Does all this undermine our previous finding that no new long lead-time conventional upstream projects are required in a scenario reaching net zero emissions by 2050? No. In the NZE, demand declines sharply. Supply follows. Investment in existing fields is needed, but nothing new needs approval

Finding new oil and gas is taking longer than it used to while companies are generally spending less on exploration these days. It now takes nearly 20 years from the award of an exploration license to first production (up from 15 years previously)

If we add up all the supply from continued investment in existing fields, plus things ramping up or already approved, production falls less quickly. Still, maintaining production at today’s levels would mean new projects that haven’t yet been approved or even discovered

In practice, oil and gas fields don’t fall at their natural decline rates as companies keep investing in them. There’s lots that can be done to squeeze production out of existing assets (infill drilling, waterflooding etc.). For example:

Losses under natural declines are around 50% greater today than in 2010. This is because of much higher tight oil and shale gas production, changes in the mix of conventional production (such as more deep offshore fields and NGLs), and a higher supply base.

To come up with these numbers, we looked at data on some 15 000 fields to understand decline rates. Some fields fall at 2% (Middle East super-giants), others fall at 35% (e.g. US shale). But on average if investment stops, 5.5 mb/d is lost ever year from global balances

What this means is that only a small portion of upstream oil and gas investment in recent years was used to meet increases in demand . Nearly 90% of the USD 550 billion upstream investment annually was dedicated to offsetting losses of supply at existing fields

Put simply, without any further investment, oil and gas supply would fall. fast. If all drilling and investment stopped, oil production would fall by 5.5 mb/d each year over the next decade, due to "natural declines".

Market opportunities for next-generation geothermal energy could attract investment totalling $1 trillion by 2035 and create over a million new jobs

As well as serving fast-growing electricity demand, geothermal can provide heat for industry and buildings around the world

Up to 80% of the investment required in geothermal involves capacity and skills that are transferrable from existing oil and gas operations

And a high level of knowledge transfer & productivity gains could reduce next-generation geothermal costs by nearly three-quarters

Today, geothermal covers about 1% of global electricity consumption, and conventional resources remain limited to a handful of countries

But new technologies are enabling projects to go deeper underground, making geothermal a potential option for almost all countries around the world