24-Pet-B3 Petroleum Geology · December 2015
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams, December 2015 — 98-Pet-B3, Oil and Gas Evaluation and Economics (3 hours, closed book, approved non-programmable calculator only). The exam's own cover page is titled "Oil and Gas Evaluation and Economics" and every question is property valuation / reserves & production economics / DCF-NPV screening content — no geology anywhere.
Reference texts: Thompson & Wright, Oil Property Evaluation; Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook (COGEH), Vol. 1 (Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, Calgary Chapter); National Instrument 51-101, Standards of Disclosure for Oil and Gas Activities (Canadian Securities Administrators); SPE/WPC/AAPG/SPEE Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS); Ahmed, Reservoir Engineering Handbook.
The exam's own instructions ask for only 7 of the 10 short-answer questions and note the Cash-Flow/Future-Value tables are graded by column; for "choose N of M" exams, every item below is answered in full as a study resource. Questions 1–10 correspond to the exam's printed Short-Answer items 1–10; Questions 11–20 correspond to the printed Multiple-Choice items 1–10; Question 21 is the Future Value table; Question 22 is the Cash Flow table.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
Answer: (a). The Middle East (led by Iran and Qatar's share of the giant offshore South Pars/North Field structure, plus Saudi Arabia) has historically held roughly 40% of world proved conventional natural gas reserves, more than any other single region — ahead of Europe/Eurasia (Russia-led) and far ahead of North America and Asia Pacific.
This concentration matters for evaluation practice: a handful of super-giant fields dominate the global reserves base, so a region's reserves ranking says very little about its near-term PRODUCTION or export capability. North America, for instance, has become a leading gas producer through shale development despite holding a much smaller share of proved reserves than the Middle East — an evaluator comparing countries on “gas potential” needs to keep reserves-base size and current productive capacity as two separate questions.
