9 - Quality Assurance
9.1 The operator’s responsibility
The person responsible for the operator's reporting shall ensure:
- that the reporting is in accordance with the agreed Project List
- that a correct profile collection is linked to the various projects
- that correct reporting is submitted to the authorities by the deadline stated in the dispatch letter
- that there is consistency between data types
- that contributions from the respective disciplines are quality assured
Quality implies that the reporting is in accordance with the requirements listed in the General Guidelines and in the Reporting file.
As previously mentioned in the guidelines, it is essential that no changes are made to the structure of the file. An automatic control whether there are reference errors, are executed when saving the file. You should not be able to save the file if reference errors occur, it is recommended to undo actions that have affected formula references.
9.2 Consistency checks
As part of the quality control, several consistency checks are included in the spreadsheet below the profile collection. These checks control the consistency between information reported various places in the spreadsheets. When a check shows non-consistency, there are two alternatives:
- Change the input so that it is consistent
- Explain why the data is still correct
To help secure that this is accomplished, a check is incorporated in the reporting file. If there are unclarified consistency checks, a warning will show up after 1 October indicating which profile sheet this relates to when closing the file.
Description of the checks:
Check 1, 3, 5 and 7:
Control that the same quantity is reported in the sheet ”Månedsdata”, as in the actual profile collection, as sales forecasts for the next year. A margin of 0.001 is granted for rounding off numbers. It is important that these numbers are correct, since they should be consistent with the production application.
Check 2, 4, 6 and 8:
Control that the resources reported in the profile collection equals the numbers reported in the project overview in the profile collection. A deviation of respectively 0.1 and 0.01 for “large” and “small” deposits is allowed. Resources are compared with the originally in place volumes to check correspondence on file level.
Check 9 and 10:
Control that the different contributions to CO2- and NOx-emissions respectively, add up to the total emissions reported.
Check 11 and 12:
Control that there are CO2- and NOx-emissions are reported until cease of activity. If there are consistency on a file level (Profil_Total), no comments are given, else there will be comments in the individual profile sheets with deviations between activity and emissions. In these checks “activity” is measured as a combination of production, deliveries, and shut-down cost.
Check 13:
Controls that there is no production after shut-down costs have been reported. Feedback will be given in the consistency check area in Profile 1 if the production continues after the reporting of the shut-down costs across the various projects in the file (the figures are taken from the Profil_Total, which sums the figures across the profile collections in the reporting file).
Check 14:
Is only shown in Profile 1 and is based on a summation of all profile collections in the file (Profil_Total). Controls that annual cash flow is positive. The intention is to check sales data versus cost data to reveal significant errors (for instance in units) in the report. In this connection, firm prices have been assumed for all petroleum products:
- Oil: NOK 6000 per Sm³
- Gas: NOK 5000 per 1000 Sm³
- NGL: NOK 7500 per tonne
- Condensate: NOK 6000 per Sm³
It is emphasized that these assumptions do not reflect the authorities' assumptions but are merely intended for use to reveal significant reporting errors.
Check 15:
Controls the succession of reported decision gates. The assumption is that DG0 will be passed before or in the same year as DG1, DG1 before DG2 etc.
There is also a check for projects with DG3 within 2022. These should not be reported in the same profile sheet as projects with DG3 after 2022.
Check 16 and 17:
Control that gas flow to and from fields is in balance. The checks are performed on Profil_Total, and if activated, details are shown in individual profiles for troubleshooting. For many fields, the gas system is complex with several flows to and from other fields, therefore, these checks must sometimes be regarded as qualitative, hence, relatively large triggering slacks are applied.
Check 16 has the following logic:
Gross gas + Receipt of gas - Deliveries of gas - (Injected gas, fuel and flare) > 0,3 billion Sm3.
Check 17 has the following logic:
Gross gas + Receipt of gas - (Injected gas, fuel and flare) - Dry sales gas (Col U) > - 0,2 billion Sm³.
The checks are performed on Profil_Total and are activated if the balance is off. If the check is activated, details will be shown in each profile sheet. The input must be changed, or a reasonable explanation for the unbalance must be included.
Check 18:
Controls if comment boxes are used. It will be more useful to make comments in the text boxes prepared for this, than to comment in the space next to the response from the consistency check.
Check 19:
Controls the coherence between resource class/sub-class and decision gates reported. Resource class/sub-class shall be reported according to expected status at the end of the reporting year.
Check 20:
Controls the consistency between the sum of sales gas profiles per calendar year and gas year. Will also check whether input of gas purchase is complete, with both volume, cost, and receipt of gas.
Check 21-24:
Control of drilling costs. The checks will give a result when unit costs per well or unallocated well costs are outside the stated thresholds. The well number can be expressed as a decimal figure to correspond with accrued investments within the same year.
Check 25:
Is only shown in Profil_1 and controls that operation costs are reported in the profile collection for the same period as for income. Feedback will be given in the consistency check area in Profile 1, if the condition mentioned above is not fulfilled for the file in total (the figures are taken from the Profil_Total, which sums the figures across the profile collections in the reporting file).
Check 26:
Controls that removal and cessation costs are reported for projects in operation, or projects containing investments in new infrastructure.
Check 27:
Controls whether the table for uncertainty regarding production start-up for projects in RC2-5 is filled in, and that the timing of respectively early, basis and late is consistent.
Check 28:
Controls whether the table showing the project attributes is filled in. This table should be filled in for all projects with resources in RC3-5.
Check 29:
Controls whether there is a correlation between the development concept in the table of attributes, and the development investment shown in the profile collections.
The control checks for investment numbers in the columns of floating or fixed facilities when these are selected as development solution, and that there are no investment numbers in these columns when subsea development is selected.
Check 30:
Controls whether subsea facilities in RC3-5 have reported associated pipeline investment, and that necessary investments at the host platform are placed in the correct column.
Check 31:
Controls whether discoveries have reported costs for concept studies. It also controls whether development projects have reported number of wells.
Check 32:
Check to verify input of the assumed general price increase (GPI). Feedback will be given in the consistency check area in Profile 1 if there are cost elements beyond the reporting year and GPI is lacking.
Check 33:
This check only appears in Profil_1 and controls whether there are negative values in the forecasted period in the total of all profiles in the reporting file (appears in Profil_Total).
Normally there should not be any negative figures in the total value for a field, discovery, or facility. Negative costs should be recognized as income, negative production as injection etc.
Check 34:
Controls that service provider are stated when tariffs are entered.
9.3 The spreadsheet Cost Control
The input in this sheet is the operator’s assumptions for general price increase, if this is not a constant value. In such cases input should be provided in cell AC28 in the sheet Profil_1. In addition, the sheet contains two visual consistency checks linked to the sheet ”Profil_Total”. The sheet gives a total of all the profile collections.
General price increase should be the operator's general assumption when converting nominal NOK to real NOK. For example, figures for 2024 apply to the general price increase from 2023 to 2024. This price increase must be used when converting the budget figures in nominal NOK to the reference year in real NOK. We expect the same general price increase to be used for all projects reported by the same operator. We recommend a coordinated input of these data before internal distribution.
The visual consistency checks below give a sum across all profile collections. Calculated net cash flow and costs per well are plotted against year. Any profile collections containing data outside a defined threshold value will be listed. Any comments, if the data is considered valid, should be made in the consistency check table for the relevant profile collections, checks 21-25.
Updated: 31/08/2023