As the dust begins to settle after the spring and summer’s events in the Gulf of Mexico, what can we say about exploration around the globe in 2010 and when we look forward to 2011 and beyond?
Perhaps the most surprising announcement of 2010 was what I would call my ‘Surprising Niche I’ – the Levantine and Tabar biogenic gas discoveries offshore Israel, clearly extending the “Nile Delta” system - a massive find or massive hype? If the latter, which I doubt, it has some close challengers for the prize that might have been offered by Kipling!
“I despise exaggeration – 'tain't American or scientific.” (from The Captive)
However, I shouldn’t spend my time writing, and your time reading, about what AIM-sized companies may or may not have discovered, and thinking back to the Shell reserves fiasco of 2002 reminds us that it is not just small companies that might win this prize! To give some structure to my thoughts, I have been reviewing the “Hot Themes” that can be discerned by counting Internet news items – rough statistics I know but a guide to what companies are thinking about. Also presentations by companies to investors offer useful insights and these are freely available on company websites.
As a result, my “Hot Themes” are: Deep Water, the Arctic, Unconventionals and mid-Continent Onshore. Let’s look at each of these in turn:
Deep Water
Of course, the most significant event in 2011 was the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and its impact on exploration offshore the USA. Although the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) has been ‘lifted’, the brakes are still being applied in the form of incredibly slow permitting instead of an outright ban. Some in the industry have suggested that it may be 2012 before deep water GoM exploration gets back to anything like normal. However, the U.S. official in charge of regulating offshore oil drilling said on 13th January 2011 that the speed with which his agency approves new drilling permits would "probably never" return to the pace seen prior to last year's Deepwater Horizon spill. Meanwhile, deep water activity has continued offshore Brasil, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guyana, French Guiane, China, Angola, Australia, in the UKCS West of the Shetlands, with Brasil and Ghana providing the 2010 highlights. Far to the south, in a hostile environment…
