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Guarantees | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2012
Guarantees [Abstract] |
Guarantees | Note 12—Guarantees At September 30, 2012, we were liable for certain contingent obligations under various contractual arrangements as described below. We recognize a liability, at inception, for the fair value of our obligation as a guarantor for newly issued or modified guarantees. Unless the carrying amount of the liability is noted below, we have not recognized a liability either because the guarantees were issued prior to December 31, 2002, or because the fair value of the obligation is immaterial. In addition, unless otherwise stated, we are not currently performing with any significance under the guarantee and expect future performance to be either immaterial or have only a remote chance of occurrence. APLNG Guarantees At September 30, 2012, we have outstanding multiple guarantees in connection with our 37.5 percent ownership interest in APLNG. The f ollowing is a description of the guarantees with values calculated utilizing September 2012 exchange rates: We have guaranteed APLNG's performance with regard to a construction contract executed in connection with APLNG's issuance of the Train 1 and Train 2 Notice s to Proceed. Our maximum potential amount of future payments related to this guarantee is approximately $120 million and would become payable if APLNG cancels the applicable construction contract and does not perform with respect to the amounts owed to the contractor. We have issued a construction completion guarantee related to the third-party project financing secured by APLNG. Our maximum potential amount of future payments under the guarantee is estimated to be $3.2 billion, which could be payable if the full debt financing capacity is utilized and completion of the project is not achieved. Our guarantee of the project financing will be released upon meeting certain completion milestones, which we estimate would occur beginning in 2016. Our maximum exposure at September 30, 2012, is zero based upon our pro-rata share of the facility used at that date. In connection with issuance of the guarantee, we recorded a guarantee liability of approximately $114 million. In conjunction with our original purchase of an ownership interest in APLNG from Origin Energy in October 2008, we agreed to guarantee an existing obligation of APLNG to deliver natural gas under several sales agreements with remaining terms of 4 to 19 years. Our maximum potential amount of future payments, or cost of volume delivery, under these guarantees is estimated to be $1.1 billion ($2.6 billion in the event of intentional or reckless breach) and would become payable if APLNG fails to meet its obligations under these agreements and the obligations cannot otherwise be mitigated. Future payments are considered unlikely, as the payments, or cost of volume delivery, would only be triggered if APLNG does not have enough natural gas to meet these sales commitments and if the co-venturers do not make necessary equity contributions into APLNG. We have guaranteed the performance of APLNG with regard to certain other contracts executed in connection with the project's continued development. Our maximum potential amount of future payments related to these guarantees is approximately $110 million and would become payable if APLNG does not perform. Guarantees of Joint Venture Debt At September 30, 2012, we had guarantees outstanding for our portion of joint venture debt obligations, which have terms of up to 24 years. The maximum potential amount of future payments under the guarantees is approximately $70 mill ion. Payment would be required if a joint venture defaults on its debt obligations. Other Guarantees We have other guarantees with maximum future potential payment amounts totaling approximately $380 mill ion, which consist primarily of a guarantee to fund the short-term cash liquidity deficit of two joint venture s, a guarantee of minimum charter revenue for an LNG vessel, one small construction completion guarantee, guarantees of the lease payment obligations of a joint venture, guarantees of the residual value of leased corporate aircraft, and guarantees of the performance of a business partner or some of its customers. These guarantees generally extend up to 12 years or life of the venture. Indemnifications Over the years, we have entered into various agreements to sell ownership interests in certain corporations, joint ventures and assets that gave rise to qualifying indemnifications. Agreements associated with these sales include indemnifications for taxes, environmental liabilities, permits and licenses, employee claims, real estate indemnity against tenant defaults, and litigation. The terms of these indemnifications vary greatly. The majority of these indemnifications are related to environmental issues, the term is generally indefinite and the maximum amount of future payments is generally unlimited. The carrying amount recorded for these indemnifications at September 30, 2012, was approximately $70 million. We amortize the indemnification liability over the relevant time period, if one exists, based on the facts and circumstances surrounding each type of indemnity. In cases where the indemnification term is indefinite, we will reverse the liability when we have information the liability is essentially relieved or amortize the liability over an appropriate time period as the fair value of our indemnification exposure declines. Although it is reasonably possible future payments may exceed amounts recorded, due to the nature of the indemnifications, it is not possible to make a reasonable estimate of the maximum potential amount of future payments. Included in the recorded carrying amount were approximately $60 million of environmental accruals for known contamination that are included in the “A sset retirement obligations and accrued environmental costs” line on our consolidated balance sheet. For additional information about environmental liabilities, see Note 13—Contingencies and Commitments. In connection with the separation of the Downstream business, the Company entered into an Indemnification and Release Agreement with Phillips 66. S ee Note 2—Separation of Downstream Business, for additional information. This agreement provides for cross-indemnities between Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips and established procedures for handling claims subject to indemnification and related matters. We evaluated the impact of the indemnifications given and the Phillips 66 indemnifications received as of the separation date and concluded those fair values were immaterial.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for each guarantee obligation, or each group of similar guarantee obligations, including (a) the nature of the guarantee, including its term, how it arose, and the events or circumstances that would require the guarantor to perform under the guarantee; (b) the maximum potential amount of future payments (undiscounted) the guarantor could be required to make under the guarantee; (c) the current carrying amount of the liability, if any, for the guarantor's obligations under the guarantee; and (d) the nature of any recourse provisions under the guarantee, and any assets held either as collateral or by third parties, and any relevant related party disclosure. Excludes disclosures about product warranties. + References No definition available. + Details
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