Accounting in the London Stock Exchange's extractive industry: The effect of policy diversity on the value relevance of exploration-related disclosures

The accounting treatment of exploration expenditure in the extractive industry has historically been a challenging issue for regulators. This paper examines the accounting policies for, and value relevance of, the exploration assets of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange from the oil & gas and mining sectors. The policies used by oil & gas firms range from the relatively conservative Successful Efforts to the most aggressive Full Cost method, whereas mining firms employ a range of policies from the Successful Efforts to the most conservative Expense All method. The results suggest that the income statements of Main Market-listed extractive firms contain value relevant information regardless of the policy followed by the firm. There is no significant difference between the value relevance of exploration asset disclosures by Main Market-listed oil & gas firms following the Successful Efforts or Full Cost methods. For AIM-listed oil & gas companies only the Full Cost method provides value relevant information on exploration assets. In the mining sector, exploration-related asset disclosures are only value relevant for AIM-listed firms following the Expense All method. The results suggest that flexibility in accounting for exploration expenditure is necessary to facilitate the disclosure of value relevant accounting information.