Sixteen discoveries estimated to be larger than 100 million barrels of oil equivalent were made in the first half of the year.

Sixteen discoveries estimated to be larger than 100 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) were made in the first half of the year, Westwood Global Energy Group has revealed.

This figure is already greater than the whole of 2018, according to Westwood, which pointed out that the largest finds so far this year have been gas discoveries.

The top two gas and oil finds in 2019, as highlighted by Westwood, can be seen below:

Gas

Dinkov (approximately 14 Trillion cubic feet) – offshore Russia

Glaucus (4.5 Tcf) - offshore Cyprus.

Oil

Yellowtail (>300 million barrels) – offshore Guyana

Tilapia (>300 million barrels) - offshore Guyana

In the first half of this year, 51 high-impact exploration wells were completed, compared to 36 during the same period in 2018, Westwood noted.

The company projects that a further 35 to 40 high-impact exploration wells will complete by the end of the year, which would take the total tally to more than 85 wells in 2019. Westwood pointed out that this would be a 35 percent increase on 2018 levels.

High impact drilling hot-spots will be the Suriname-Guyana Basin, the MSGBC, the Gulf of Mexico and Northwest Europe, according to Westwood.

Last month, Rystad Energy announced that global discoveries of conventional oil and gas continued to show “promising growth”. The company revealed that new finds totaled 6.7 billion boe in the first half of 2019.

According to a report from GlobalData in July, Colombia saw the most oil and gas discoveries in the second quarter.

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