The companies nominated for the Exploration Revived Award 2025 are
OMV, DNO, Aker BP and INPEX! 💥
The award will be given to groups or companies who, over the preceding two years, have contributed to moving Exploration of the shelf forward by testing new play concepts and exploration models, testing high risk-high potential targets, contributing to geological breakthroughs, exploring for upside potential in more mature areas with established play types and supporting an extended lifetime of producing fields.
The award is also going to efforts to reduce exploration risk by developing and applying new techniques and technologies, or by any other combination of ideas, technology and risk-taking resulting in revived exploration.
The award is based on nominations from the exploration community in Norway and is decided by the Exploration Revived Award Committee. The prize consists of a lithographic print and a diploma.
INPEX: Partner Driven Stewardship Picks Winners
INPEX Idemitsu Norge exemplifies the collaborative, value-driven ethos of the Exploration Revived Award through its exceptional 2023-2024 performance as a strategic partner across the Barents, Norwegian, and North Seas. With an outstanding technical success rate and high commercial yield, the company demonstrated unique ability to balance risk and reward while advancing exploration ventures, in varied settings and partnerships. As non-operator, INPEX Idemitsu played a key role in multiple significant discoveries, including: (1) challenging deepwater Cretaceous play paradigms in the Vøring Basin, with the Velocette and Haydn/Monn’s breakthroughs (Norwegian Sea), (2) expanding near-field potential with the Cerisa Cretaceous discovery (Northern North Sea), (3) enhancing Jurassic play through the Rhombi and Crino/Mulder finds (Northern North Sea), and (4) advocating for Wisting development and pursuit of incremental value through exploration in that domain (Barents Sea).
The company’s disciplined portfolio management successfully prioritized high potential value opportunities, inclusive of near-field ILX prospects to frontier wildcats, while its technical contributions, including advanced seismic interpretation, reservoir modeling, integrated workflows and innovative approaches to problem solving and opportunity identification – enhanced partner collaboration and results. INPEX Idemitsu’s strategic farm-ins and organic growth ambitions underscored its commitment to Norway’s exploration revival, evidenced by its role in key NCS commercial discoveries. By merging technical acuity with collaborative partner-driven stewardship, INPEX Idemitsu quietly emerged as a role model and linchpin of Norway’s exploration success, aligning technical rigor with sustained value creation across diverse plays.
OMV: Challenged Play Paradigms & Opens up Running Room
OMV (Norge) AS merits nomination for the 2025 Exploration Revived Award for its paradigm-shifting 2023–2024 campaigns in the Norwegian Sea’s Vøring Basin, merging technical innovation with strategic risk-taking. As operator of the Haydn/Monn discovery (PL1194), OMV redefined perceptions of the Cretaceous play by leveraging modern seismic data, advanced attribute analysis, rock physics modeling, and integrated geological workflows to de-risk gas bearing reservoirs in the Upper Cretaceous Springar and Nise formation plays – via a high impact wildcat campaign.
This delivered a potentially recoverable resource with aggregated upside exceeding 100 million boe—the largest NCS discovery of 2024. Results may also derisk additional nearby prospectivity, revitalizing exploration in a frontier historically challenged by seismic pitfalls, reservoir uncertainty, and commercial viability constraints. Collaborative partnerships with Vår Energi and INPEX Idemitsu strengthened play understanding through shared analytical frameworks, building on insights from earlier regional tests like the Velocette exploration well in 2023.
Strategically positioned near the Aasta Hansteen infrastructure, the discovery highlights OMV’s commitment to cost-efficient hub life extension via subsea tiebacks, while also being considerate to potential alternative offtake solutions (contingent on future appraisal and incremental exploration outcomes). By unifying bold wildcat drilling with cutting-edge geoscience in an open partnership, OMV has elevated the Norwegian Sea as a priority exploration theater, delivering results aligned with Norway’s energy transition goals and redefining perceptions of deepwater Cretaceous potential, and the value of challenging paradigms elsewhere.
DNO: Diverse Program, High Success & Classic Workflows Open play
DNO exhibited exploration leadership in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea (NCS) from 2023 to 2024, demonstrating technical rigor and strategic vision meriting nomination for the Exploration Revived Award. The company executed a 15-well campaign across operated and partner licenses, sustaining one of the NCS’s most active drilling programs. This balanced strategy pursued infrastructure-led prospects and high-impact wildcat opportunities across diverse geological plays – testing the understanding of new or re-invigorated ideas. By integrating modern seismic imaging, advanced analytics, and classical geological and play fairway mapping routines , DNO systematically de-risked prospects and tested new play concepts. This methodology delivered multiple potentially commercial discoveries with net resource exceeding 100 million barrels of oil equivalent. The recent discovery of Othello in the North Sea epitomizes DNO’s foundation approach.
Targeting a prospect initially regarded as secondary potential pre-drill, the company confirmed light oil in the Våle Formation’s Borr Unit – a novel play fairway in a migration-challenged area. This breakthrough emerged from multidisciplinary integration of satellite analytics, sediment-stratigraphic interpretation informed by the distal Gomez well and Siri trend analogues, and reprocessed seismic data and detailed analyses. The achievement demonstrates how systematic technical reinvestigation can revitalize overlooked opportunities. DNO’s campaign combined operational discipline with intellectual creativity, outperforming industry benchmarks for discovery success rates. The company’s ability to merge cutting-edge technologies with foundational geological principles underscores its commitment to maximizing the NCS’s resource base. By expanding proven plays DNO has set a benchmark for exploration, making its 2023–2024 program uniquely deserving of the Exploration Revived accolade.
AkerBP: Standout Cross-Functional Collaboration & Tech Integration
Aker BP embodies the spirit of the Exploration Revived Award through its bold, broad and innovative 2023–2024 campaigns, which in part, helps redefine paradigms across the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). As operator and collaborative partner, the company demonstrated unwavering commitment to continued exploration by executing and participating in over 25 exploration and appraisal wells across the Barents, Norwegian and North Sea – showcasing strategic risk-taking in diverse geological settings with an ability to balance innovation with operational stewardship. AkerBP targeted a diverse play set, spanning near-field and ILX opportunities, to higher-risk high impact opportunities inclusive of deep HPHT systems, as well as unconventional trapping geometries in shallower settings.
As operator of the Øst Frigg Beta/Epsilon discovery in the North Sea, the company demonstrated innovative thinking by testing a novel oil remigration model in a mature basin and depleted field setting. They challenged entrenched geological assumptions by integrating detailed analysis of OBN seismic, advanced velocity modeling, and leveraged extended horizontal drilling capabilities and data acquisition technologies to successfully appraise the discovery. The viability of subtle intra-reservoir hydrocarbon seals was proven in the local turbiditic play setting, and the discovery delivers significant incremental high value resources to the greater Yggdrasil development area, with an upside approaching 90 million barrels oil equivalent. This was an outstanding discovery in 2023 that reinvigorates creative thought and exemplifies the value of cross-functional collaboration and active partner engagement, Equinor and Ørlen in this case. Through technical audacity, portfolio diversification, and sustained drilling activity, Aker BP has helped to reinvigorate exploration across the NCS, setting new benchmarks for discussion around innovation in mature and frontier basins alike.
