Exploration/discoveries
Equinor, Aker BP, and Vår Energi will combine resources and expertise to pursue some of the largest remaining exploration opportunities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The Loran Phase 2 license award builds on BP’s growing presence in Venezuela as it seeks to develop offshore projects, particularly shared fields near Venezuela’s maritime border with Trinidad and Tobago.
Gran Tierra will refocus its investment strategy to strengthen its portfolio in Canada and Azerbaijan while Maurel & Prom, majority owned by Pertamina’s international upstream arm, grows its South American footprint in Colombia and Ecuador.
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Seeking to become an energy producer, the Middle Eastern country is exploring for natural gas in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. -
Lukoil has begun wildcat drilling at an exploration well at the Shirotno-Rakushechnaya prospect structure, located north of the V.I. Grayfer field in the Caspian Sea.
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Egypt has completed 12 petroleum agreements worth at least $1 billion in addition to a $19-million signature bonus for drilling 21 wells, said Tarek E-Molla, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
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CNOOC Ltd., a branch of the China National Offshore Oil Corp., said in late June it had made a discovery at Huizhou 26-6 in the eastern South China Sea.
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Exploration is widely perceived as discretionary, even unwarranted. A report from Wood Mackenzie, however, presented a different scene. Only about half the supply needed to reach 2040 is guaranteed from fields already on stream, it said. The rest requires new capital investment and is up for grabs.
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Hit by the pandemic, the oil market crash, and the transition to a low-carbon energy future, exploration companies are spending bare budgets on near-term production and high-impact exploration.
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The Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has invited bids for partnership to raise production from 64 marginal fields that were given to the company by the government without bidding. As they are small in size, these fields are uneconomical for a larger company.
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National oil companies (NOCs) globally are estimated to cut exploration budgets by over a quarter on average in 2020, said Wood Mackenzie.
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Qatar Petroleum entered into a farm-in agreement with Total E&P to acquire a 45% participating interest in two blocks located in the Ivorian-Tano basin, offshore the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.
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A new licensing round will open up 136 blocks in the Arctic Barents Sea.
