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Major upstream decline threatens Mexico’s energy security
Dire crude projections and heavy debt burden are weighing heavily on NOC Pemex
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ExxonMobil and Eni offer hope for projects as sector looks to get to grips with cost overruns and delays
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New discoveries and stabilisation of legacy fields’ output have helped China reverse the decline and be a top-five producer in recent years
Old hands dominate Algeria’s upstream auction
The country’s latest licensing round attracted bids from IOCs and NOCs in a better showing than its last outreach to bidders
US, Russia and China circle the Arctic
The strategic importance of vast untapped oil and gas reserves and key shipping routes has come in from the cold
Look again at African oil and gas investment
Sound development planning is essential in this diverse and rapidly evolving region
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Energy NL upbeat on Newfoundland despite industry doubts
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Pro-coup demonstration in Niger
Upstream Niger Chad South Sudan
Simon Ferrie
11 September 2023
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Arc of instability threatens Sahel’s upstream, pipeline ambitions

Coups and geopolitical rivalries complicate energy projects in the expansive region

The Sahel is an extensive, semi-arid zone that spans the African continent south of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea coasts. The region’s countries are poor and have been historically isolated, but growing instability in the past few years—most recently with the coup in Niger—demonstrate the Sahel’s geopolitical importance for the competing global powers of the US, Europe, China and Russia. With IOCs and oil and gas projects already impacted by ongoing events in the Sahel, Petroleum Economist looks at what the zone’s precarity might mean for the sector. Amid the panoply of armed insurgents, Islamist groups and smugglers active in the region, there is also mounting ethnic violence

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Major upstream decline threatens Mexico’s energy security
27 June 2025
Dire crude projections and heavy debt burden are weighing heavily on NOC Pemex

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