Oil Exploration Grows But Discovered Volumes Fall To New Lows
- Rystad: in the first half of 2023, explorers found 2.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
- The exploration and production (E&P) industry is in a transitionary period, with many companies exercising increased caution and shifting their strategies to target more profitable and geologically better-understood regions.
- In the hunt for new resources, exploration companies are prioritizing the offshore sector.
Spending on conventional oil and gas exploration is rebounding and expected to top $50 billion this year, the highest since 2019, but operators are still waiting for the results they had hoped for. Rystad Energy research shows that despite the rising investments, discovered volumes are falling to new lows.
Our estimates show that in the first half of 2023, explorers found 2.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), 42% lower than the first half of 2022 total of 4.5 billion boe. Fifty-five discoveries have been made, compared to 80 in the first six months of last year. This means discoveries in 2023 have averaged 47 million boe, lower than the 56 million boe per discovery for the same period in 2022.
The exploration and production (E&P) industry is in a transitionary period, with many companies exercising increased caution and shifting their strategies to target more profitable and geologically better-understood regions. This strategic shift and the failure of several critical high-potential wells are contributing to the precipitous drop.
In the hunt for new resources, exploration companies are prioritizing the offshore sector, trying to capitalize on underexplored or frontier areas to unlock new volumes through high-risk, higher-cost offshore developments. The offshore industry accounted for about 95% of exploration spending this year to date but only about two-thirds of discovered volumes.
“Upstream companies are facing a period of uncertainty. They are eager to capitalize on the increased demand for fossil fuels and find additional resources, but recent results have been lackluster…
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