The oil and gas industry has been the backbone of the world economy for several decades.
Disregarding the anomaly during the Covid-19 pandemic, oil and gas demand has consistently grown over the years.
New oil and gas discoveries and oilfield clusters with massive reserves are helping to sustain global production to meet this demand.
Barring geopolitical outliers such as Venezuela, oil and gas developments across the world play a crucial role in sustaining the world economy.
Leading data and analytics company GlobalData conducted a poll in May 2024 to gauge which oil field developments have the best prospects in the short to medium term.
Around 33% of the respondents felt that the emerging oil patches of Guyana-Suriname could be the largest growth engine for oil development.
The Guyana-Suriname Basin came to attention following the announcement of the Liza-1 discovery well offshore Guyana in 2015.
So far more than 40 oil fields have been discovered and are expected to contribute significantly to the country’s future production.
The basin holds approximately 6.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil and condensate reserves according to GlobalData.
As of 2024, ExxonMobil produced 514,000 barrels per day of crude oil in the Guyana-Suriname Basin.
Nearly 22% of the respondents opined that the frontier African countries, comprising Namibia, Senegal, Mauritania, and Tanzania, will have the best prospects for production growth in the coming years.
Recent discoveries in offshore Africa, both in the Atlantic, as well as the Indian Ocean, have yielded vast reserves for these countries.
These countries are seeking to attract investments for the development of their hydrocarbon reserves, especially for gas production.
Roughly 20% of the respondents considered the US Gulf of Mexico as the best oil and gas prospect in the short to medium term.
The region has been a longstanding heavyweight in global oil and gas production.
It benefits from well-developed infrastructure for the transmission, processing, and export of hydrocarbons along the coast of Texas and Louisiana in the US.
Several new deepwater discoveries in the region in 2023 have further deepened its production capability.
The top producers in the US Gulf of Mexico include BP, Shell, and Chevron.
Nearly 8% of the respondents said that Southeast Asian gas developments will have the best prospects in the timeframe considered.
There are a number of upcoming natural gas fields in the region.
These are expected to boost the gas-based power generation and liquified natural gas throughput in the region.
The countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines are pushing for these developments to take place, amidst concerns of hampering energy transition in the region.
Meanwhile, about 7% of the respondents claimed the Brazilian pre-salt oil reserves have the best prospects for hydrocarbon development.
The pre-salt reserves in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil were first discovered in 2006.
Companies developed newer technologies to drill approximately 8,000m below sea level and extract hydrocarbons from these pre-salt reserves.
The Brazilian government also eased certain regulations to invite foreign companies to explore and produce from these reserves.
Companies such as Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, QatarEnergy, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation have notable interests in the region, in collaboration with the national oil company Petrobras.
Lastly, about 10% of the respondents professed they were unsure as to which of the listed oil and gas developments would have the best prospects in the short to medium term.
Nevertheless, growing oil demand is expected to primarily drive the above-mentioned oil and gas developments.
The alignment of regulatory framework, timely funding for infrastructure construction, and geopolitical equations are expected to play a pivotal role in the success of these developments.
