Key facts
- Global oil and gas discoveries in 2025 reached their lowest level in over 40 years.
- Discovered volumes in 2025 were one-tenth of the 2013 peak.
- Annual conventional discovered volumes averaged over 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in the early 2010s.
- Since 2020, annual discoveries have averaged slightly over 8 billion boe.
- Between 2023 and September 2024, the annual average discovery volume fell to about 5.5 billion boe.
- Exploration capital expenditure was slashed to $50 billion-$60 billion in 2025, down from $115 billion in 2013.
Global oil and gas discoveries in 2025 have fallen to their lowest point in over 40 years, with discovered volumes shrinking to one-tenth of the 2013 peak, according to analysis by Rystad Energy. This decline is attributed to reduced investment by global energy companies, which has led to a strategic shift in exploration activities.
Annual conventional discovered volumes, which averaged more than 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per year in the early 2010s, have fallen to slightly over 8 billion boe annually since 2020. The average has further decreased to about 5.5 billion boe between 2023 and September 2024. This contraction reflects a strategic change where exploration and production (E&P) companies are narrowing their focus to high-impact basins like Namibia's Orange Basin, Suriname's deepwater basin, and Brazil's pre-salt basin, as well as infrastructurally rich near-field explorations, while divesting from marginal regions.
These focused exploration campaigns leverage advanced subsurface datasets, low-cost near-field tiebacks, digital technologies, and low-carbon infrastructures to balance risk and return. The concentration of discoveries in a few countries, including Namibia, Guyana, Brazil, and Suriname, highlights a narrowing geography of exploration success and the risk-taking appetite of global E&P companies. Frontier nations are using this opportunity to attract foreign investment through favorable fiscal terms to build energy security, while mature nations are appraising under-explored plays for long-term growth.
Transformative events like Petrobras' 2006 discovery of the Tupi field in Brazil's pre-salt basin, enabled by technological advancements, and ExxonMobil's 2015 Liza discovery in Guyana, have redefined exploration frontiers. The recent discoveries in Namibia's Orange Basin by Shell, TotalEnergies, and Galp Energia are considered the most promising new petroleum province of this decade. International oil majors and national oil companies (NOCs) collectively account for most new resources found, with the six major oil companies contributing about 22% of discovered volumes since 2015.