Exploration/discoveries
Formerly titled E&P Notes, this monthly snapshot of global E&P activity highlights ongoing developments worldwide.
The country’s foreign investment bid comes as Sonatrach launches its largest capital expenditure outlay—$60 billion to be spent from 2026 to 2030.
Co-owner Chevron confirmed the find at the Bandit prospect offshore Louisiana and suggested it may become a subsea tieback to existing faciltiies operated by Occidental Petroleum.
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Barron Petroleum drilled a new discovery well in Val Verde County, Texas, finding an estimated 417 Bcf (74.2 million bbl) in oil and gas reserves. -
Unlike shale, deepwater plays—which are highly front-loaded investments with long project cycles—will be least affected by the current round of severe investment reductions. Large offshore plays in safer regions have become essential elements of the core business of large oil and gas players.
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DTEK Oil & Gas this year will conduct a large-scale seismic survey using green technology on a gas-and-condensate field in Ukraine.
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The national oil company’s remote northern region has delivered a pair of greenfields that await further drilling before a reserves estimate can be made.
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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.
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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.
