AES26 Panel Recap - Moving Faster from Discovery to Development

A discovery proves the geology. Everything after that is a race against the clock, and in Africa, that race is still longer than it should be.

A sharp panel from Shell, ExxonMobil, Welligence Energy Analytics, Viridien, Rystad Energy and Shearwater tackled the discovery-to-first-oil gap head on.

The fundamental outcome was this: speed is now the currency of capital. Fifty years ago the North Sea went from discovery to production in around five years. The tools are far better today, but are the timelines?

Drilling down to the key takeaways from our experts, we can share:

🌍 Speedy decisions win. Capital can't carry long-cycle projects and won’t tolerate momentum stalling.

🌍 Value starts to diminish when exploration, subsurface, development and commercial run in stages - and the fast projects integrate and align early with partners and with government.

🌍 The geology is rarely the blocker. Fiscal and non-fiscal terms, permitting, bureaucracy and unpredictable timelines are the stumbling blocks.

🌍 Multi-use seismic data, integrated from discovery through to development, de-risks projects faster and new imaging capabilities are influencing the speed of process even more.

The resource is there and the capital is watching – the winners will be those who move. As one panelist put it: why not now?