Full-Cost Method

Oil and gas. Gas and oil. They make our cars go and they heat our homes. All in all, they’re pretty useful to have around, if we do say so ourselves. But oil and natural gas are finite resources—that means there’s only so much of them in the world. So oil and gas companies are always looking for the next great source of that ooey gooey nectar of industry, and those exploratory efforts can get expensive.

When cost accountants evaluate how much moolah these companies are spending on their exploratory efforts, one method they might use is called the “full-cost method.” This method basically takes every dollar spent, regardless of whether the effort was successful or not, adds it up, and capitalizes it. In other words, even if our latest geological survey of a potential oil field yields absolutely nothing, the costs associated with the survey are considered capital and not an expense. This can make our company look like it has a higher net income than it actually does. Which isn’t bad for us, because if our net income seems higher, we’re more likely to attract investors.

Which brings us to our next point: if we’re on the investor side of this whole situation, it would behoove us to do our homework if we’re considering buying into oil or gas. If we see that a company uses the full-cost method instead of the “successful efforts” method, which counts those failed ventures as expenses, we might want to dig a little deeper before we buy and make sure their financial picture is as rosy as it appears.