The oil and gas industry has come a long way by shifting from the deterministic methods of economic evaluations to probabilistic/stochastic methods. The time is right as the uncertainties keep on increasing and more sophisticated methods/calculations are required for decision-making. The industry is under pressure to maintain its key performance indicator of reserves-to-annual production ratio. New discoveries are becoming scarce, and the size of the discoveries keep on going down. The economics of many discoveries are marginal, and they will require prudent evaluation, planning, and synergies for viable development.

The industry has done a good job in advancing technology, but it is behind in commercial aspects of the business. Due to this lack of expertise, the industry adopts methods and calculations presented by financial/statistical/stock analysts. Although these methods and calculations may suit other industries, they are not directly applicable to the oil and gas industry. Using these methods, without adjusting them to the oil and gas industry’s environment could be damaging to decision-making. Use of methods that are not directly suited to our industry becomes merely an academic exercise and does not add value. In fact, they may have negative impacts on the perceived profitability and result in suboptimal investment decisions and portfolios.

This article shows one such method that is sometimes used by strategists, economists, and planners. The findings in this article will definitely raise concerns and make us think twice about adopting methods from other disciplines without deep scrutiny. The article provides recommendations to alleviate shortcomings in some of the methods applied.

通过从经济评估的确定性方法转变为概率/随机方法，石油和天然气行业已经走了很长一段路。现在是时候了，不确定性不断增加，决策需要更复杂的方法/计算。该行业面临维持其储量与年产量比率的关键绩效指标的压力。新发现变得稀缺，并且发现的规模持续缩小。许多发现的经济学意义微乎其微，它们将需要审慎的评估，计划和协同作用以实现可行的发展。

该行业在技术进步方面做得很好，但在商业方面却落后。由于缺乏专业知识，该行业采用财务/统计/股票分析师提供的方法和计算。尽管这些方法和计算可能适用于其他行业，但它们并不直接适用于石油和天然气行业。使用这些方法而未将其调整为适用于石油和天然气行业的环境可能会损害决策。使用不直接适合我们行业的方法仅是一种学术活动，不会增加价值。实际上，它们可能会对感知的获利能力产生负面影响，并导致投资决策和投资组合不理想。

本文介绍了策略师，经济学家和计划者有时使用的一种方法。本文中的发现肯定会引起人们的关注，并且使我们在不进行深入审查的情况下对采用其他学科的方法进行三思。本文提供了一些建议，以减轻某些应用方法中的缺点。