This year, Westwood is releasing its flagship State of Exploration report in a series of six separate parts. Part 5 – Offshore Exploration Acreage – is the latest in the series to be published.
The fifth report focuses on global offshore exploration acreage, providing a review of acreage held at the end of 3Q 2026, and a summary of acreage accessed in 2026, including both reconnaissance and Memorandums of Understanding. The analysis compares the size, geographic distribution and composition of company portfolios, as a key indicator of future exploration activity and strategic positioning.
Westwood’s Wildcat team highlights key findings from Part 5 in this insight.
Offshore Exploration Acreage
Globally, around 4.7 million km² of offshore exploration acreage is held by 444 companies, with the 10 largest holders accounting for 41% of the total area, while 374 companies holding <10,000km² each collectively hold only 19%.
Figure 1: Net offshore exploration acreage held by company, coloured by company group and split for NOCs by domestic versus international acreage. Source: Westwood Wildcat
24 companies hold >5,000km2 of exploration acreage in four or more countries. Company acreage positions differ markedly in scale, control and frontier basin exposure. Shell, Eni and TotalEnergies have large, diverse acreage positions with broad international diversification, whereas the portfolios of NOCs TPAO and Petronas are dominated by domestic acreage. Several large companies, including Woodside, ConocoPhillips and Repsol, now hold comparatively small offshore portfolios following years of rationalisation, although recent entries indicate that their appetite for exploration is returning.
Acreage strategies range from high-equity, operated positions to QatarEnergy’s entirely non-operated model. Several companies favour acreage in frontier basins whilst others take positions solely where the presence of a proven, commercial petroleum system has been established. The proportion of acreage held across the risk profile provides insight to the appetite for high risk, high reward exploration of companies. This is also reflected in company positions in ultra-deepwater >2500m, which some consider to be the next frontier for exploration, whilst others are primarily focussed on shallow waters <500m.
Exploration Acreage Access in 2026
Exploration access accelerated in 2026, with more than 500,000km² of acreage picked up globally in the first three quarters of 2026, including early-stage reconnaissance, Memorandums of Understanding and Heads of Agreements. 72% of acreage accessed was in Africa, led by Angola, the Republic of Guinea, Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Eni’s ~49,000km² reconnaissance permit in the Republic of Guinea was the largest individual agreement. Supermajors took more than 1/3 of the acreage accessed, but the vast majority of this carries no confirmed commitment at this stage. Other notable African entries included Petrobras’ large, high-equity position in Côte d’Ivoire, Shell in Gabon, and reconnaissance permits taken by multiple companies in Equatorial Guinea.
Figure 2: Acreage accessed in 1Q-3Q 2026, split by region and award type. Excludes eight countries, including China and Russia, due to the lack of transparency or recent reporting. Source: Westwood Wildcat
The growing dominance of supermajors, NOCs and large independents may limit the traditional role of smaller speculative explorers in the short term, however, much of the acreage which does not progress could return to the market.
The key question is how much early-stage access will convert into exploration licences, and how many wells will actually be drilled. The 2026 agreements demonstrate renewed interest in offshore and frontier exploration, but many currently provide only short-term study or evaluation rights and carry no firm seismic or drilling commitment. Even when these early-stage agreements are converted, drilling on much of this acreage is unlikely before the late 2020s or early 2030s, and will not materially impact drilling in the near term.
Note: The State of Exploration 2026 – Part 5 – Offshore Exploration Acreage report excludes eight countries, including China and Russia, due to the lack of transparency or recent reporting.
The State of Exploration 2026 series provides a comprehensive analysis of conventional high impact exploration globally. It investigates the subsurface drivers behind exploration performance, as well as the competitive landscape, offshore seismic acquisition, recent acreage entries and the wider outlook for exploration.
The report is available to subscribers of Westwood’s Wildcat as standard. Non-subscribers can purchase the report, in full or in part, here.
