JL Daeschler shared an interesting opinion piece. He and I are in general agreement with the author, Steve Sasanow. Key points:
- Steve finds Equinor’s recent comment that the days of big offshore finds are over to be disingenuous. He correctly notes that this view has been echoed for decades. (Although the end of Gulf of America oil production has been predicted for 40 years, 2025 was a near record year.)
- Offshore Norway, it was only in 2010 that the giant Johan Sverdrup field was ‘found’ by Equinor. Two super-majors – Exxon and Total – missed the reservoir and abandoned further exploration in the area. (How many times have we heard similar stories in the oil patch?) Equinor, then Statoil, made a relatively small find in the middle of the reservoir and was planning a limited subsea development. Geophysicists from partner Lundin created a better picture of what was in place – nearly 3 billion barrels with peak production of 750,000 b/d three years ago. Just this week, Equinor announced Phase 4 of production through further subsea development.
- Who heard much about Guyana a decade ago?
- How about the major new discoveries offshore Brazil? See the video below.
- New production offshore Namibia, South Africa, and Mozambique looms. Finds off Indonesia and Timor Leste, and even the Falklands, await development.
- “So guys, stop making out that life is tough. It might be challenging, but it has always been thus. Big risks and big rewards.”
- On BP’s announcement that they were reorganizing into upstream and downstream divisions: “Wow – what a great idea! How come no one ever thought of this before? Imagine this scenario – oil companies making money on both sides of the price cycle – upstream when the price of oil is high and downstream when it is lower. Amazing – NOT!” 😉
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 
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