This year, Westwood is releasing its flagship State of Exploration report as a six-part series. Part 3 – High Impact Resource Progression – is available now.
The third report considers how effective the industry is in progressing high impact discovered resource through to production, by analysing the status of the 390 potentially commercial high impact discoveries made in 2010-2025.
The Wildcat team share key takeaways in this latest insight.
High Impact Resource Progression
11 high impact offshore discoveries made since 2010 across eight developments received FID in 2025, progressing 2.3bnbbl and 9.5tcf of discovered high impact resource, and adding 0.8mmboepd of new production capacity.
Figure 1: Map of the 2025 high impact FIDs. Source: Westwood Wildcat.
Of the 11 discoveries that are to be developed, eight were made before 2014 and have taken more than 10 years to see FID. Two of those more recent discoveries made since 2014 that have progressed are gas discoveries in the Turkish Black Sea and one is an oil discovery, offshore Guyana.
Over the last two to three years many companies have recognised the need to add reserves to their inventories and operators are looking at a range of options to do this. Increased exploration drilling is one way, but increasingly companies are beginning to progress older, often challenging, discoveries with revised development plans in the light of new technology, new partnerships or revised fiscal terms.
The largest projects to take FID were both in Brazil. The 870mmboe SEAP-2 development of the 2012 Moita Bonita discovery in the ultra-deepwater Sergipe Alagoas basin saw Petrobras finally take FID on the large and complex development in December 2025 and Shell managed to overcome the challenges associated with the deep water 2010 Gato de Mato gas condensate discovery, taking FID in March 2025.
In the US Gulf, BP took FID on the 500mmboe Tiber-Guadalupe cluster following the 2024 FID of its sister field Kaskida. The discoveries were made in 2009 and 2014 in Paleogene Wilcox sandstones but appeared non-commercial in 2018 due to the challenging ultra-HPHT reservoir conditions (>20,000 psi) and development costs, with Chevron exiting the project. Recent advances in the development of reservoirs at pressures greater than 20000psi has allowed the project to move forward and first production is expected in 2030.
In the North Falklands basin the Sea Lion project, discovered in 2010, has suffered from its remote location, lack of supply chain and long contested sovereignty between the UK and Argentina over the Islands. Following multiple changes to the partnership Navitas entered in 2022 and took FID in December 2025 with first production planned for 2028.
More opportunities to progress older discoveries exist. An additional 4.7bnbbl and 125tcf of resource in 57 discoveries made in the 2010-2015 period remain pre-FID and offer a significant proportion of the global discovered resource opportunity set.
It is unlikely that global high impact exploration drilling will increase significantly and if the volumes discovered each year continue the downward trend, we can expect companies to look harder at those discoveries that were made more than 10 years ago.
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 product. Non-subscribers can purchase the report, in full or in part, here.
