Round up the usual suspects in global exploration and they are the usual prospects: Offshore Namibia and a handful of other basins off southwest Africa. Offshore Brazil and the Gulf (of America or Mexico), perennial favorites. Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, Suriname and Guyana.
But, consider the unusual prospects – those that might emerge in a few years, and the map expands considerably. Look farther down the coast of South America, farther up the coast of Western Africa.
Add more areas around the Mediterranean, more targets in Southeast Asia. Libya and Equatorial Guinea and offshore India. Even potential drilling sites north of the Arctic Circle.
In a commentary on ultra-deepwater basins, energy data and analytics company Wood Mackenzie noted that “exploration is thriving and making money.
“Since 2015, new field discoveries have created over $160 billion of value after all costs, based on our analysis and assuming an industry planning price of $65/barrel Brent long term. Full-cycle returns have been consistently in double digits every year since 2015, averaging 15 percent.
“Exploring is also cheaper than buying resource. Over the past five years, we have calculated industry-average breakeven prices for exploration at around $45 per boe (barrel of oil equivalent) versus $65 per boe” for mergers and acquisitions.
Robert Clarke, Woodmac’s vice president, upstream research, predicted “sentiment towards upstream investment will continue to improve, tempered only by near-term macro headwinds. Investors will pay more attention to reserves and resource lives than in the last decade, and companies will look to reload their hoppers.”
Mirko Araldi, a managing director for Eni, said, “We are very interested in Libya’s upcoming 2025 bid round. We are always interested in recharging our portfolio.”
Reloading hoppers or recharging portfolios, international exploration is bouncing back from a post-boom collapse and a pandemic slump. “Play it, Sam” now has been amplified by the White House’s “Drill, baby, drill,” to continue the same theme (Casablanca, White House).
Most Promising Emerging Plays
South America and Africa once again lead the list of the world’s top emerging exploration areas and scheduled high-impact wells. And offshore—deepwater or ultra-deepwater--continues to dominate the most enticing prospects.
Uruguay attracted a flurry of exploration interest in the 1970s, leading to a pair of wildcat dry holes in the offshore Punta del Este Basin. Another try in 2016, this one in the offshore Pelotas Basin, also failed to find commercial hydrocarbons.
Today the industry is back, and interested. For the first time, all of Uruguay’s offshore acreage is under active leasing, about 46,000 square miles. Shell, YPF and Apache all hold positions. Chevron has taken an operator stake in the OFF-1 block, with a 3-D seismic campaign set for this year.
Exploration success off Namibia launched the renewed interest in Uruguay, considered an analogue to offshore southwest Africa. Explorers see evidence of Aptian and Turonian source rock in offshore Uruguay basins, similar to rock found in Namibia’s Orange Basin, site of recent exploration successes.
AAPG held its first meeting in Uruguay last November, the 2024 Energy Summit, with a special focus on South Atlantic margins. The event helped highlight the southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina prospect area.
Exploration interest off northwest Africa centers on the MSGBC Basin. The extensive offshore area includes numerous prospects off Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and the Republic of Guinea, also called Guinea-Conakry.
A series of multiple sub-basins along the Northwest Africa Atlantic Margin, the MSGBC has already hosted several discoveries. Last year brought initial oil production from the Sangomar field offshore Senegal, about 62 miles south of Dakar. Woodside is operator for the Sangomar development, Senegal’s first oil project.
To the north, Mauritania scheduled a lease round last year with interest driven by a series of significant offshore natural gas discoveries and two large LNG developments. In January, BP announced first gas production from the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project, on the Mauritania-Senegal maritime border.
To the south of Sangomar, Apus Energy drilled an Atum prospect exploration well offshore Guinea-Bissau, but has not released results. Other potential prospects under evaluation in the MSGBC, including channel and delta-related sandstone plays, extend as far south as the Guinea Fracture Zone.
In December, Libya’s National Oil Company revealed plans to offer 22 offshore and onshore exploration blocks in a 2025 bid round. Spanish energy firm Repsol began exploration drilling near the prolific Sahara Field at the end of last year. Eni and partner BP have kicked off an exploration project in the onshore Ghadames Basin, which straddles the Libya-Algeria border.
But industry attention and speculation seem to focus more on Libya’s onshore-offshore Sirte Basin, where Eni and Austria’s OMV are both active. ENI plans to drill several offshore tests in the basin, including an ultra-deepwater exploratory well in Sirte Area C.
Libya has sought to encourage new drilling with security assurances, but the industry still considers geopolitical risk there high, which could slow exploration efforts.
Southeast Asia
Malaysia, Indonesia and the search for offshore natural gas have dominated the exploration picture in Southeast Asia recently. Now India wants in on the action. By promoting exploration investment, its government hopes to reduce dependence on imports. India is projected to be the world’s largest source of oil-demand growth in the next five years.
Seismic surveys indicate substantial hydrocarbon potential in the Andaman Basin in the southeastern Bay of Bengal, where several companies are involved in drilling programs. A report from S&P Global Commodity Insights in 2024 found that India’s underexplored Andaman Sea, Mahanadi, Bengal and Kerala-Konkan areas could hold 22 billion barrels of undiscovered hydrocarbon potential.
Both Oil India and Oil and Natural Gas Corp. have launched new offshore exploration efforts. ONGC reported an ultra-deepwater gas-condensate discovery, the Chola-1, in the Cauvery Basin in November and plans additional drilling in the area.
Australasia exploration has slowed, but it looks like the long-anticipated, deepwater Mailu-1 wildcat off Papua New Guinea will finally spud in the second half of 2025. Total Energies and Petronas are targeting a giant Tertiary carbonate oil prospect. It’s the block’s first well, and a good showing could open a significant new exploration play.
Europe
Norwegian independent Vår Energi confirmed an oil discovery in its operated Countach appraisal well near the Goliat field in the Barents Sea in December. Torger Rød, Vår chief operating officer, said the company is “excited about the potential additional opportunities presented in the Goliat ridge.
“Three more wells are expected to be drilled in 2025, the Zagato North, Zagato South and Goliat North wells, targeting similar opportunities in the Goliat ridge between the Goliat field and the Countach discovery. The potential to unlock significant additional resources is considerable,” he added.
In February, Equinor received approval from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate to drill an exploration well in the Barents Sea in the same license area as the Johan Castberg field. The activity is part of the industry’s nascent push into Arctic offshore waters, including the Barents and the northern Norwegian seas.
Up-and-coming areas for unconventional resources exploration include the Jafurah Basin in Saudi Arabia and the Ahnet Basin in Algeria. With technically recoverable shale gas totaling more than 700 trillion cubic feet, Algeria is estimated to hold the third-largest unconventional gas reserves in the world, behind China and Argentina.