The Oil Drum

Long overdue and does not, in my view, represent any sort of asset inflation. As long as some discipline is applied in kind to unconventional resources--principally the tar sands--it's actually a very good thing because it will help the market to price the various public and private names more rationally. Yes, investors can price in reserves long before the SEC gets around to allowing the companies to do so. However, I would remind that institutional investors often bar themselves from investing as much capital as they would like, based on just such seeming vagaries. In funds with conservative, value mandates, it will become much easier to increase positions in various oil sands companies.

Of course, for the small investor like myself, we have the advantage of being able to price in such things long before some of this type of capital arrives. In general, I would say this is a seriously good development for the Juniors. This is going to make their capital raising easier, for a host of reasons. Not least of which is that larger companies like Shell, Oxy, BP, or whomever will know they can buy a junior, and then, book the reserves.

Being able to book reserves is no small matter.

This is huge stuff.

Gregor