The northernmost oil discovery in the world could be the opening salvo needed to jump start this very prospective frontier area.

Apache announced on 18 August that its shallow water Phoenix South-1 exploration well in permit WA-435-P, 180 km north of Port Hedland, had intersected at least four discrete oil columns ranging in thickness between 26m and 46m. It made a preliminary estimate of 300 MMbo in place.

Billions of barrels have been reported to lie under South East England, but how much of it is recoverable?

Mexico’s first exploration licensing round is a landmark event in the history of oil exploration in Latin America

The North West African Atlantic margin (NWAAM) is entering a new phase of activity.

Australia has a surprising new heavyweight in oil production – the western flank of the Cooper-Eromanga Basin.

Will shale gas be a game changer for Brazil?

A long established petroleum country moves back into the limelight.

Recently announced deepwater, sub-salt discoveries in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin extend that trend into Brazil’s north-eastern continental margin, over 2,000 km north of the Santos Basin discoveries.

Is an Australian unconventional gas boom on the cards?

Cairn Lanka, a subsidiary of Cairn India, has struck gas in the offshore Gulf of Mannar Basin between Sri Lanka and the southern tip of peninsular India.

Horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing technologies that have enabled companies to unlock large amounts of gas from shaley source rocks are now targeting similar rocks for oil and gas liquids.

Colombia’s regulatory reforms are paying dividends, with dozens of new oil and gas discoveries over the past two years – yet ‘rediscovered’ older fields are carrying the country to new production records.

The East African Rift System is now one of the world’s ‘exploration hotspots’, potentially just as significant for landlocked Africa and its underexplored rift systems as the Barnett Shale in Texas was to the birth of unconventional shale gas in North America.