Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA RD Instruction 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. More than 4,000 studies since 1998 covering $40.2 billion in evaluated project value.
Upstream feasibility is reserve economics under commodity-price discipline. The study evaluates the geological and engineering basis supplied by the project team — independently tested, not accepted — alongside drilling and completion cost benchmarks, type-curve production assumptions, operating cost per BOE, and the price-deck sensitivity that determines whether the program survives the bottom of the cycle. Working-interest structure, lease obligations, and plugging liability receive explicit treatment, because upstream credit fails on obligations as often as on price.
Methodology draws on state oil and gas commission production records, published type curves for the basin, drilling-cost surveys, and futures-strip and bank price decks for the sensitivity cases. The financial model carries production decline, differentials, lease operating expense, and coverage under conservative price assumptions across the firm's standard stress discipline.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Oil, gas, and heavy-industrial projects reach us through conventional and institutional lending most commonly, with USDA B&I applicable to qualifying rural energy and processing assets and SBA programs serving owner-operator support businesses; each study is prepared to the corresponding compliance standard, with environmental and regulatory conditions precedent stated plainly.
The firm's energy and fuel-infrastructure record spans travel centers, fuel terminals-adjacent retail, and industrial projects nationwide, prepared with the same fully linked models and stress discipline as every Wert-Berater engagement. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
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