Tuesday, 18 August 2026

Moody's raised the credit ratings of 13 oil and gas companies worldwide in the first six months of 2026 while cutting seven, according to World Oil.

Exploration and production companies drove the improvement. The segment recorded six upgrades over the period, more than any other part of the oil and gas industry, World Oil reported.

The rating actions were geographically concentrated. North American and Latin American oil and gas companies accounted for 12 of the 13 upgrades in the first half, against six downgrades, according to World Oil. That leaves a single upgrade recorded outside those two regions.

The balance of 13 upgrades to seven downgrades marks a rating trend tilted toward improvement across the sector as a whole.

Service-side conditions look weaker than the producer picture. Moody's expects demand for onshore drilling and oilfield services in the U.S. to stay subdued through 2026, World Oil reported.

The split matters because upstream producers and the contractors that drill for them sit on opposite sides of the same spending decision. Upgrades clustered among E&P names show balance sheets strengthening, while the subdued onshore services demand Moody's describes points to restrained activity levels rather than an expansion of drilling programs.

With the ratio of upgrades to downgrades at 13 to seven, and nearly all of the upside concentrated in the North American and Latin American company set, the credit improvement Moody's has recorded so far is narrow rather than broad-based.

Deepwater output across Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow by more than 1 million boe/d by 2035, with large project sanctions in 2026 and 2027 the gate on that growth, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Two of those sanctions are already done. Equatorial Guinea and Chevron signed off the Aseng Gas blowdown project in late January, a scheme that monetizes roughly 1 Tcf from Aseng on Block I, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

In Angola, Azule Energy took a final investment decision in June on the Greater PAJ project spanning Blocks 31 and 31/21. The development targets recovery of about 250 MMbbl of oil from seven fields, with peak output of around 95,000 bbl/d and first oil in 2029, per the same report.

The near-term pipeline is thinner than the schedule implied. FIDs on ExxonMobil's Owowo and TotalEnergies' Preowei developments in Nigeria are likely to slip into 2027, Offshore Engineer OEDigital said.

Ghana's Deepwater Three Points project, also known as Pecan, will not reach FID this year. Front-end engineering and design is complete and well and subsurface contracts are largely finalised, but uncertainty over the future partnership structure continues to weigh on progress, according to the report.

The timing matters for the 2035 figure. Sanction slippage pushes engineering, procurement and drilling schedules to the right, and the more than 1 million boe/d of expected growth rests on the same 2026 and 2027 decision window. Greater PAJ shows the lag involved: sanction in June, first oil four years out.

Gas-led sanctions sit alongside the oil projects. The Aseng blowdown is aimed at backfilling the Equatorial Guinea LNG plant, tying deepwater reservoir management to liquefaction feedstock rather than crude export volumes.

ExxonMobil has committed roughly USD 1.1 billion to equipment contracts for Phase 1 of the Rovuma LNG development in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, ahead of a final investment decision, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Three equipment categories sit inside the awards: subsea production systems, large-bore production valves, and offshore line pipe. According to the outlet, the packages were placed to keep the development moving toward that investment decision.

The biggest single award went to OneSubsea UK together with OneSubsea AS, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Their work covers engineering, procurement, fabrication and manufacturing of subsea production systems, plus controls and umbilicals.

ExxonMobil signed the orders for the Area 4 partner group rather than on its own account, the outlet reported. Alongside Mozambique's state hydrocarbons company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), the group takes in China National Petroleum Corp, Eni, Korea Gas Corp and XRG, the investment arm of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.

Security concerns in Mozambique had halted work on Rovuma LNG in 2021. Exxon withdrew that force majeure in November, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital, and the equipment awards come after that step.

Equinor has agreed to buy a 17.4% stake in petroleum exploration licence PEL 90 in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia from a Chevron subsidiary, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The Norwegian company said the purchase marks its entry into Namibia, and that the licence carries a drill-ready prospect scheduled for testing in 2026.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that Chevron subsidiary Harmattan Energy held 52.5% of PEL 90 before the deal. QatarEnergy holds 27.5%, while Trago Energy and state-owned oil company NAMCOR each hold 10%.

Equinor did not put a value on the transaction. The company said the acquisition fits a strategy to strengthen and replenish its international portfolio.

SLB has won a contract from Brunei Shell Petroleum to bring shut-in wells back online across several mature offshore fields in Brunei, according to World Oil.

The work is structured as an integrated production restoration program, World Oil reported, covering subsurface evaluation, selection of well candidates, engineering and offshore execution. Project management, well intervention services, monitoring, metering and marine logistics also sit inside the contract scope.

According to World Oil, this is the first time SLB has deployed its integrated production restoration solution for Brunei Shell Petroleum, bundling several services and workflows under one coordinated execution model.

SLB and Brunei Shell Petroleum kept the commercial detail closed. Financial terms, the well count and the incremental production the operator expects to recover were all withheld, World Oil said.

TGS is starting the fourth phase of its multi-client 3D seismic program offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, adding roughly 1,020 km² of new data to support exploration across the basin, according to World Oil.

The Ramform Sovereign is scheduled to mobilize for the survey during Q4 2026, and acquisition is expected to be completed in December, World Oil reported.

Phase 4 sits inside a wider multi-client contract that covers acquisition and processing of up to 105,000 km² of 3D seismic data offshore Sarawak, per World Oil. Against that ceiling, the first three phases have delivered more than 20,000 km², according to the same report. The new phase therefore extends a dataset that so far represents a fraction of the contracted area.

TGS said the Phase 4 survey is supported by industry funding. That structure is standard in the multi-client model, where a contractor shoots and owns the data and recovers cost through pre-funding and later licence sales rather than a single operator's exploration budget.

TGS CEO Kristian Johansen described the Sarawak basins as one of the most prolific hydrocarbon-bearing basins in Southeast Asia.