{"id":61201,"date":"2021-12-31T16:58:29","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T21:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61201"},"modified":"2021-12-31T16:58:29","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T21:58:29","slug":"oil-and-gas-discoveries-are-at-the-lowest-level-since-1946","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61201","title":{"rendered":"Oil and gas discoveries are at the lowest level since 1946"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"_7mAHX\">\n<div class=\"_7OL8C\">\n<h3 class=\"aoSks\"><a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/2107452\/oil-and-gas-discoveries-are-at-the-lowest-level-since-1946\/\">Oil and gas discoveries are at the lowest level since 1946<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"_9SMcd _2DJEv\">\n<div class=\"dVfce\">\n<div class=\"_57zR9 _1ZFNs visible\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=410&amp;h=231\" sizes=\"(min-width: 64em) 1600px, (min-width: 48em) 950px, (min-width: 26.5625em) 690px, 410px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=410&amp;h=231 410w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=820&amp;h=462 820w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=690&amp;h=388 690w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1380&amp;h=776 1380w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=950&amp;h=534 950w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1900&amp;h=1068 1900w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1600&amp;h=900 1600w, https:\/\/cms.qz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Oil-spill-California-Elly-Ellen-Newport-Huntington-beach-Orange-County.jpeg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=3200&amp;h=1800 3200w\" alt=\"Platforms Ellen and Elly offshore near Long Beach, California.\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"aMP16\">US BUREAU OF SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT<\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"aM8kg _2DJEv\">Offshore oil platforms are becoming a rarer sight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<div class=\"cqh93\">\n<div class=\"tDvCK\">\n<div class=\"au9XZ\">\n<div id=\"article-content\">\n<p class=\"cyhZ9\">Oil and gas firms are having their worst year for new fossil fuel discoveries in decades and reserves are dwindling. The oil and gas industry is on track to discover just 4.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) by the end of 2021, its worst performance in 75 years, according to the research firm Rystad Energy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"cyhZ9\">Historically, large discoveries have accounted for most of the world\u2019s new reserves. Globally,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.maritime-executive.com\/article\/rystad-2021-may-be-worst-year-since-1946-for-oil-gas-discoveries\">40% of all petroleum<\/a>\u00a0ever discovered has been found in 900 oil and gas fields. But the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/re\/business\/\">industry<\/a>\u00a0has made few such discoveries this year. The ratio of proven reserves to production, a measure of how much extractable oil remains in the ground relative to annual production,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rystadenergy.com\/newsevents\/news\/press-releases\/big-oil-faces-major-reserves-challenge-as-new-discoveries-fail-to-replace-production\/\">is now at its lowest level since 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"_1UP0V medium\"><iframe id=\"datawrapper-chart-6r6Ci\" class=\"bbngu\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/6r6Ci\/2\/\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"cyhZ9\">Production of existing wells naturally declines each year, so the industry must constantly open up new fields to keep pace with demand. The International Energy Agency\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iea.org\/reports\/world-energy-outlook-2020\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0global oil production declines by about 7% per year without investment in existing fields.<\/p>\n<p class=\"cyhZ9\">Yet cash to reinvest in new supply is scarce. Since the mid-2010s, US oil and gas firms have slashed capital expenditures as their stock prices plummeted. During the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/re\/covid-19\/\">pandemic<\/a>, firms cut exploration budgets even more to trim debt, pay dividends, and stem huge losses from a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/re\/u-s\/\">US<\/a>\u00a0fracking boom that failed to generate profits. \u201cThe industry was in a survival mode throughout 2020, reducing its capital expenditures to match with low cash flows through the 2020 covid-19 recession,\u201d according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.api.org\/news-policy-and-issues\/blog\/2021\/02\/24\/is-the-world-about-to-see-an-oil-shortage\">American Petroleum Institute (API)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"cyhZ9\">In 2020, industry investment dropped by $145 billion, leaving it at about half the level it was in 2014. It remained at a similar level into 2021. The OPEC+ bloc of oil-producing nations has also proven unusually disciplined at curtailing production.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oil and gas discoveries are at the lowest level since 1946 US BUREAU OF SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENFORCEMENT Offshore oil platforms are becoming a rarer sight. Oil and gas firms are having their worst year for new fossil fuel discoveries in decades and reserves are dwindling. The oil and gas industry is on track to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32365,16898,32366],"class_list":["post-61201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-michael-j-coren","tag-oil-discoveries","tag-quartz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61202,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61201\/revisions\/61202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}