DEEPWATER STATISTICAL REPORT

Another good year for new deepwater fields

The exploration industry looks to have had an excellent year for new field discoveries in 2008. This success owes much to drilling in 400 m of water or more.

It is still too early to quantify last year’s exploration performance. Results for wildcat wells completed in 2008 are not yet fully available. Even where companies have announced new field discoveries, any estimates of the recoverable volumes added must be considered preliminary. Based on the information available so far and our opinion of key prospects, Wood Mackenzie estimates the global new field volumes for 2008 to be at least 19 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources. These early estimates are usually revised upward as additional disclosures are made and as appraisal work proceeds.

Deepwater finds account for around 13 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2008, or two-thirds of the total resource discovered. Much of this success comes from Brazil’s Santos Basin, where a series of important new finds have confirmed the pre-salt to be a truly world-class play. Four giant discoveries completed during 2008 are Júpiter, Bem-Te-Vi, Guará and Iara—these estimated to hold over 6 billion barrels of recoverable oil with 15 Tcf of gas. The Santos Basin accounts for 70% of all new deepwater resources, and as much as half of worldwide exploration success by volume for the year.

The majority of explorers’ discoveries continue to be oil. In deep water, around one-third of new field resources is gas. In general, we expect oil finds to achieve both shorter development lead times and higher prices than gas and to deliver greater returns for explorers.

The importance of deep water as a source of exploration success is nothing new. Over the past decade (1999–2008), we estimate that on average 43% of new field resources have been discovered in deep water. The location of these resources has changed over the years, with new plays in Brazil and elsewhere picking up as areas such as Angola and Nigeria show signs of maturing, but the overall rate of discovery remains robust.