Recent petroleum commodity prices and supply concerns have spawned discussions by industry analysts, the media, policy makers and the public. Beyond the hype of “peak oil,” the petroleum industry is faced with very real challenges in maintaining a healthy exploration program to meet long-term energy needs. Using recent examples from North America, West Africa, South America and the Middle East, this presentation looks at several recent trends in the exploration landscape.

First, a ferocious competitive climate is driving up the cost of opportunity capture, creating the risk of a “winner’s curse” scenario. This situation is providing incentives to pursue high-risk/ high-potential plays, often in remote or challenged settings. Exploration in these frontier areas is being enabled by both a return to fundamentals and the next generation of basin concepts and modeling capabilities. At the other end of the spectrum, near-field potential is often a “hidden jewel,” with payoffs from extensions to existing pools and discovery of new reservoirs. Significant new potential in these settings is usually driven by new data, technology or concepts that refute an existing paradigm. In basins that are prolific but mature, deeper and more subtle opportunities are being pursued. Often these plays rely on new petroleum systems and/or the preservation of deep porosity. And last, unconventional resources, including ultra-tight gas, heavy oil, shale gas and coal bed methane, have become more prominent, especially in North

America. Such assets have specific characteristics that demand a different approach. Unconventional resources commonly have long lifecycles, blur the boundaries of exploration/development/ production, need continuous experimentation to optimally exploit and require a close integration of geoscience and engineering.

Because the business and technical aspects are becoming increasingly complex for the upstream energy industry, uncertainty management is becoming an important topic. The current environment can translate to an opportunity for those organizations that can respond strategically rather than react to volatile near-term conditions.

Historical Perspective.

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