Who is Oil's Most Admired Explorer?

For the second consecutive year, French major TotalEnergies has bagged Wood Mackenzie’s Most Admired Explorer award.

The award ceremony was held in conjunction with Wood Mackenzie’s Next Generation Energy and Exploration Summit on June 9, which was held online. Wood Mackenzie’s Most Admired Explorer title is decided by collating the results of the company’s annual exploration survey.

“The survey canvasses views across the exploration sector, marrying Wood Mackenzie’s unparalleled, in-depth understanding with industry opinion,” Andrew Latham, Wood Mackenzie’s vice president of energy research, said in a company statement sent to Rigzone.

“We ask respondents to tell us which explorer – aside from their own company – they most admire. We don’t restrict the question to a particular time period or any particular segments. But most voters clearly have recent success in mind when making their choice,” he added in the statement.

“We’ve looked closely at previous winners. If you want to win this award, you need to discover big volumes of advantaged resources, ideally as operator and ideally by opening up new frontiers … Our warmest congratulations to the company’s [TotalEnergies] senior vice president of exploration, Kevin McLachlan, and his team for a well-deserved win,” Latham went on to say.

For the first five years of Wood Mackenzie’s Most Admired Explorer award, Tullow Oil won every year. Anadarko then took the prize in the next two years, followed by Eni winning for three consecutive years, then ExxonMobil in 2019.

In addition to Wood Mackenzie’s Most Admired Explorer award, the company announced several other separate award winners at its online event. Discovery of the year, which is also based on Wood Mackenzie’s survey of exploration industry opinion, went to TPAO for the Sakarya gas discovery in the Black Sea.

The E&P Explorer of the Year award wen to APA Corporation, following several successes in Suriname and elsewhere, and Rosneft bagged the national oil company explorer of the year accolade.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com