Wow Angola and Australia exploration announced in the same news cycle. Someone in management finally figure out that oil companies occasionally need to explore for new oil if they want to continue raising shareholder dividends?
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What in heaven's name are they thinking? Look at more established areas. Nigeria, Brazil, Trinidad, GOM. Nothing commercial in 'Ultra deep' acreage. Maybe some biogenic gas in shallow sands, nothing else.
More last-in, me-too exploration from LS and her gang of clueless high pot 'advisors' (I never understood how you can be an 'advisor' if you've never had any documented success in your career ?!?). Fresh off their "successes" in Mexico and Brazil...
I have never understood why Chevron invests so little in exploration, and instead rushes in to grab scrapes adjacent to others successes or buys smaller partners to wedge into the assets found by other majors. The Permian will not last much longer and many of our legacy assets are in terminal decline. So enough we might morph into an Australian gas company. One would think in this situation there would be major exploration efforts, but instead it’s just the same old crew shuffling paper.
The only thing worse than sitting out the exploration game is failing to understand it and making bets with no chance of success. We missed out on every license round in Angola since the 90s. Now we show up to pick over the scraps in the deepest possible water with the thinnest possible sands and no chance of source.
https://worldoil.com/news/2024/6/19/chevron-kicks-off-exploration-in-uncharted-ultra-deep-waters-offshore-angola/
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/chevron-eyes-drilling-ops-offshore-australia-to-look-for-more-gas/
Mikey must have had an explosion when he can raise dividends and shareholder value.
Not sure about Australia news, but other than Cabinda (which itself has a shady history), Chevron has historically been johnny-come-lately when it comes to Angola so whatever acreage we picked up, you can be sure BP and Exxon already passed on it. This sounds like history repeating itself, think Suriname, Shetlands, Indonesia deep water, anything Canada East Coast, Brazil deep water, Brazil pre-salt, etc. etc. etc. If you're not first in on exploration, you don't get the big prize. Guyana and Namibia most recently.