Top 30 High Impact Wells in 2020

 Rystad Energy has identified what it considers the top 30 high impact wells that will be drilled this year.

Five of the 30 wells are located in North America, seven in South America and six in Africa. Of the remaining wells, four are scheduled to be drilled in Asia, three each in Oceania and the Middle East and two in Europe.

The seven high impact wells scheduled to be drilled in South America this year will target gross predrill resources of over five billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to Rystad Energy. Among Africa’s high impact wells, Guinea Bissau’s deepwater Atum well will target a potential 470 million boe, Rystad Energy noted.

During the past three years, 95 high impact wells have been drilled globally, with 40 of them resulting in discoveries, according to Rystad Energy, which highlighted that this equated to a 42 percent success rate. Looking solely at 2019, the success rate of the 35 high impact wells drilled was 31 percent, Rystad Energy revealed.

Rystad Energy says it classifies wells as high impact through an assessment of a number of key factors, including the size of the prospects, whether they could open new hydrocarbon plays in frontier or emerging basins and their significance to the operator.

Earlier this month, the company outlined that global exploration is poised for an upswing. Rystad Energy also noted that oil majors have boosted demand for floating drilling units as deepwater drilling takes off.