To the manifest detriment of their green transition, the giants of the sector have set off again in search of new wells of gold… still as black as ever.
The figure is chilling: more than 100 billion additional barrels of oil and gas. That is what the planet could be charged by the slowness in the development of green energy. According to an estimate by the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, it would imply a use of "5% more oil per year than expected from the mid-2030s."
Even before Donald Trump's return to the White House and the elaboration of his anti-green-energy policy, some oil giants had already shown a growing reluctance to continue their transition toward carbon neutrality by 2050. This reversal has become even more blatant since the beginning of the year. Donald Trump's slogan "Drill, baby, drill" pushed the whole industry out of its torpor. Above all, it allowed oil companies to stop playing with words and hints: their desire to drill is back, without the slightest qualm.
"History may perhaps forget this brief moment when the main perpetrators of the climate disaster pretended to be part of the solution. After making commitments to reduce their responsibility for global warming, the European oil giants – in particular BP, Shell and TotalEnergies – are carrying out a discreet but serious about-face, betting on fossil fuels, disregarding the scientific consensus," wrote in 2023, in Le Monde, journalist Nabil Wakim.
"History may perhaps forget this brief moment when the main perpetrators of the climate disaster pretended to be part of the solution," says journalist Nabil Wakim.
Take the example of the BP group. After changing its logo at the start of the century to display its ambition to become a leader in green energy – a stylized sun called Helios, in reference to solar energy – the oil giant carried out, in 2025, a "fundamental repositioning." Concretely, this means a 20% increase in its investments in oil production, against a cut of 5 billion a year in those destined for so-called "transition" energies, that is low-carbon.
While around forty exploration wells are planned over the next three years, the British oil giant announced, in early August, that it had made its most significant discovery in a quarter of a century. Located in the Santos basin, about 400 km from Rio de Janeiro, the field covers more than 300 km², a surface area roughly five times that of Manhattan. While noting that it was too early to assess the size or quality of the reserves, BP speaks of a well rich in gas, condensate and oil.
The British oil company is far from the only one to have initiated such a reversal. ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, Shell... all the majors are showing their determination to discover new reserves. Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, simply speaks of a "recharging of their exploration portfolio thanks to new permits won in the United States, Malaysia, Indonesia and Algeria."
"There is now, across the sector, a general feeling that, even if the energy transition is underway, it is not as rapid as we thought," explains Palzor Shenga, senior analyst at Rystad Energy.
"There is no peak in oil demand on the horizon," Al Ghais stated at the Global Energy Show, in Calgary (Alberta). For the Secretary-General of OPEC, demand growth will remain robust until 2050, with a 24% increase in global energy needs by then. With demand estimated at 120 million barrels per day, OPEC is categorical: "the age of oil is far from over."
Quoted by the Financial Times, Palzor Shenga, senior analyst at Rystad Energy, also believes that in 2050 "oil and gas will still account for about half of the energy mix." To justify this projection, the analyst explains "that there is now, across the sector, a general feeling that, even if the energy transition is underway, it is not as rapid as we thought."
The problem is that this new wave of explorations is now being played out, for the most part, at sea. That is the first and main conclusion of the latest "Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker" (GOGET) produced by Global Energy Monitor.
The figures speak for themselves: 85% of recent discoveries, by volume, were made in ten offshore wells. At least twelve projects obtained a positive final investment decision (FID) in 2024, all located along various coasts. Finally, nineteen offshore projects produced their first oil or gas in 2024, representing by themselves 71% of the total volume of new oil well start-ups.
"Offshore oil and gas activity threatens two global commons on which all life on Earth depends: the oceans and the atmosphere," say the experts of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
Naturally, drilling in sometimes deep waters is no trivial matter. The consequences for marine fauna and flora are considerable. "From seismic exploration and seabed drilling to onshore processing and the maritime transport of fossil fuels, offshore oil and gas activity threatens two global commons on which all life on Earth depends: the oceans and the atmosphere," can be read in a study by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), in Geneva.
The appeal launched at the beginning of the year by 111 NGOs to ban any new offshore oil and gas exploration, on the occasion of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), had no effect on the decisions taken at the summit. "Despite the increasingly abundant scientific evidence of the harmful effects of offshore oil and gas on marine ecosystems, explicit references were absent from most discussions and totally absent from the Nice declaration," says the Ocean & Climate Platform.
In 2024, seventy-seven former senior political figures and Nobel laureates tried to sound the alarm: "States must collaborate to end the expansion of oil, gas and coal, in accordance with the scientific and economic consensus established by the IPCC, the IEA and other reliable international scientific bodies; negotiate fair phase-out schedules to complement and implement the Paris Agreement; and mobilize the necessary finance to ensure that every country, every community and every worker can transition to a prosperous fossil-free future."
Mission failed! Game over?
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