‘Here be giants’ – unlocking Africa’s deepwater exploration puzzle

Big Oil is doubling down on high-impact exploration. A decade of capital discipline and improved value creation performance has helped regain investor support for investment. There’s also wider understanding that exploration can deliver advantaged barrels to meet stronger-for-longer oil and gas demand. War in the Gulf has added another dimension – the market’s need for diverse sources of supply.  

The Atlantic margin of West Africa has emerged as arguably the industry’s hottest spot for exploration, with a series of giant discoveries in new plays this decade. Gavin Thompson led the Wood Mackenzie team at AOW: Energy 2026 in Accra, Ghana in September where the excitement about deepwater exploration was palpable. He and our Sub-Saharan Africa upstream research colleagues Vincenza Papaleo and Huong Tra Ho shared their thoughts. 

What’s made the African Atlantic margin a hot spot?

For a decade, the region has been the global leader statistically – for exploration success rates (more than 50%), volumes discovered per well (well above than the next best) and average discovery size over the last 10 years. Virtually all of the 17.3 billion boe discovered between 2016 and 2025 on the African continent have been on the Atlantic Margin.  

In the past five years, a series of giant discoveries has lifted perceptions of the potential to another level. The finds have opened new basins and new plays in mature producing basins. The scale, commerciality and very different geological settings of two of these in particular explain why explorers’ enthusiasm for the Atlantic Margin has been re-ignited. But they also highlight the challenges that are likely to be encountered.  

Eni’s 2021 Baleine discovery in Cote d’Ivoire is in 1,200 metres water depth, in a high-quality Cretaceous carbonate holding initial recoverable reserves of 0.75 billion bbls of oil and 1.0 Tcf gas. In true Eni-style, the project was in production inside two years, on its way to peak at 180,000 boe/d in 2030.  

TotalEnergies’s 2022 Venus discovery holds huge volumes of oil in a Cretaceous turbidite reservoir towards the farthest reaches of the Namibian continental shelf in 3,000 metres of water. Though among the biggest finds ever in Africa, the reservoir is highly complex with low permeability and has a high gas ratio. Nevertheless, FID is anticipated imminently for a project expected to recover 0.75 billion bbls of oil.  

Is Big Oil loading up on African Margin exploration acreage?

Yes, an astonishing land grab is underway down the entire Atlantic coast. The Majors have captured 630,000 km2 of acreage around Africa in the past five years, much of it on the Atlantic Margin and over three times as much as in either Asia or Latin America/Caribbean.  

In addition to the traditional production sharing contracts or concessions, governments are increasingly handing out memorandums of understanding (MOUs) or ‘reconnaissance’ permits. Established oil and gas producers including Gabon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire, have made these awards with low or minimal commitment to drill to encourage new acreage uptake. Countries with little or no oil or gas production – such as Morocco, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau – have also used them as a way to attract explorers in what is a super-competitive market. 

Is the industry right to be so bullish in capturing acreage?

The wildcat successes in Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire are justifiably breathing new life into the exploration scene. Countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia, abandoned by explorers after disappointing well results decades ago, are now welcoming explorers back to drill and, hopefully, this time in the right places.  

The Atlantic Margin is vast, capable of holding multiple Guyanas, the country where ExxonMobil has discovered 9 billion bbls of recoverable oil since 2015. Therein lies the attraction and the challenges. There’s the sheer scale to start with. Secondly, very few wells drilled in the new plays have come in as expected – subsurface understanding is still being pieced together and each well brings something new to take into account. Explorers step into this rich tapestry hoping for the best but, equally, should be prepared for a humbling experience. 

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