Accounting for exploration and evaluation costs is one of the last major issues to remain largely unregulated by IFRS, despite extractive companies being a major part of several large stock markets. A temporary permissive standard, IFRS 6, has been in place since 2004.
The topic is relevant to many firms, but little recent academic research has been undertaken on IFRS practices in this area. This research focuses on the three IFRS-using countries with the largest number of listed extractive companies, Australia, Canada and the UK, and uses a sample of 129 companies.
Findings
The report offers a number of helpful policy conclusions for analysts, researchers and standard setters, revealing clear differences between the sub-industries (mining versus oil and gas) and international differences in policy choice.
