April 2025 | Carbon Minefields Oil and Gas Exploration Monitor

Last month, governments awarded another 17,000 km2 to oil and gas companies’ exploration activities. Russia and Israel led with the most awarded licences, representing about 20 MtCO2 of embodied emissions. This brings the total awarded acreage to 116,000 km2 this year. This is significantly lower than the same time last year and follows a decade-long trend of decline in total awarded acreage that is expected to continue.

The number of potential licences planned to be awarded this year, however, has more than doubled since last month, which could indicate that more acreage will be awarded later this year. Globally, there are currently 28 licensing rounds open for bidding, 15 rounds with bids under evaluation, and 17 rounds planned for later this year.

Finally, the re-evaluation of discovered resources in licences awarded by the United States in August further entrenched its position as the country that awarded, by far, the licences with the largest embodied emissions over the past 12 months, standing at nearly 600 MtCO2.

Montly Update

New Exploration Licences Awarded

Last month, a total of 23 oil and gas exploration licences were awarded across five countries. Israel awarded licences with the largest volume of embodied emissions, issuing permits for 0.1 million barrels of oil and 241.9 billion cubic feet of gas. The burning of these newly licensed reserves would produce 14.9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Russia issued the largest number of licences in March; however, embodied emissions are estimated to be slightly less than in licences issued by Israel. When considering all licences awarded globally last month, the total emissions that would result from burning the fossil fuels amount to 37.7 million megatonnes of CO2.

Oil and Gas Companies' Exploration Activities

Last month, the top investors in oil and gas exploration licences were Rosneft, SOCAR, and BP, collectively spending around USD 297.5 million. These companies acquired licences mainly from Israel and Russia. The global exploration capital expenditure (CapEx) for projects awarded in that period reached USD 551.3 million.

Rolling Annual Update

Licences Awarded

Over the past 12 months, a total of 982 oil and gas exploration licences were awarded, resulting in potential carbon emissions of 1,662.1 MtCO2 if the reserves are burnt. The month of August 2024 saw the highest volume of embodied emissions at 593.9 MtCO2. Notably, the countries that granted these licences, particularly those with the capability to transition away from fossil fuel production and limited reliance on such resources, contributed significantly to these emissions. The United States, among these nations, issued licences with the highest volume of embodied emissions.

Note: The embodied carbon emissions from newly awarded licences are presented based on four country groups based on the Civil Society Equity Review (2023) categorization. Countries are grouped based on two main axes: 1) their capacity to transition and 2) their dependence on fossil fuels, which provides a rationale to determine how fast they should phase out their domestic production. These indicators are measured based on countries' ability to deal with the costs and disruptions of climate change and historical emissions, as well as an assessment of how much a country’s socio-economic welfare is dependent on extraction.

Exploration CapEx

In the last 12 months, the oil and gas sector has seen a total CapEx of USD 22.0 billion  into exploration activities, with projects awarded in January 2025 receiving the highest investments. On average, monthly CapEx stands at USD 1.8 billion. Chevron, Shell, and Elysian Petroleum are the top investors, collectively spending USD 4.1 billion in exploration projects awarded during this period.

Outlook

Ongoing and Upcoming Licensing Rounds

As of last month, there were 40 licences open for bidding or under evaluation for oil and gas exploration. In the next 6 months, 464 blocks are planned to be offered for bidding with a total of 10,923.7 MtCO2 of embodied emissions. Notably, China has the most blocks planned, potentially yielding 2,685.1 MtCO2 if the oil and gas reserves are burnt.

About the Carbon Minefields Newsletter

This newsletter provides monthly updates on oil and gas expansion globally, reporting on every new oil and gas exploration licence awarded. It also tracks the climate impact of these licences, translating them into total embodied emissions—that is, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere if the licensed oil and gas is extracted and burned. Finally, the monitoring of companies’ spending to explore and develop new oil and gas fields provides additional insights into the industry’s expansion activities. Certain data are segmented according to countries’ capacity to transition away from oil and gas.

Halting new fossil fuel projects is a key step in limiting global warming to 1.5°C and transitioning away from fossil fuels, as agreed by 198 countries at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28). Research by Green et al. (2024)  in Science shows there is more than enough oil and gas in existing fields to meet Paris-aligned energy demand. Accordingly, the Carbon Minefields newsletter monitors efforts to expand oil and gas production beyond already operating fields—flagging misalignment with the Paris Agreement target.

The data above are collected by experts at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD); we use AI and programming tools to extract and analyze data from Rystad Energy (2025) before reviewing all content for accuracy and clarity.

This newsletter is produced using data from Rystad Energy (2025) extracted from the UCubeExploration Browser v. 2025-04-08 and published with Rystad’s permission. Embodied emission estimates were calculated by the authors using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission factors of crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids, and gas. Data manipulation is automated with Python programming. Most text is generated with OpenAI's application programming interface using GPT-3.5 Turbo. The AI-generated outputs for this edition were produced on April 14, 2025. International Institute for Sustainable Development experts review all AI-generated content for accuracy, clarity, and further interpretation.

For more information regarding the data presented and for national-level disaggregation, please contact us at [email protected] or [email protected].