This review presents information on petroleum developments in 30 countries and areas. Eleven countries had crude production, totaling 1,704,188,000 bbl (4,669,000 b/d). This was an increase of 6.3% (291,000 b/d) over 1972, more than offsetting the sharp decline in 1972, and bringing production back to a level exceeded only in 1970 (4,760,000 b/d). Venezuela's historically dominant production (72% of the total in 1973) was up by 146,000 b/d, or 4.5%; output of the other producing countries, collectively, was also higher, by 145,000 b/d (about 12.5%). Ecuador was the main contributor to the net increase for the latter countries; it became the third-ranking producer in the review area (at 209,000 b/d), as development of the initial 3 Oriente fields advanced. Trinidad product on was also up significantly, with steadily rising output from the new fields off the east coast that neared 70,000 b/d by year-end. Production increased substantially in Peru and Bolivia, and slightly in Brazil. It was down moderately in Argentina, Chile, and Colombia.

Barbados made a tenuous entry into the ranks of producing countries, the 11th in the review area, with small production from recompleted discovery wells of prior years.

Industry drilling again decreased in 1973, to 1,638 wells, from 1,703 in the previous year. Both development (1,254) and exploration (384) wells were down, each by about 4%. Development effort was down markedly in most of the more mature producing countries; only Venezuela showed a major increase. Argentina shifted notably to exploratory drilling, to a near-record of 139 for the country, but Chile, Ecuador, and Trinidad had decidedly fewer exploration wells. In all, 13 countries reported exploration drilling, including 3 which have no commercial production.

Overall geologic and geophysical field-party activity was about at the 1972 level. Argentina and Brazil maintained their historical high efforts. For the second successive year Peru had a major increase in seismograph work, to about 20 crew-years, attributable almost entirely to the expanding play in the eastern part of the country. Seismic surveys were down considerably in Colombia, and sharply in Ecuador. Party-months of work by principal methods was: surface geology, 192 months (190 in 1972); seismograph, 778 (764); and gravity, 38 (48).

Important oil discoveries are reported at several wildcats in the north part of eastern Peru, on private-company contract acreage adjoining Ecuador. Another promising new-frontier discovery appears to be gas finds on, and offshore of, the Guajira Peninsula, northeastern Colombia.

Brazil increased its already major wildcat effort ranging over much of the extensive continental shelf, and one potentially significant new-discovery area is reported, in the Potiguar basin off the northeast coast. Forty-three NFW wells were completed in 1973, and approximately 10 rigs were reportedly active at year-end. No major new-field discoveries are indicated for the eastern Ecuador and eastern offshore Trinidad plays; emphasis shifted from wildcat to evaluation and development drilling in discovery areas of prior years.

Results of further exploration drilling in Belize (3 wells) and in the Honduras offshore (3) continued disappointing, and most concessionaires withdrew from the latter area.

The more important acreage developments for the period were: (1) 8 additional contracts, approximately 8,000,000 ha., awarded to private companies, in eastern Peru; (2) first contracts (7 blocks, 7,000,000 ha.) to international majors, under Bolivia's 1972 Hydrocarbons Law; and (3) selected eastern Ecuador and Trinidad offshore acreage opened to competitive bidding, near year-end.