Estimation of resources and reserves. Final report

Technical Report · Mon Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:6546319

Adelman, M A; Houghton, J C; Kaufman, G; Zimmerman, M

This report analyzes the economics of resource and reserve estimation. Part One deals with the economic theory of natural resources and examines how markets deal with exhaustible resources. The succeeding parts examine each resource individually. Part Two and Three deal with oil and gas. Part Two treats the measurement of already discovered deposits. It examines the concept of proven reserves and the behavior of resources over time. Part Three turns to undiscovered deposits and asks how the size of undiscovered but suspected deposits are estimated. It casts a critical eye upon the biases inherent in many of the estimation methodologies. Part Four examines coal resource and reserve estimation. In the United States an attempt has been made to define an economically meaningful classification of coal reserves and resources. This classification is analyzed in detail along with the more general issue of coal supply. The focus is on already discovered deposits since knowledge of where coal lies is great and new discoveries play a small role in coal supply. Part Five treats uranium. For uranium, as for coal, extraction costs are high and reserve estimation must reckon with cost estimation. Part Six synthesizes Parts Two through Five by placing resource and reserve estimates in the context of a cumulative cost curve.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge (USA). Energy Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6546319
• Report Number(s): PB-82-230954
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
011000 -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Reserves
Geology
& Exploration
02 PETROLEUM
020100* -- Petroleum-- Reserves-- (-1989)
03 NATURAL GAS
030100 -- Natural Gas-- Reserves-- (-1989)
050100 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Reserves
Exploration
& Mining
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
COAL DEPOSITS
COAL RESERVES
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SOURCES
FLUIDS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUEL GAS
FUELS
GAS FUELS
GASES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
MINERAL RESOURCES
NATURAL GAS
NATURAL GAS DEPOSITS
NORTH AMERICA
PETROLEUM
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
RESERVES
RESOURCES
URANIUM RESERVES
USA