The upstream sector is set to carry strong momentum into 2026, with high-impact wildcat drilling activity expected to remain elevated following a solid 2025. Last year, the success rate for high-impact wildcat wells rose to 38% from 23% in 2024, while total discovered volumes increased by 53% year on year to around 2.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to Rystad Energy’s research and analysis.
Wells are designated as high-impact based on a variety of factors: the size of the potential resources, whether they could open new hydrocarbon plays in frontier or emerging basins, and their significance to the operator. Such activity in 2026 is expected to drive exploration momentum higher in specific basins and countries, with 42 such wells identified globally. Africa is set to continue leading global activity, accounting for around 40% of planned high-impact exploration wells, driven largely along the Atlantic margin, with exploration expected to focus on the Orange Basin in Southern Africa and the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, reinforcing the region’s role in global high-impact drilling.
Rystad Energy’s high-impact well outlook for 2026 points to a clear concentration in ultra-deepwater and frontier exploration. Ultra-deepwater wells account for around 60% of planned drilling, with majors leading these activities, followed by national oil companies (NOCs) and international NOCs (INOCs), which together represent 26%. Most wells are expected to target frontier regions, while roughly 5% will focus on basins with prior discoveries that could develop into hydrocarbon hotspots, and another 5% will test entirely new plays. Africa is set to play a central role, with all onshore high-impact drilling in 2026 expected to take place on the continent except for the recently announced Greenland well, which will test the frontier Jameson Land.
What we are seeing in 2026 is a clear shift in where operators are willing to deploy capital. Ultra-deepwater and frontier plays remain capital-intensive, but they also offer scale and material upside at a time when conventional opportunities are increasingly limited. Africa stands out because it still combines geological potential with the prospect of large, commercially meaningful discoveries, particularly for operators looking to secure long-life resources in a tightening global supply environment.
Aatisha Mahajan, Head of Exploration, Oil & Gas Research, Rystad Energy
Outside Africa, Asia accounts for eight high-impact wells, led by Indonesia with four, followed by India and Malaysia with two each. Between 2021 and 2025, India, Malaysia and Indonesia awarded most of the region’s new acreage, each exceeding 200,000 sq km, driven largely by offshore blocks. By contrast, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and China dominated onshore awards, reflecting Asia’s fragmented exploration landscape, where strategies vary between offshore and onshore plays rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. Among operators, ONGC, Petronas, Oil India, Mari Petroleum and Petro Matad secured the largest acreage positions over this period, positioning them to lead high-impact exploration activity in the coming years.
Over the past decade, Asia has recorded approximately 18 billion boe of conventional hydrocarbon discoveries, with gas accounting for around 62% of total volumes. Discovery volumes have been highly concentrated, with the majority of additions since 2016 coming from a handful of countries – China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. While Asia remains a key region for hydrocarbon exploration, opportunities are increasingly clustered in established areas, suggesting that new high-impact growth will likely depend on unlocking less mature basins or more technically challenging fields.
As of now, 2025 stands as the weakest year of the past decade in terms of new volume additions, with total discoveries hovering around 1 billion boe. Oil has dominated volumes added during the year, primarily due to Malaysia’s Megah and Vietnam’s Hai Su Vang discoveries. Offshore discoveries accounted for roughly 83% of volumes added in 2025, with the bulk coming from the region’s main producing countries. Some upward revision to 2025 totals is expected as additional information becomes available.
In the West, North America’s exploration performance has weakened since 2022, as yearly discovered volumes have dropped, failing to even reach the previous decade-low of 750 million boe seen in 2018. Discoveries in Canada and Mexico have largely stalled, leaving the US Gulf of America as the main source of new volumes, where recent finds remain oil-weighted and concentrated in mature, heavily explored basins. In 2025, total discoveries fell to around 238 million barrels, with Mexico contributing three finds of approximately 68 million barrels and the US Gulf of America adding four finds totaling about 170 million barrels.
Overall, this continued reliance on mature basins, alongside declining discovery volumes, points to limited upside for conventional exploration in North America. Without access to new plays or a material improvement in exploration success, the region is likely to remain defined by incremental, oil-weighted additions rather than game-changing discoveries.
By Rystad Energy
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