Global Oil And Gas Discoveries Hit Four-Year High
Guyana’s success story from 2018 continued in 2019, with ExxonMobil adding four new discoveries within its offshore Stabroek block, while Tullow Oil’s Jethro and Joe exploration wells established the presence of a working petroleum system to the west of the Stabroek block. Rystad Energy estimates that the discoveries in Guyana hold cumulative recoverable resources of around 1.8 billion boe.
“ExxonMobil
can be declared explorer of the year for a second year in a row thanks to its
ongoing efforts and results in Guyana, along with significant investments in
Cyprus. The supermajor was exceptional, both in terms of discovered volumes and
value creation from exploration,” says Palzor Shenga, a senior analyst on
Rystad Energy’s upstream team.
The
US company discovered around 1.07 billion boe in additional net resources last
year. Rystad Energy estimates the value creation from these volumes to be
around $2.7 billion, largely driven by the continued success in Guyana.
Off
the coast of Mauritania, BP’s Orca gas field was not only the largest single
discovery, but also the deepest-water find of 2019, estimated by Rystad Energy
to hold about 1.3 billion boe of recoverable resources. Recent gas discoveries
in the region now support plans to build an additional LNG hub in the Bir Allah
area in Mauritania.
In
Russia, Gazprom announced two discoveries in the Kara Sea, Dinkov in the
Rusanovsky block and Nyarmeyskoye in the Nyarmeysky block. Rystad Energy
estimates Gazprom’s 2019 discoveries to hold combined recoverable resources of
around 1.5 billion boe, with Dinkov ranked as the second-largest find in 2019
world-wide.
Other
key offshore discoveries in 2019 include Total’s Brulpadda in South Africa,
ExxonMobil’s Glaucus in Cyprus, CNOOC’s Glengorm in the United Kingdom and
Equinor’s Sputnik in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea.
Even
so, many of 2019’s high-impact wells turned out to be duds, Shenga noted.
“Although the discovered volumes for 2019 surpassed the preceding year, it was
a disappointing year for high-profile wells as many prospects with significant
estimated pre-drill resources failed to deliver. Over 10 billion barrels of
estimated pre-drill volumes were at stake in wells that failed to encounter
hydrocarbons.”
US
independent Hess and Chinese state player CNOOC occupy the second and the third
spots on the list of top explorers of 2019 in terms of value creation from new
discoveries, with both benefiting from their partnership with ExxonMobil in
Guyana’s Stabroek block. Hess added about $2 billion in value from new
discoveries last year, while CNOOC had value creation of about $1.8 billion.
In 2020, Rystad Energy expects the global discovered volumes to continue the rising trend of recent years, with the list of upcoming wildcats including several high-impact wells along with some promising probes delayed from 2019.