October 2025 | Carbon Minefields Oil and Gas Exploration Monitor

Approximately 30,000 square kilometres of acreage were awarded in September, exclusively in offshore blocks located along West Africa’s coast. French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies acquired most of these exploration licences, which include two blocks in Nigeria, one in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), and four in Liberia. Rystad estimates that the company invested USD 875 million in these new exploration licences last month alone as it seeks to secure blocks near existing infrastructure to develop them rapidly.

Most notably, Nigeria offered 24 offshore blocks in its latest licensing round, which were all located in the Niger Delta basin. Although it only awarded two licences (covering about 2,000 square kilometres), this latest push is part of the government’s intention to revive an industry facing structural decline. These awards also marked the first time in 18 years that the Nigerian government awarded exploration licences to an international company (TotalEnergies), signalling the government’s readiness to attract foreign capital to reverse the oil and gas production decline. However, due to a lack of planned projects and overall reliance on mature fields, Rystad forecasts that Nigeria’s oil and gas production will continue its decline over the coming years.

Africa is expected to host some of the largest key licensing rounds later this year. Egypt currently has 16 blocks open for bidding, while significant acreage is expected to be offered in Libya, Cameroon, Algeria, and Kenya. New Libyan licences—the first in nearly 20 years—mark a particularly significant change. The country’s substantial reserves and low production costs could be a major development for oil markets if the political climate remains stable. Africa’s renewed exploration drive is set to lift this year’s new licence awards beyond last year’s totals. Yet efforts by European companies to expand oil and gas in Africa may not support economic growth and threaten to lock host countries into debt, with projects at risk of becoming stranded as demand declines.

Monthly Update

New Exploration Licences Awarded

In September 2025, four countries issued 12 new exploration licences, unlocking an estimated 75.4 MtCO₂ if fully combusted. Nigeria led with the largest embodied emissions, granting licences for 65.8 million barrels of oil. If fully burned, these would release 27.8 MtCO₂—accounting for over a third of potential emissions from licences awarded last month. As warned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, any expansion of oil and gas infrastructure locks in decades of greenhouse gas emissions, jeopardizing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

Oil and Gas Companies’ Exploration Activities

Oil and gas exploration licences with the highest embodied emissions awarded last month were scooped up by TotalEnergies, Atlas Petroleum, and Reconnaissance Energy, primarily in Liberia, Nigeria, and Gabon. Overall, global exploration capital expenditure (CapEx) for newly awarded projects reached USD 1,638.1 million. Notably, TotalEnergies, Atlas Petroleum, and South Atlantic Petroleum (SAPETRO) accounted for the lion’s share of that spending, investing USD 1,539.3 million collectively. This concentrated wave of fresh exploration licences, in defiance of scientific consensus on halting fossil fuel expansion, underscores the industry’s aggressive push into new frontiers, jeopardizing efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate.

Rolling Annual Update

Licences Awarded

Over the past 12 months, regulators have issued 499 new oil and gas exploration licences, unlocking reserves whose full combustion would emit roughly 1,811.0 MtCO2—more than twice the annual emissions of Germany. The single busiest month was June 2025, with awarded licences in this month alone carrying potential emissions of 426.3 MtCO2. Alarmingly, the bulk of the licences awarded in the last 12 months come from countries with both low capacity to phase out fossil fuels and relatively low current dependence on them. Among these, India stands out as the country whose licence awards account for the largest share of embodied emissions.

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 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

Oil and gas companies invested USD 27.1 billion in CapEx for exploration projects awarded over the past 12 months, averaging USD 2.3 billion monthly, with April 2025 seeing the largest funding. ONGC, Eni, and Shell alone poured USD 7.1 billion over the last 12 months, undermining climate targets and deepening fossil fuel dependency.

Outlook

Ongoing and Upcoming Licensing Rounds

There are 80 licences currently open for bidding or under evaluation, with oil and gas fields that could release up to 6,418.1 MtCO2 if fully consumed. In the next 6 months, 452 blocks may be offered as part of upcoming licensing rounds, with global emissions from burning their estimated reserves totalling more than 14 GtCO2—equal to about a third of the world’s annual carbon emissions. China’s planned blocks account for the largest share, with up to 2.5 GtCO2 of embodied emissions. 

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 licenced 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. 2025-10-02 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 October 16, 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].