August 2025 | Carbon Minefields Oil and Gas Exploration Monitor

Last month’s licensing activity saw nearly 140,000 km² of new exploration acreage awarded globally—already pushing 2025's total awards past the whole of last year. Algeria, which holds some of Africa’s largest oil and gas reserves, led the way, both in terms of area and estimated reserves. The government signed 30-year contracts with TotalEnergies, Eni, and Sinopec, committing over USD 600 million to explore these fields.

Algeria currently supplies 10% of Europe’s gas imports through both liquefied natural gas and a pipeline connected to Europe. However, it faces the dual problem of having very mature and aging fields with declining production and rising domestic gas consumption. The government is trying to increase its production to preserve its exports to Europe, which is trying to phase out its Russian gas imports. However, even if discoveries and commercial viability are confirmed, these new blocks are unlikely to begin production before the early 2030s. By then, Europe’s energy transition should have advanced considerably, leaving a narrow and shrinking market for new Algerian gas and heightening the risk of stranded assets.

Elsewhere, Uzbekistan has also ramped up onshore exploration licensing activity, including a USD 2 billion production-sharing agreement between SOCAR and Uzbekneftegaz to develop substantial oil and gas reserves. The deal targets an estimated 100 million tonnes of oil and 35 billion cubic metres of gas, with SOCAR as operator and Uzbekneftegaz as the state partner. The scale of these awards highlights the continued drive for maintaining domestic gas production. The government's national budget is highly dependent on gas revenues, and domestic demand is set to increase.

Monthly Update

New Exploration Licences Awarded 

Last month, governments awarded 14 new oil and gas exploration licences across four countries, unlocking reserves that—if burned—would emit roughly 48.3 MtCO2. Algeria accounted for the largest share, approving leases for fields estimated to contain 22.7 million barrels of oil and 470.3 billion cubic feet of gas. Combustion of these reserves alone would emit approximately 41.9 MtCO2. This continued push to expand fossil fuel development stands in stark contrast to the scientific consensus that no new oil and gas fields are compatible with global climate targets—and risks further undermining international efforts to curb emissions.

Oil and Gas Companies' Exploration Activities 

In the past month, the largest exploration licences by embodied emissions were awarded to Sonatrach, Sinopec, and the Zhongman Petroleum and Natural Gas Group,— primarily in Algeria. These three companies alone funnelled USD 1,134.2 million of the USD 1,797.4 million total global exploration capital expenditure (CapEx) into newly awarded oil and gas ventures, representing over 63% of all exploration spending.

Rolling Annual Update

Licences Awarded 

In the past 12 months, 634 new oil and gas exploration licences were awarded, locking in an estimated 2,376.5 MtCO2 of future emissions if their reserves are fully extracted and burned. August 2024 alone accounted for the largest monthly share, with 608.5 MtCO2 of embodied emissions from newly licensed projects. The bulk of these high-carbon licences were granted by nations with both limited capacity to phase out oil and gas and relatively low current dependence on fossil fuels. Among them, India stands out as the single largest allocator.

Note: The embodied carbon emissions from newly awarded licences are presented based on four country groups based on the Civil Society Equity Review (2023) categorization. Countries are grouped based on two main axes: 1) their capacity to transition and 2) their dependence on fossil fuels, which provides a rationale to determine how fast they should phase out their domestic production.  These indicators are measured based on countries' ability to deal with the costs and disruptions of climate change and historical emissions, as well as an assessment of how much a country’s socio-economic welfare is dependent on extraction. 

Exploration CapEx

Despite a comprehensive scientific assessment that further oil and gas industry expansion is incompatible with implementing the Paris Agreement temperature goal, leading firms have pursued unabated capital investments, funnelling USD 28.4 billion into newly awarded exploration projects over the last 12 months. ONGC, Oil India, and Shell led the spree, together committing USD 7.3 billion to fresh exploration licences. Global monthly CapEx into projects awarded in the last 12 months averaged USD 2.4 billion, peaking in April 2025.

Outlook

Ongoing and Upcoming Licensing Rounds 

Governments are advancing 93 new oil and gas licences currently open for bidding or under evaluation, which, if awarded, could unleash up to 12,763.3 MtCO2. In the next 6 months, 347 blocks are slated to enter licensing rounds, and the global reserves these sites hold could emit roughly 7,009.5 MtCO2 if extracted and combusted. Notably, China leads with planning-stage fields representing 1,252.6 MtCO2. This continuing push to tap carbon-intensive reserves constitutes a gamble against the achievement of Paris Agreement goals. A large share of these new reserves would likely become economically unviable if the world were to align with such targets

About Carbon Minefields

This newsletter provides monthly updates on oil and gas expansion globally, reporting on every new oil and gas exploration licence awarded. It also tracks the climate impact of these licences, translating them into total embodied emissions—that is, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere if the licensed oil and gas is extracted and burned. Finally, the monitoring of companies’ spending to explore and develop new oil and gas fields provides additional insights into the industry’s expansion activities. Certain data are segmented according to countries’ capacity to transition away from oil and gas.

Halting new fossil fuel projects is a key step in limiting global warming to 1.5°C and transitioning away from fossil fuels, as agreed by 198 countries at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28). Research by Green et al. (2024) in Science shows there is more than enough oil and gas in existing fields to meet Paris-aligned energy demand. Accordingly, the Carbon Minefields newsletter monitors efforts to expand oil and gas production beyond already operating fields—flagging misalignment with the Paris Agreement target.

The data above are collected by experts at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD); we use AI and programming tools to extract and analyze data from Rystad Energy (2025) before reviewing all content for accuracy and clarity.

This newsletter is produced using data from Rystad Energy (2025) extracted from the UCubeExploration Browser v. 2025-08-06 and published with Rystad’s permission. Embodied emission estimates were calculated by the authors using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission factors of crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids, and gas. Data manipulation is automated with Python programming. Most text is generated with OpenAI's application programming interface using GPT-4o mini. The AI-generated outputs for this edition were produced on August 11, 2025. International Institute for Sustainable Development experts review all AI-generated content for accuracy, clarity, and further interpretation. 

For more information regarding the data presented and for national-level disaggregation, please contact us at [email protected] or [email protected].