Notes: The number of high impact wells (frontier play tests and/or prospect bigger than 100 MMbbl or 1 tcf) that each NOC had an equity stake in outside of its home country from 2008 to the end July 2019. The nine most active NOCs in the period are highlighted in red and were in 84% of the total 270 wells in which non-domestic NOCs participated.
Westwood research shows that NOCs have participated in 270 high-impact exploration wells outside of their home country since 2008. The nine most active NOCs have spent a combined $7 billion and discovered a net commercial volume of ~6 Bboe. Equinor was the most active international NOC explorer, drilling 92 exploration wells in 16 countries outside of Norway. In terms of success rates and finding CNOOC’s 54% commercial success rate and $0.3/boe finding costs have been driven by its 25% equity stake in the ExxonMobil-operated frontier Stabroek block offshore Guyana.
