The taking of impairments to oil and gas assets can become a point of controversy in the oil and gas business, often because they are the result of a complex decisions and judgments made by each individual company about current and future market conditions.

As a result of that complexity and the fact that the process is little understood outside of the industry and federal regulators that govern it, media reporting about it can often become sensationalistic and misleading.

Such was the case in the past week with ExxonMobil XOM +5.8%, which issued advice to shareholders and investors that, as a part of an overall reassessment of its entire portfolio, a set of natural gas assets currently carrying an assessed value of $25 to $30 billion dollar could see that value written down to some extent. Or not, depending on the outcome of that global portfolio reassessment, whether the company decides to keep those assets in its long-term development plan, and how the company would manage their development into the future.

Here is how ExxonMobil put it in its own disclosure: “Depending on the outcome of the planning process, including in particular any significant future changes to the corporation’s current development plans for its dry gas portfolio, long-lived assets with carrying values of approximately $25 billion to $30 billion could be at risk for significant impairment. If these assets remain in our long-term development plan, similar to previous years, it is unlikely the assets would be subject to material impairment. The company expects to complete this assessment in the fourth quarter.”

Sources: Forbes