According to Emmanuelle Garinet, VP of Exploration Africa at TotalEnergies, Africa’s frontier basins hold significant volumes. She pointed to Namibia as an example of how seismic and subsurface data can de-risk projects: “When we decided to drill the Venus well, it was frontier, but we had a probability of success of more than 50% because of the seismic data and direct hydrocarbon indicators.”
Ghana’s Minister of Energy and Green Transition, Hon. John Abdulai Jinapor, has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fostering investor confidence and promoting natural gas as a cornerstone of the nation’s energy future.
State-owned Israel Natural Gas Lines Ltd (INGL) signed an agreement to allow the Chevron Corp-led Leviathan consortium to use the planned Nitzana pipeline to ship more natural gas from the Israeli offshore field to Egypt, Leviathan co-venturer NewMed Energy LP said Tuesday.
Greece, which currently produces only small volumes of oil, is working to expand domestic natural gas resources to reduce reliance on imports. While renewables have increased in recent years, gas remains critical to the country’s power generation mix. The exploration push also aligns with the European Union’s strategy to diversify supply and reduce dependence on Russian energy following the invasion of Ukraine.
Chevron plans to increase its oil production in Argentina’s shale play Vaca Muerta to about 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the year, from around 25,000 bpd now, Ana Moneto, the U.S. supermajor’s Argentina country manager, said.
Algeria has some of Africa’s largest overall oil and gas reserves, but production had long been held back by mismanagement and lack of investments – an issue authorities sought to tackle with new legislation that was approved in 2019. Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which left Europe struggling to find alternative gas supplies and Algiers poised to fill the gap.
The U.S. government has made it clear it wants to prevent the Venezuelan government from reaping any financial benefit from the country’s oil wealth, but this has proved difficult, since U.S. refiners are sizable buyers of Venezuelan crude and the chief reason why Chevron was granted that sanction exemption. Last year, imports of Venezuelan crude in the U.S. hit peaks of some 300,000 barrels daily, per data from Kpler.
Earlier this week, Chevron completed its acquisition of Hess Corp. It was one of the largest deals in the oil and gas space in recent history, after Exxon’s takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources, finalized in 2024. With that out of the way, the question begs to be asked: could the two U.S. giants strike a deal to create a single, much bigger giant?
PTTEP, Thailand’s national E&P company, has signed an agreement to buy 100% of the outstanding shares of Hess International Oil Corporation, which holds a 50% participating interest in the offshore natural gas Block A-18 of the Malaysia–Thailand Joint Development Area (MTJDA).
Full details of the decision were not immediately clear. The move came around the same time Washington and Caracas brokered an agreement that saw the release of 10 Americans detained in Venezuela, while 250 Venezuelans who were imprisoned in El Salvador were returned to their home country.