Reserves write down avoided with Schrödinger paradox

CALGARY, Alberta – A company-bankrupting reserves write down was avoided at Bark Resources, and Chief Reservoir Engineer Harry Moorecock has only Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger to thank. Mr. Moorecock was able to argue that the Proved Plus Probable booked reserves were indeed still present, and he hired a theoretical particle physicist consultant, Myron Handerson, to prove it.

“You zee, based on zee quantum electrodynamic principle called superposition, there are an infinite number of states, or volumes that zee oil can occupy in zee reservoir, and each of these possible volumes indeed exist simultaneously. What I just told you is only true so long as you don’t look at, or in this case measure, the production of zee oil.

But zee instant you measure zee oil, all of those infinitely possible oil volumes are reduced to a single possibility – a single outcome. This is how it works.”

Mr. Moorecock claims that the oil was measured in a very-much-there state leading up to 2012 year-end reserves, resulting in him booking nearly twice the reserves for the company over the year-end 2011 numbers. But at mid-year 2013, the production was measured at a not-very-much-there state, which caused complete panic around the Bark Resources offices. Mr. Moorecock, at an emergency meeting with the CEO and The Board, explained:

“In my defence, gentlemen, this confusion is not my fault at all.  It is in fact the production engineer’s fault for measuring the production rates when there was very little oil in the reservoir. Dr. Handerson told me that as long as we don’t measure the rates, then there could be any amount of oil down there that we want, even a 10-fold multiple of what we booked to year-end 2012. It’s science that has been around since 1925, and it cannot be argued because the theory has yet to be disputed.”

In light of these scientific findings, and eventual support of the executives and The Board, Mr. Moorecock was asked to conservatively book 4 times the reserves that were booked to the end of the previous year.

However, management recommended that the company continue to routinely measure production, but report only the rates that support (or exceed) the booked reserves. Only time will tell how the Alberta Securities Commission will accept this novel Schrödinger Reserves Booking methodology.

<The concept for this article was submitted by a Proved Plus Probable reader just like you. He’s a genius and you can do it, too!>