Were you perhaps concerned that all this talk about 1.5°C being exceeded and climate change going out of control might cause Big Oil to cut back and stop drilling?
No worries! They'll never stop!! 😃
As Big Oil returns this week to the industry's annual showcase in Houston, deepwater discoveries off Guyana, Namibia, and the U.S. Gulf Coast will take the spotlight.
Offshore exploration had dimmed after the U.S. shale boom ushered in new and cheaper-to-tap supplies of oil, and as past offshore cost overruns pushed deepwater projects onto the industry's backburner.
But capital spending on all-new deepwater drilling is poised to hit a 12-year high next year, predicts Rystad Energy. Investment in all-new and existing deepwater fields could hit $130.7 billion in 2027, a 30% jump over 2023, it said.
Enthusiasm for offshore has climbed with discoveries and technology breakthroughs. Namibia's Mopane is forecast to hold as much as 10 billion barrels of oil, Portuguese oil company Galp Energia said last month.
Chevron and TotalEnergies have made a breakthrough in ultra-high pressure environments with their Anchor project in the Gulf of Mexico, the world's first to operate at once-unfathomable 20,000 pounds per square inch pressures. The Anchor platform is preparing to start production off the Louisiana coast, and at its peak will produce up to 75,000 barrels per day of crude and operate for 30 years.