Exploration

Oil and natural gas production specialization, i.e. focusing on one area or play, is enabling operators in North America’s onshore to achieve more efficiencies and improve financial results, but the strategy over the longer term could in fact create significant risk from market volatility.

In what will be the largest auction of its type, Mexico’s state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is to offer seven farm-out license contracts in southeastern Mexico, the industry regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) agreed Thursday.

Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO of Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), has added chairmanto his title, as expected, succeeding GE Chairman/CEO Jeff Immelt, who has retired from the BHGE board. BHGE board member J. Larry Nichols, chairman of Devon Energy Corp., also plans to resign from the board after serving on the Baker Hughes Inc. board for 16 years. With the two resignations, BHGE has reduced the size of its board to nine and named current GE-designee BHGE board member W. Geoffrey Beattie as the lead director. GE owns 62.5% of BHGE.

The number of active offshore exploration rigs in Mexico reached a 10-year high in June, but the upstream sector may be only just beginning to see the effects of the energy reforms.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Thursday sold all of its four parcels and 4,174.46 acres offered in an oil/gas lease auction, pulling in bonus bids that totaled $110,263.

The Red Cave formation, an overlooked tight sands play in West Texas, may see more exploration underway through newly formed Masterson West II LLC, an explorer that would combine the talents of Tulsa’s Empire Petroleum Corp. and long-time Panhandle player Masterson West LLC.

Global exploration should return to substantial profitability in 2017 following five years of single-digit returns, according to an analysis by Wood Mackenzie.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s (FCX) lofty goal to expand its oil and natural gas exploration unit has fallen to earth with a thud after the company announced another piece of its portfolio is being sold: the onshore California oil and natural gas properties.

The oil and natural gas sector continues to grapple with the commodity price rout, but the industry, and in particular Big Oil, is headed into a recovery leaner, more efficient and profitable as conventional exploration is increasingly eschewed, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.