Published Audits on Oil and Gas Revenues and Financial Assurances for Site Remediation
Performance auditors in Canada, the United States, Australia, and other resource-rich countries already have some experience auditing revenues from oil and gas extraction and financial assurances for site remediation. A search of the our Audit News Database and of other websites has identified more than a dozen performance audits on these topics published since 2008. Table 1 presents a list of audits that examined oil and gas revenues, while Table 2 provides a list of audits that examined financial assurances.
The focus of these audits varies considerably. Some have focused solely on royalties (for example, the 2008 Newfoundland and Labrador audit on offshore oil royalties) or on financial assurances for site remediation (for example, the 2012 Saskatchewan audit on managing the risks and cleanup of oil and gas wells), while others have covered one of these issues as part of a larger audit of the sustainable development of a resource sector (for example, the 2011 Québec audit on the management of exploration and production activities in the shale gas industry). These audits reflect the range of scoping options available to performance auditors when auditing the oil and gas sector.
Reviewing previously published audits in the early planning phase of a new audit may help audit teams to:
- complete their list of potential audit issues to examine, and
- identify risk factors that they might not yet have considered.
Table 1 – Published Performance Audits on Revenues from Oil and Gas Extraction
Audit Office |
Year |
Title |
---|---|---|
Office of the Auditor General of Manitoba |
2008 |
|
Office of the Auditor General of Newfoundland and Labrador |
2008 |
|
Government Accountability Office – United States of America |
2008 |
|
Australian National Audit Office |
2009 |
|
Vérificateur général du Québec (Office of the Auditor General of Québec) |
2011 |
Gestion gouvernementale de l’exploration et de l’exploitation des gaz de schiste (government management of shale gas exploration and production) |
Office of the Auditor General of Newfoundland and Labrador |
2013 |
|
Natural Resources Canada |
2014 |
|
National Audit Office of Estonia |
2014 |
|
Federal Court of Accounts of Brazil |
2014 |
|
Government Accountability Office – United States of America |
2015 |
|
Office of the Auditor General of Alberta |
2016 |
Source: Data from our Audit News Database and other sites for the period 2008–2016.
Table 2 – Published Performance Audits on Financial Assurances for Oil and Gas Production Site Remediation
Audit Office |
Year |
Title |
---|---|---|
Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia |
2010 |
Oil and Gas Site Contamination Risks: Improved Oversight Needed |
Government Accountability Office – United States of America |
2010 |
Oil and Gas Bonds – Bonding Requirements and BLM Expenditures to Reclaim Orphaned Wells |
Government Accountability Office – United States of America |
2011 |
|
Vérificateur général du Québec (Office of the Auditor General of Québec) |
2011 |
Gestion gouvernementale de l’exploration et de l’exploitation des gaz de schiste (government management of shale gas exploration and production) |
Office of the Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan |
2012 |
|
Office of the Auditor General of Canada (Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development) |
2012 |
|
Government Accountability Office – United States of America |
2015 |