Drilling Accountant

Our Oil & Gas Operator client is currently recruiting for the position of Drilling Accountant, based in their city centre offices in Aberdeen. Ideally you will have had experience supporting a drilling department within an Operator business and used to joint venture assets. The role involves being in the office 5 days a week although they do operate a 9-day fortnight over the summer months. Immediate start for a 2-year PAYE contract.

Responsibilities:

• Build a cost tracker to allow detailed tracking of activity and expenditure against Authorisation for Expenditure (AFE) and sanction.
• Review contracts and incorporate relevant assumptions.
• Complete detailed cost tracking of the program and meet with the Drilling and Completions Team at least weekly to review and agree well costs reporting to internal and external stakeholders.
• Constructively challenge cost estimates, variations and spend to drive value and cost control across the campaign
• Preparation of the monthly project cost report which will include expenditure to date and project forecast compared to AFE, Budget/ Sanction and prior forecast.
• Provide analysis of key variances and project cost opportunities and threats and communicate these effectively to the company’s teams, the Project Steering Group and Joint Venture Partners at least monthly.
• Provide early visibility to material deviations from plan.
• Collate monthly value of work done (VOWD) estimates and critically review accrual levels to ensure that the company’s monthly financial reporting is accurate.
• Deal in multiple currencies recognising threats that may occur from FX volatility and update forecasts accordingly
• Support colleague in invoice compliance.
• Prepare analysis and commentary for Quarterly Partner Reports and support Board paper variance commentary
• Be aware of commercial arrangements relating to your area of responsibility and ensure these are correctly reflected in forecasts, budgets, and plans and are followed appropriately.
• Completion of well reconciliations within 6 months of end of well
• Audit co-ordination for D&C Team during partner audits
• Provide corporate reporting team with understanding of costs and activity.
• Preparation of AFE’s (Internal and External) and control expenditure against these, ensuring supplementary AFEs where required are issued in advance eof expenditure being committed,
• Ensure Inventory is recorded correctly between Well AFEs and Inventory and that there are no variances between the inventory system (Maximo) and the financial system (Sun Accounts)
• Mentor and coach less experienced colleagues as appropriate,

Specific Requirements:

• Prior oil & gas Operator experience and have worked in a similar role.
• Educated to degree standard or equivalent.
• Confidence to challenge and ask pertinent questions.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to focus on the important issues.
• Ability to manage time to ensure most value adding activities are prioritised.
• Good working knowledge of oil and gas exploration and production business in particular with respect to drilling operations.
• A good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel is required to perform this role competently.
• Ability to coach more junior members of the team and provide leadership to the wider team if situation requires it.

Preferred But Not Essential:

• Experience of working with Maximo7.6 Wellview10.2, Sun Accounts/Vision and Microsoft Office applications will be an advantage although training will be given as required
• The candidate will hold a recognised Professional Accountancy Qualification