Why a shortage of investment opportunities is upstream's biggest challenge

Table of contents

• Executive summary
• The investment downturn is over but how strong is the recovery?
  • The near-term investment outlook is mostly good news
  • but the longer term is more fragile, especially outside the US
• Upstream’s structural investment challenge
  • Industry focus on returns means only the best projects have moved ahead
  • Improved returns have come at the expense of scale
  • The number of project sanctions is rebounding, for now
  • The pipeline of pre-FID projects needs to get bigger and better
• How the outlook could change: the drill bit, oil prices and tech will be key
  • Exploration is an investment x-factor. Can leaner explorers deliver scale and value?
  • Ultimate potential of US tight oil is a key swing factor
  • Investment upside in reserves growth will be material, but is hard to predict
  • Rising demand should push up prices and stimulate spending
  • Conclusions
• Appendix: Investment categories

Tables and charts

This report includes 9 images and tables including:

• Key investment risks
• Global upstream investment risked*

What's included

This report contains:

• Why a shortage of investment opportunities is upstream's biggest challenge

  ZIP 1.95 MB

• Is the industry investing enough - presentation with Q&A.pdf

  PDF 1.15 MB