Petroleum Resources Management System 2018

ClientEarth and Carbon Tracker Initiative argue that the PRMS 2018 framework is 'climate-blind' and fails to account for the energy transition, risking the accumulation of stranded assets. They propose introducing an 'atmospheric viability' test to determine if reserves are compatible with a 1.5°C warming limit and suggest comprehensive updates to 'defined conditions' and 'commerciality' criteria to include physical and transition climate risks.

• The current PRMS 2018 framework is described as 'blind to the impact of climate-related matters on the viability of reserves' and fails to incorporate constraints on emissions associated with global warming limits.
• The authors propose a new 'atmospheric viability' test to assess whether reserves are recoverable based on remaining carbon budgets and consistency with pathways to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
• Under the proposed 'atmospheric viability' test, resources that require a break-even price exceeding the limit imposed by a reference climate scenario, or new oil and gas projects generally, would be classified as unrecoverable.
• The document highlights a significant gap between known reserves and the carbon budget: Carbon Tracker estimates that up to 90% of fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground to limit warming to 1.5°C, while the total embedded emissions of known reserves could be as high as 3,700 GtCO2.
• The authors argue that failure to reform PRMS creates financial and legal risks, as global sustainability reporting standards (such as ESRS E1 and IFRS S2) and English planning law are increasingly requiring the disclosure of locked-in emissions and climate-related sensitivity analysis.
• Beyond the viability test, the authors recommend that 'defined conditions' for commerciality be updated to explicitly include physical climate risk, transition impacts on commodity prices, and the use of authoritative science-based scenarios (e.g., IEA's NZE, APS, and STEPS).

APA

ClientEarth (2024). Petroleum Resources Management System 2018. https://www.clientearth.org/media/x4mlpr3c/ce-cti-submission-on-prms-28-june-2024-3.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. Petroleum Resources Management System 2018. 2024. https://www.clientearth.org/media/x4mlpr3c/ce-cti-submission-on-prms-28-june-2024-3.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=ClientEarth |title=Petroleum Resources Management System 2018 |date=June 2024 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/x4mlpr3c/ce-cti-submission-on-prms-28-june-2024-3.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{clientearth2024petroleum, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{Petroleum Resources Management System 2018}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/x4mlpr3c/ce-cti-submission-on-prms-28-june-2024-3.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }