Independent E&P journey ‘can be done again’

Ex-Tullow man thinks that doom and gloom about the global upstream business is overdone

“Are you asking me if a Tullow growth story could be done again in current environment? Yes, with no doubt whatsoever. And now is the best time.” So says Brian Larkin, CEO of five-year-old producer United Oil & Gas, who spent the previous five years with Tullow. Given the short-term price collapse driven by the coronavirus pandemic and longer-term concerns about hydrocarbon demand in a low-carbon future, optimism about E&P has been in short supply of late. And the prospects that have traditionally attracted smaller E&P firms looking for growth—in more frontier or under-explored provinces—have had a particularly gloomy prognosis, with doubts that some discovered resources or promi