Upstream Petroleum Economics

Upstream Petroleum Economics is a five-day commercial decision-making course delivered by Mars Training Centre in London, Dubai, Doha, Muscat, and Amsterdam, and live online — designed for senior managers who evaluate, approve, or fund upstream oil and gas investments.

Upstream investment decisions sit at the intersection of geology, engineering, fiscal policy, and global markets. A single field development can commit billions over thirty years; a single change in oil-price assumption can flip a sanction case. Senior managers in planning, finance, joint ventures, business development, and government bodies are routinely asked to assess these decisions — yet the underlying economics are often built by specialists, in models others struggle to interrogate.

This programme builds the senior-level commercial literacy needed to sponsor, challenge, and approve upstream investments with confidence. You will work through field development economics, fiscal regimes, sanction-quality cases, and portfolio-level capital allocation, drawing on regional examples from the North Sea, the Middle East, and beyond. The focus throughout is on the questions a senior decision-maker should be asking, not on building the spreadsheet behind them.

What You Will Learn

• Apply the principal valuation frameworks used in upstream investment decisions.
• Interpret a field development economics case and identify its critical assumptions.
• Analyse fiscal regimes including royalty/tax, production-sharing, and service contract structures.
• Evaluate exploration economics and the role of expected monetary value.
• Assess the impact of price, cost, and recovery uncertainty on project value.
• Compare the economics of conventional, unconventional, and offshore developments.
• Diagnose the principal commercial risks in joint-venture and farm-in transactions.
• Build a structured view of portfolio capital allocation at corporate level.
• Apply carbon pricing and energy-transition sensitivities to upstream investment cases.
• Communicate upstream economics clearly to boards, ministries, and lenders.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with the senior-level commercial command needed to evaluate upstream investment cases, ask sharper questions of technical and finance teams, and contribute confidently to sanction and portfolio decisions — and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a senior manager who can stress-test capital cases, challenge optimistic assumptions before they reach the board, and improve the quality of upstream investment decision-making.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for senior professionals involved in upstream commercial decisions, including:

• Heads of planning, business development, and joint ventures in upstream operators
• Finance directors and investment evaluation leads
• Senior commercial managers in national and international oil companies
• Ministry and regulator officials supervising upstream investment
• Senior project and asset directors moving into commercial roles
• Banking, equity, and advisory professionals serving upstream clients
• Family-business principals with upstream investments

The seniority floor is senior manager and above.