Oil & Gas Exploration Project Evaluation and Ranking Methods and Software Development

Regional exploration, trap exploration and reservoir evaluation exploration are three phases of an exploration process. Each phase confronts a problem of evaluating and ranking many exploration projects, and then selecting the optimal ones. The projects of different phase are quite different from each other, so evaluation and ranking methods must be chosen on the base of the divergence of each exploration process. Entity method and value method are two kinds of methods of evaluating and ranking exploration projects. Entity method is based on physical index like amount of exploration investment, workload, proved reserves. It is used only for preliminary optimal selection, and it cannot directly reflect the beneficial results of exploration projects. Value method is based on the discounted cash flow method, and optimal selection of projects is after economic evaluation. Value index reflects investment benefit directly and projects are ranked according to the computational solutions. The software basing on evaluation and ranking methods, which was developed with the Microsoft OWC controls. Programming work is easy because of the using of OWC, and it is accurate in calculation. The software can be used for rapid evaluation and ranking of large amounts of projects.