January 2025 | Carbon Minefields Oil and Gas Exploration Monitor

Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency” at his inauguration as U.S. president on Monday, ushering in an era of federal support for increasing domestic oil and gas production. The U.S. was already the world’s fifth biggest expander of new oil and gas fields last year, in terms of their embodied emissions.

On day one, Trump signed executive orders to allow oil and gas drilling in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge and review all policies that constrain oil and gas development. However, industry analysts are projecting global oversupply of oil and gas in the next few years, depressing prices and enthusiasm for drilling. The latest lease sale in Alaska’s National Arctic Wildlife Refuge did not receive a single bid.

Monthly Update

New Exploration Licences Awarded

Last month, a total of 78 oil and gas exploration licences were awarded in two countries. The United States had the largest volume of embodied emissions in the licences it awarded, with an estimated 8.4 million barrels of oil and 211.3 billion cubic feet of gas. The total carbon emissions that would result from burning the reserves in all the awarded licences are estimated to be 18.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Specifically, the emissions from burning the fossil fuels in the licences awarded by the United States alone would amount to 18.4 million tonnes of CO2. These numbers underscore the significant environmental impact of extracting and burning fossil fuels, highlighting the urgent need to transition toward cleaner and more sustainable energy sources.

Oil and Gas Companies' Exploration Activities

Surprise Valley Resources, Armstrong Energy, and 88 Energy secured exploration licences with the highest embodied emissions, mainly from the United States. These companies, along with Petronas, are the top investors in oil and gas exploration projects awarded last month, with a total investment of USD 955.4 million out of the global exploration capital expenditure (CapEx) of USD 1,126.6 million. The potential emissions from burning the licensed reserves obtained by these companies raise concerns about the environmental impact of continued fossil fuel exploration.

Rolling Annual Update

Licences Awarded

Over the past year, a total of 895 oil and gas exploration licences were awarded, resulting in 1,717.5 MtCO2 of potential carbon emissions if all reserves are burned. The peak month for embodied emissions from these licences was May 2024, with 655.4 MtCO2. Countries with limited capacity to transition away from oil and gas production and low reliance on these fuels were responsible for the highest emissions. Mozambique stood out among these nations, granting licences with the largest volume of embodied emissions. This data underscores the challenges posed by continued fossil fuel exploration in regions least equipped to mitigate its environmental impact.

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, capital investment in oil and gas exploration has reached USD 22.9 billion, with January 2024 projects attracting the highest investments. On average, monthly CapEx stands at USD 1.9 billion. Eni, CNOOC, and Petronas are the leading investors, collectively spending USD 4.5 billion on exploration projects awarded during this period.

Outlook

Ongoing and Upcoming Licensing Rounds

As of last month, there were a total of 39 oil and gas exploration blocks open for bidding or under evaluation. Looking ahead, the upcoming licensing rounds for the next 6 months are set to offer a much larger number of blocks, with a total of 401 blocks planned to be available. The estimated global emissions resulting from burning the fuel reserves in these upcoming blocks is a staggering 21,004.1 MtCO2. China has the biggest pipeline of potential exploration licences in terms of embodied emissions, representing more than half the total.

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 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. 2025-01-09 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 January 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].