Analysis of the world deepwater oil and gas exploration situation

The global trends in deepwater oil and gas exploration, characteristics of deepwater oil and gas discovery, and layout of deepwater oil and gas exploration business by seven major international oil companies are systematically analyzed using commercial databases (e.g. S&P Global and Rystad) and public information of oil companies. The deepwater area is currently the most important domain for global oil and gas exploration and discovery, with the most discoveries and reserves in passive continental margin basins. The deepwater discoveries have the greatest contribution to the total newly discovered oil and gas reserves in the sea areas, with an increasing number of lithological reservoirs discovered, and oil and gas discoveries mainly distributed in the Mesozoic–Cenozoic. The seven major international oil companies are widely active in various aspects of deepwater oil and gas exploration and development, and play a leading role. Based on years of theoretical understanding of global oil and gas geology and resource evaluation, it is proposed that favorable deepwater exploration areas in the future will mainly focus on three major areas: the Atlantic coast, the Indian Ocean periphery, and the Arctic Ocean periphery. Six suggestions are put forward for expanding overseas deepwater oil and gas exploration business: first, expand the sources for obtaining multi-user seismic data and improve the scientific selection of deepwater exploration areas; second, increase efforts to obtain deepwater exploration projects in key areas; third, adopt various methods to access into/exit from resource licenses flexibly; fourth, acquire licenses with large equity and operate in “dual-exploration” model; fifth, strengthen cooperation with leading international oil companies in deepwater technology; and sixth, improve business operation capabilities and gradually transform from “non-operators” to “operators”.