Five years on, what has Mexico’s energy reform delivered for the country’s oil and gas exploration and production ambitions?

Gulf of Mexico final investment decisions are likely to be put on hold, as oil and gas exploration and production companies join the budget-cutting parade.

A brief summary of oil and gas licensing rounds affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, that were announced by date of writing (April 2020).

In February, the UAE announced the significant discovery of 80 Tcf of in-place shallow gas resources, named Jebel Ali.

Neptune with partner Palatina GeoCon are testing oil at Schwegenheim-1 in the German Rhine Graben.

ExxonMobil have recently completed a three-well drilling campaign on VIC/P70 offshore Gippsland Basin, south-east Australia.

Experienced oil-man John Brooks thinks that there is still a great deal of hydrocarbon potential in the deep reservoirs of the southern North Sea. To test this deep potential, we need political initiatives and the harnessing of technological innovations, coupled with a willingness by big oil, gas and energy companies to take a risk.

Salt and evaporites in general are often regarded as both an excellent seal for hydrocarbons and an operational challenge to drill through – but salt biostratigraphy can also provide a valuable source of information for geoscientists in oil and gas exploration.

Egypt became a net importer of LNG in 2015. However, the country announced its intention to cease imports and begin exporting LNG through its main LNG terminal at Damietta in 2020.

CGG and Fairfield Geotechnologies will acquire a series of large-scale, high-density, multi-client seismic surveys in one of the most prolific hydrocarbon regions in North America - the Central Basin Platform (CBP) of the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Leviathan, the giant Israeli gas field discovered by Noble Energy in 2010, delivered its first gas to the Israeli domestic market in December 2019, with the first exports, to Egypt and Jordan, following in January 2020.

In October 2019 the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) launched the county’s second licensing round, releasing a total of 18 new blocks for public tender, covering a large percentage of the total on and offshore area of the country.

A number of drilling campaigns continue to expand on the oil and gas plays on the North West Shelf of Australia.

Italian giant Eni recently reported a significant gas condensate discovery, Mahani-1, in Sharjah.

In January 2020, Apache Corporation announced several oil and gas shows in the Maka Central-1 well, offshore Suriname, in the Campanian sands and the Upper Cretaceous Santonian clastics.