An index of 83 of the world’s biggest publicly-traded fossil companies amped up their discovery of new oil and gas reserves in 2017, adding “more hydrocarbons to their resource base than in any year since 2013,” the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports.
The EIA reports strong growth in the United States, Russia, Central Asia, and the Asia-Pacific region, with Europe continuing a six-year trend of slowly turning off the tap.
While “proved reserves change from year to year because of revisions to existing reserves, extensions and discoveries of new resources, purchases and sales of proved reserves, and production,” the 83 companies together “added a net 8.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) to their proved reserves” last year, for a year-end total of 277 billion BOE. And while “exploration and development (E&D) spending in 2017 increased 11% from 2016 levels,” it still “remained 47% lower than 2013 levels.”
