Re: Recent Flow Through Share Sales
in response to
by
posted on
Oct 07, 2009 12:47PM
Connacher is a growing exploration, development and production company with a focus on producing bitumen and expanding its in-situ oil sands projects located near Fort McMurray, Alberta
Hi Scott, would you mind elaborating on this?"Secondly, by increasing Connacher's bitumen reserves this could have a big impact at the beginning of next year 2010 when the SEC in the USA changes the rules to let Oilsands companies book bitumen reserves in the same way that conventional oil companies are permitted to book their existing reserves. With the playing field leveled for the first time early next year in terms of booking bitumen reserves and conventional oil reserves the same way, this will be a shot in the arm to the share prices of oilsands companies."
Hasn't Connacher already been obtaining financing and investor support based on their reserves?I don't understand how the changes will impact us.
Reserves Disclosure Rules Revised
On Dec. 29, 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was revising and updating its disclosure rules for oil and natural gas reserves.
Oil and natural gas professionals have been urging the SEC to modernize its disclosure rules for oil and natural gas reserves for many years. The principal criticism of the original rules is that they were introduced more than a quarter century ago, and were not updated regularly to remain current with industry practice and technological advancements.
The result was an increasing divergence between the information investors and the market wanted and what companies could disclose in their official SEC reports.
The vote by the bipartisan commission to adopt the amendments to the disclosure rules was unanimous, and completes a process that has taken more than a year.
It began after AAPG and the Society of Petroleum Engineers held the Interdisciplinary Reserves Conference in Washington, D.C., in June 2007 with a Concept Release issued the following December, in which the SEC solicited feedback on a host of specific questions relating to reserves disclosure.
Based on this feedback, the SEC developed a proposed rule (actually a series of amendments to the current rule) that it offered for public comment in June 2008. The SEC then used this additional feedback to develop the final amendments that the commission adopted in December 2008.
In announcing the changes to the disclosure requirements, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said, ”These updates to the SEC rules will help ensure more meaningful and comprehensive disclosure of information that, even though it does not appear on a company’s balance sheet, is of significance to investors in making informed investment decisions.”
AAPG provided comments and feedback throughout the process, as did many of our sister societies.
In our comments, AAPG urged the SEC to adopt the principles set out in the Petroleum Resources Management System – a set of guidelines and definitions for managing petroleum resources, prepared by the Society of Petroleum Engineers Oil and Gas Reserves Committee jointly with AAPG (represented by Ken Mallon), the World Petroleum Council and the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers.
In many cases the SEC agreed with this suggestion, indicating repeatedly how the new disclosure requirements conform to PRMS guidelines.
The complete final rule can be downloaded on the SEC Web site, but several major changes include:
“It is gratifying to see the SEC make these changes to its disclosure requirements, and I congratulate and thank the many AAPG members and members of other professional associations who helped develop and communicate the PRMS principles,” said Peter R. Rose, a former AAPG president, co-chair of the reserves conference and chair of the AAPG ad hoc committee on SEC response.
“The new disclosure rules demonstrate how scientific excellence and professional, ethical conduct in a regulatory context directly benefit society,” Rose continued. “Our challenge now, as a scientific and professional association, is to ensure that our members who are engaged in preparing and complying with these new rules can do so properly and effectively.”
The SEC has set an effective date for the new rules of Jan. 1, 2010, and companies may not adopt the new disclosure requirements any sooner.