Economic Report 2000 Index

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Meeting the Challenge Exploration Exploration remains the major potential source of future reserve development. In 2000 there was a significant increase in the number of exploration wells started, compared with 1999. The upswing is expected to continue into the year 2001 though much depends upon an early announcement of awards on the 19th Licensing Round, which will open the potential of the "White Zone" for the first time. Predicting the likely discovery contribution from the annual exploration effort is highly uncertain as Figure 14 illustrates. Assuming the wells started in 2000 are successful, some 200-400 million boe are likely to be added to the reserves. However, this is well below the level required to replace production, which in 2000 aggregated to 1.7 billion boe. It should be remembered that even if the exploration success is above average the expected discovery size remains small. Figure 15 illustrates that the size has been steadily falling since the early 1980s and is now typically around 30 million boe.