As the U.S. shale oil boom matures, Big Oil is doing something it hasn’t done in years: increasing global exploration outside of the Americas. Following two decades of depressed global searching for oil and gas, frontier exploration is bouncing back. Global exploration is recovering from historically low levels, so progress remains gradual, but it is clearly rebounding, said Patrick Rutty, director of global intelligence at Enverus. He added that there remains a risk of a global oil shortfall later this decade as demand continues to rise in the short term. Another reason why global exploration had stalled is the ongoing projection that global oil demand would eventually peak and began to decline later this century as the world moves to electric vehicles and other cleaner fuel sources.

Source: Libya Today February 12, 2026 08:20 UTC