Insight

Global upstream: 5 things to look for in 2020

13 December 2019

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13 December 2019

Global upstream: 5 things to look for in 2020

Report summary

The level of uncertainty and anxiety among upstream producers and supply chain has rarely been higher. Decision-making will be more heavily influenced by sentiment surrounding the energy transition, political upheaval and trade disputes in 2020 than in previous years. We believe capital spending will be flat year-on-year. The underlying shift in spend toward gas is at an inflection point. But what is the impact on development project returns? We also expect hard questions to be asked in the tight oil and exploration sectors. We believe the answers may surprise you.

Executive summary
1. Global upstream spend to remain flat for the second year in a row
2. Sanctioned volumes will be huge and gas-weighted
3. Excess supply chain capacity keeps costs lower for longer
4. The tight oil sector will slow down in 2020, but will again be resilient
5. Another year of exploration value creation from a sector under pressure

Tables and charts

This report includes 5 images and tables including:

LNG development spend (US$ billion)
Upstream spend breakdown by resource theme
International upstream Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) per year, projects size > 50 mmboe
Floating rig day rate by rig type
Prediction scorecard for our 2019 global upstream: 5 things to look out for