Oil workers Oil supermajors have come to realize that shrunk capex plans will make their exploration efforts profitable in lower-cost, lower-risk areas, and have changed drilling tactics to the ‘less is more’ philosophy, a Wood Mackenzie analyst told CNBC on Monday. “The new economics of exploration mean that rather than pursuing high-cost, high-risk exploration strategies – elephant hunting in the Arctic, for example – the majors have become more conscious of costs,” Andrew Latham, Vice President of exploration research at Wood Mackenzie, said, discussing the ‘Exploration Benchmarking – Majors 2006-2015’ report. According to the report, oil majors invested US$169 billion in exploration between 2006 and 2015, which resulted in additional 72 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) added to Big Oil’s resource base. As many as 25 billion barrels of those came from unconventional plays, which have become increasingly important for the majors’ exploration efforts. Unconventional resources accounted for […]