1.1 The purpose of the reporting

Pursuant to Section 50a of the Regulations to Act relating to petroleum activities, operating companies shall submit data for use in the revised national budget (RNB):

“The reporting shall include economic company data, projects, resource volumes and prognosis
for production, costs and environmental emissions as specified by the recipient”.

Every year by 15 October, all operating companies shall submit data and forecasts for their respective operated fields, discoveries, transportation- and utilization facilities (TUF). Note that the economic company data is not part of the RNB reporting and shall be reported to the Ministry of Energy (MoE) in accordance with their deadlines.

The reporting to the RNB comprises part of the basis for the Government's petroleum and environmental policies, as well as the fiscal and national budget. These forecasts are important, and great emphasis is therefore placed on ensuring that high-quality reporting is provided within the stated deadlines. 

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (the Directorate) quality-assures and organizes the data reported by the companies. The Directorate also prepares its own estimates and classifies the resources based on its own knowledge and assumptions. Based on this, the Directorate updates the resource account for the Norwegian continental shelf and prepares overall forecasts. The forecasts are submitted to the MoE and forwarded to the Ministry of Finance. 

The forecasts and the resource account are incorporated in several analyses and various publications, such as the “The petroleum resources on the Norwegian continental shelf” and the websites sodir.no and norskpetroleum.no.

The data received will be considered exempted from public disclosure pursuant to Section 13 of the Freedom of Information Act, and to Section 13 of the Public Administration Act, 1st paragraph number 2. Reserves, in-place resources and CAPEX associated to the reserves, are published per field on the Directorate’s web site. Recoverable resources are published per reported discoveries. 

1.2 RNB Reporting Process and Deadlines

The RNB must be fully reported by operators to the Directorate via Collabor8. Companies submit data to Collabor8 RNB. It has options for machine-to-machine interface and input via a predefined template (Excel workbook provided by Offshore Norge), and for most companies, the template option is expected to be used. The general parts of this guideline cover both options. 

The data transfer from Collabor8 to the Directorate includes a validation service that checks compliance of the information from both the data phase and the defined scope. Depending on the severity of any validation errors, the report must either be corrected, or the error messages must be addressed with proper comments. Data is not considered received by the Directorate until it has successfully passed validation.

The RNB reporting process is carried out in a structured sequence to ensure that reporting objects, deposits, and reporting responsibilities are clarified before the main reporting in the autumn. The process starts with Initiate, continues with Scope, and then proceeds to the RNB reporting itself.

Initiate (setup and clarification of reporting basis): The purpose of the Initiate phase is to establish a clear and correct basis for RNB reporting by clarifying reporting objects, deposits and reporting responsibilities. This includes identification of new discoveries, assessment of objects in newly awarded licences, and resolving any necessary master data updates. All reporting objects must be reviewed and status changed to “Assignment Accepted” before a scope can be created. These clarifications should be completed by mid June to ensure an efficient scope process.

Scope (scoping prior to reporting): The purpose of the Scope phase is to update and confirm the projects to be reported in the reporting objects, based on last year’s RNB reporting. Companies shall reflect current status and material changes, including projects entering or leaving the scope, and ensure that required deposits are correctly linked to support resource analyses. The scope work forms the basis for the data reporting. 

Data reporting (annual data submission): Once Initiate and Scope are completed, the confirmed scope and established master data form the basis for the main RNB reporting, which is delivered by 15 October. It is important that you deliver at the deadline, for the Directorate to meet subsequent deadline with the MoE. If there are significant changes to the reporting due to the budgetary processes in the production licensees’ management committees after 15 October, please contact the Directorate as soon as possible to clarify whether there is a need to submit an updated reporting.

1.3 Roles and Responsibilities

Clear roles and responsibilities between Offshore Norge and the Norwegian Offshore Directorate are essential to ensure consistent master data, efficient use of the Collabor8 solution and timely delivery of high-quality RNB reporting. 

The overall approach for RNB reporting is through the service provides by Offshore Norge as shown in the figure below.  

Figur

The overview below reflects the practical division of tasks in the RNB process, including coordination needs that have typically been highlighted during the annual reporting cycle.

Offshore Norge is responsible for:

• Providing and maintaining the Excel reporting templates used by companies (including structure, guidance text and drop-down lists) and communicating template updates ahead of the reporting season.
• Supporting the Collabor8 solution from a user perspective, including practical guidance on how to fill in and upload files/templates (and, where applicable, guidance on machine-to-machine/API use).
• Coordinating common industry questions and clarifications related to template use, especially where consistent interpretation across companies is needed.
• Ensuring that changes affecting the Collabor8 solution, and template format or exchange structure, are aligned with the Directorate’s technical requirements before release.

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate is responsible for:

• Defining the regulatory and methodological requirements for RNB reporting (scope, content, definitions and classification) and publishing the annual reporting guidelines and deadlines.
• Maintaining and updating master data required for reporting (e.g., reporting objects, NPDID references and deposit lists), based on input received during the Initiate phase.
• Operating the validation service and determining whether submissions are accepted, need correction, or require explanatory comments before they can be considered received.
• Providing feedback to reporting companies when errors, missing information or ambiguities are identified and performing overall quality assurance.

Coordination and Points of Contact

• Questions about technical use of the Collabor8 solutions and RNB template and file preparation should normally be routed through Offshore Norge guidance channels.
• Questions related to master data, reporting objects/deposits, scope acceptance and interpretation of requirements (including validation findings) should be directed to the Directorate. 
• Where a change impacts both the template and the Directorate’s validation or data model, Offshore Norge and the Directorate will align the solution before communicating the change to the reporting companies.

1.4 Quality Assurance

It is important that the operator ensures high data quality before submissions to the Directorate. The operator is expected to perform internal quality assurance and consistency checks to verify that the reported information is complete, consistent and in accordance with guidelines in this document. 

If the Directorate identifies errors, deficiencies or unclear elements in the submitted reporting, feedback will be provided to the issuer. The operator must then provide a response to the feedback from NOD and submit a correction if necessary.

In particular, operators should ensure:

• that the scope contains all projects from the previous reporting
• that the report is in accordance with the approved scope
• that there is consistency across reported data
• that inputs from the relevant disciplines have been quality assured

Validation service

Prior to submission, operators are encouraged to use the Directorate’s validation service in advance to test the data quality. The validation service replaces the consistency checks in the discontinued Excel reporting file. The validation rules that apply to the validation service are described in the Excel document “Validation rules”, available on our website. 

The service is hosted by NOD and made available to issuers through Offshore Norge's Collabor8, both via API and through the Collabor8 application. 

Some validation rules allow submission with an explanation (Severity: Warning), while others must be fully met before submission (Severity: Error).

Any submission to NOD must pass the validation service.

1.5 Changes and Improvements since last year

There are changes and improvements in the Guidelines in the following areas:

Reporting guidelines

• The guidelines for issuing scope and full report are now combined in one (this) document.
• Additional guidance to reporting structure with regards to merging of reporting objects is provided in 2.1 Evaluating the reporting object assignment.
• Additional guidance to which projects must have deposit information. The information must be as completed as possible on this matter, and all projects in RC0 and 0+1 must include such information, except commercial.

Process

• New process for the Initiate phase, where each issuer must review the assigned reporting object. The aim is to clarify reporting objects, deposits and issuer for the report at an early stage.

Reporting requirements

• “NewObject” and “NewReportIssuer” are excluded from Project Status in Scope 
• Added field for describing other income: “OtherIncomeExplanation”
• Renamed the property that represents if environmental reporting is reported by another object or included in the current object: