“The industry has got a real problem,” says Chris Pateman-Jones of Ernst & Young. “Projects are becoming larger and more complex and more challenging … Even if they were to hit their targets, they could still be uneconomic.”

The number of rigs running in the US to drill the horizontal wells used for shale oil production has been rising since May. At 272 last week it was at its highest level since early April, according to Baker Hughes, the oilfield services company.

Oil companies operating in Norway expect to spend 153.2 billion kroner ($18.47 billion) on exploration and production next year, the weakest figure since 2011 and nearly a third below the sector’s all-time high of NOK220.7 billion two years ago. In 2016, they expect to spend NOK165.9 billion on exploration and production, down from NOK195.4 billion a year earlier and 1% below a similar estimate made in February.

The sharp drop in oil prices over the past two years has led companies including Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell to sharply reduce budgets, particularly for exploration, where spending fell in 2015 to around 95 billion from $168 billion two years earlier, according to Morgan Stanley.

BP has the lowest amount of pre-FID (final investment decision) resource, which leads to the weakest future growth rates.

CNPC and Mozambique’s national oil and gas company ENH have signed a cooperation framework agreement under which the two sides will reinforce cooperation in oil and gas exploration and production, and natural gas processing and marketing.

The pullout comes as crude oil prices have plummeted to less than half their June 2014 levels, forcing oil companies to slash spending. For Shell and ConocoPhillips, the decision to abandon Arctic acreage was formalized just before a May 1 due date to pay the U.S. government millions of dollars in rent to keep holdings in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska.

Petroleum exploration activity in Australia has collapsed in the wake of the plunge in global oil prices over the last 18 months, a period in which the country's crude production has fallen to its lowest level in 45 years, according to a report released Wednesday at an industry conference in Sydney.

BP and Oman Oil today signed a heads of agreement with the Government of the Sultanate of Oman committing to amend the Oman Block 61 exploration and production sharing agreement (EPSA), extending the licence area of the block and enabling a further development of the major Khazzan tight gas field. BP is the operator of Block 61 with a 60% interest and Oman Oil holds the other 40%.

Sharp drop expected in global E&P spending in 2015