The development trend of major global oil and gas projects in 2021

wood mackenzie analyzed that in the next 20 years, there will be a supply gap of approximately 460 billion to 760 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the cumulative global demand for oil and natural gas. therefore, continued exploration is essential to meet the global future energy demand. generally speaking, as international oil giants, national oil companies, and independent oil companies streamline their investment portfolios, only the resources with the lowest cost and the best economic benefits have the advantage to attract capital. many proven resources do not have this feature. therefore, continuing to seek oil and gas reserves still has strong market prospects.

on the other hand, the overall global investment in oil and gas exploration and development has shown a downward trend, which also limits the growth rate of oil and gas reserves and production in the next 5-10 years. a report by resta energy shows that in 2021, global e&p investment is expected to be about 380 billion u.s. dollars, of which about 20% may face the risk of delay or reduction , the remaining investments will be classified as safer medium and low risk levels. it is estimated that the upstream investment will remain at a low level of us$300-400 billion in the next five years.

generally speaking, the difficulty of global oil and gas discovery continues to increase. the future development trend of the exploration field has distinct characteristics, that is, focusing on the deep ocean, focusing on natural gas, tending to low risk, leveraging digitalization, and stabilizing the new normal.

focus on the deep and far seas-resource exploration is developing from near shallow seas to deep seas, and offshore oil and gas development technology and financial expenditure will increase year by year. deep water is the focus of recent oil and gas reserves, and major discoveries are mainly concentrated in passive continental margin basins on both sides of the atlantic ocean, east africa, and the mediterranean sea. with the development of exploration and development theory and technological progress, searching for oil and gas resources in deeper and older strata has become an important goal of oil and gas companies.

pay attention to natural gas-natural gas exploration and development has become a hot spot. driven by the green and low-carbon transition, the development of natural gas will leap to a new level. at present, the estimates of the proportion of natural gas in primary energy consumption in the future by major institutions have been greatly improved. the exploration and development of natural gas will be highly valued by the petroleum industry. in the medium and long term, apart from increasing the exploration and development of conventional natural gas, the exploitation of unconventional natural gas will also be carried out globally.

tendency to low-risk. the scrutiny of exploration prospects will be stricter than before. for financial and environmental reasons, companies will be less willing to take on the high risks of drilling in environmentally sensitive areas. therefore, the oil potential of alaska, brazil's foz do amazonas and the barents sea may not be exploited and released.

leveraging on digitalization. resta energy believes that the application of digital technology will standardize exploration procedures and reduce costs, which will greatly increase the success rate of exploration.

stable new normal. for reasons such as comprehensive energy transition and investment decline, resta energy analysis report believes that in the next few years, the global annual oil and gas discoveries may show a new normal at around 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent.