title search, broker and recording cost. Under both SE and FE accounting methods acquisition cost are capitalized â€Å"The financial statement of a company prepared under section 334 of this Decree shall comply with the requirement of schedule 2 to the Decree (so far as applicable) with respect to their form and content, and with the accounting standards laid down in the statement of accounting standards, issued from time to time by the Nigerian Accounting Standard Board.. Provided such accounting standards do not conflict with the provision of this Decree or Schedule 2 to this Decree†. 4. Operations: The manufacturing process result in the continuous flow of intermediate product which serve as industrial input for the production of wide varieity of end product in building, textile, packaging, automotive, electrical, agricultural, medical and aromatic industries. Stocks are recorded as current assets and are classified into i. Raw materials and consumables ii. Work in Progress iii. Finished goods and goods awaiting sale iv. Prepayment for stock in transit The Financial Accounting Standard Board issued it concept statement of Exploration Costs: Typical of exploration costs are changes relating to the collection and analysis of geo-physical and Seismic data involved in the initial examination of a targeted area and later used in the decision of whether to drill at that location. Other cost involved those associated with drilling a well, which are further considered as being intangible or tangible. Intangible cost in general are those incurred to ready the site prior to the installation of the drilling equipment whereas tangible drilling cost are those incurred to install and operate that equipment. Treatment: All intangible cost will be charged to the income statement as part of the periods operating expenses for a company following the successful method . All tangible drilling cost associated with the successful discovery of new reserves will be capitalized while those incurred in an unsuccessful effort are also added to the operating expenses for that period. Capitalized means being added to the balance sheet as a long term assets. Development Cost: Involved in the preparation of discovered reserves for production such as those incurred in the construction or Disclosure Requirement for Value Added Statement Value Added simply refers to the difference between input value and output value. S. 35 (4) of the CAMA 1990 requires that â€Å" the value added statement shall report the wealth created by the company during the year and its distribution among various interest groups such as the employees, the government, creditors, proprietors and the company†, while emphasizing on the importance of the statement as apart of the financial statement, SAS 2 pointed out that the statement will enable companies to ensure the public that they do not exist for the length of their owners only but rather for the society at large. Possible uses to which the statement could be put include: i. Predicting managerial efficiency ii. Indicating the company’s wage paying ability iii. Evaluating the relative rewards of â€Å"shareholders† and other claimants against the company. the construction or improvement of roads to access the well site, with additional drilling or well completion work, an with installing other needed infrastructure to extract (e. g. pumps), gather (pipelines and store tanks) the oil or natural gas reserves both ST and FC allow for the capitalization of all development costs Production cost: Ensured costs in extracting oil or natural gas from the reserves are considered production costs. Typical of these cost are wages for workers and electricity for operating well pumps. Production cost are considered part of periodic operating expenses and are charged directly to the income statement under both accounting methods. Full cost accounting provides more meaningful financial statement. The primary asset of an oil company are the underground oil and gas reserves but not the individual well drill (expenses) in producing the oil. Its been further argued that the amortization of full cost over time produces more meaning income statement through improved matching of cost is to be released revenue. No 6 Element of financial statements which defines terms as expenses, loses, revenues, assets e. t. c Disclosure Requirement for Profit and Loss Account The Profit and Lost Account is an account which report the revenue and expenses of an enterprise for a given accounting period. The objective of the profit and loss account as stated under S. 335 (2) of CAMA 1990 is to give a true and fair view of the profit and loss account of the company for the financial year. The minimum information are disclosed in the profit an loss account are disclosed in schedule 2 paragraph 13 of CAMA 1990. Disclosure Requirement For Fund/Cash Flow Statement Statement of Accounting Standard (SAS) 2 defined a funds flow statement as a statement which provides information on the derivation and utilization of funds during the period covered by the financial; a statement. A funds flow statement show the movement in net current assets of a company Companies are required by law under S. 335(3) of CAMA 1990 to prepare and publish such statements and to give a detailed information on the various sources of funds on its disposition during the accounting period covered. 4. Operation: in the oil and Gas companies are refining which is simply the breaking down of the hydrocarbon mixture of crude oil into useful petroleum products. This is done through distillation cracking, reforming and extraction process these operations can be subdivided into i. Crude oil acquisition, ii. Crude oil storage iii. Processing iv. Blending v. Finished products stages Oil and gas companies are affected by periodic changes for depreciation depletion and amortization (DD &A) of costs relating to expenditures for the acquisition and development of new oil and natural gas reserves. They include the depreciation of certain long – lived operating equipment, the depletion of costs relating to the acquisition of property or properly mineral rights, and other amortization of tangible non – drilling cost incurred with developing the reserves. The periodic depreciation, depletion and amortization expense charged to the income statement is determined by the unit of production method in which the percent of total production for the Note to the account: does not become necessary if the balance sheet profit and lost account provides sufficient disclose in the accounts to give a true and fair view of the company’s state of affairs and the profit and loss position. This is however contained in S. 335 (7) of the CAMA 1990 which states as follows: â€Å"if the balance sheet or profit and loss account drawn up in accordance with these requirements would not provide sufficient information to comply with subsection (2) of this section, any necessary additional information shall be provided in that balance sheet or profit and loss account or in a note to the accounts†. Total production for the period to total proven reserves are the beginning of the period is applied to the gross total of cost capitalized on the Balance Sheet. Depletion is the means of expending the cost incurred in acquiring and developing oil and gas using unit of production method. Depletion rate per barrel is completed as:- Capitalized Cost / output Depletion expense is computed as:- Depletion Rate x No of Out-put Produced |Accounting treatment of cost | | SE FC | |Acquisition | Capitalized |Capitalized | |Geolog & Geophy |Expense |Capitalized | |Explorating dry hole |Expense |Capitalized | |Development Dry hole |Capitalized |Capitalized | |Production cost |Expense |Expense | Expense is associated with income statement, capitalization is associated with Balance sheet extract. References J. Vitalome , Accounting for Differences in Oil and Gas Accounting,http://www. investopedia. com S. Abubakar (2007), Lecture Note Oil and Gas Accounting Department of Accounting Faculty of Administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. Federal Government of Nigeria (1990), Company and Allied Matters Act, Lagos Government Printers NASB(1985), Information to be Disclosed in Financial Statement, Statement of Accounting Standard 2