>These are welcome changes to the SEC rules, and if my memory serves me right, you and I had a discussion early on this year, about these type of rules that were already implemented in Europe.

Yes. It's like this in Canada now too. For example, Falcon made the Scotia report public, which contains "contingent resources". In the US right now, companies can't do that from my understanding.

Take this paragraph from Nexens for example:

Cautionary Note to US Investors

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) permits oil and gas companies, in their filings with the SEC, to discuss only proved reserves that are supported by actual production or conclusive formation tests to be economically and legally producible under existing economic and operating conditions. In this disclosure, we may refer to "recoverable reserves", "probable reserves" and "recoverable resources" which are inherently more uncertain than proved reserves. These terms are not used in our filings with the SEC.

These rules won't effect Falcon directly at the moment, but they will affect Exxon, especially in the Mako trough.

"The new rules would no longer require holdings to be adjacent to already producing properties and ready to drill, but instead allow findings by "new"
technologies such as seismic surveying to be included in the proved category if they are ready to be drilled and put into a pipeline."

Jeff Mobley, the head of investor relations for Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake, said that at first glance the new rules were "very good for Chesapeake," but that the company still needed to see a final rule published.

"The biggest thing is in they will recognize unconventional holdings," Mobley said of the changes, critical to a company with vast acreage in new
shale plays like Pennsylvania's Marcellus and Louisiana's Haynesville shales.

(The rules will go into effect on Dec. 15, 2009)