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Declines in output from existing oil and gas fields globally have accelerated – largely due to a higher reliance on shale and deep offshore resources – but are lower in the Middle East than other parts of the world, according to a new report from the IEA

The new report, 'The Implications of Oil and Gas Field Decline Rates', draws on production data from around 15,000 oil and gas fields from around the world, and highlights the wide variation in decline rates across field types and geographies, with production from larger fields declining more slowly than from smaller fields, and offshore fields declining more quickly than onshore fields. The declines rates for the Middle East and Russia, which are home to the majority of conventional onshore supergiant fields, are therefore much lower than those elsewhere. This could mean that oil production from existing fields would become more concentrated among the OPEC member countries and Russia, who could see their share of global oil production rise from 43% today to 53% in 2035 and more than 65% in 2050, according to the IEA.

In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where major upstream expansion projects are underway, production growth from approved projects, along with existing spare capacity and continued investment in existing projects, can more than offset the loss of production from natural declines, especially as decline rates are relatively low in both countries.

Onshore supergiant oil fields in the Middle East decline at less than 2% per year, while smaller offshore fields in Europe average more than 15% per year, according to the report. Tight oil and shale gas decline even more steeply: without investment, output falls by more than 35% over one year and a further 15% over a second year. The Middle East has the lowest oil post-peak decline rate at 1.8%, compared with global average annual post-peak decline rate of 5.6% for conventional oil and 6.8% for conventional natural gas.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol noted that nearly 90% of upstream investment annually is dedicated to offsetting losses of supply at existing fields. “Decline rates are the elephant in the room for any discussion of investment needs in oil and gas, and our new analysis shows that they have accelerated in recent years. In the case of oil, an absence of upstream investment would remove the equivalent of Brazil and Norway’s combined production each year from the global market balance. The situation means that the industry has to run much faster just to stand still. And careful attention needs to be paid to the potential consequences for market balances, energy security and emissions.”

The development of new resources would therefore be need to keep up the level of global oil and gas production. Even with continued spending on existing fields, more than 45mn bpd of oil and nearly 2,000 bcm of gas from new conventional fields would be required by 2050 to maintain production at today’s levels, according to the IEA.

The report also highlights that it has taken almost 20 years on average to move from issuing an exploration licence for oil and gas until first production. Around 230 billion barrels of oil and 40 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of gas resources have been discovered that have yet to be approved for development, mainly in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa. Developing these resources could add around 28 mn bpd and 1,300 bcm by 2050, the IEA says.

Hani Attia, general manager KSA and Bahrain at John Crane, spoke to Oil Review Middle East on the occasion of the conference on “Sealing the Future: Innovation and Reliability in Turbomachinery,” hosted by Aramco

Oil Review Middle East (ORME): Can you briefly tell us about your T93AX and SENSE Turbo solutions and their applications? How do you view the market for these solutions in Saudi Arabia and the region?

Hani Attia (HA): John Crane’s Type 93AX is our next-generation coaxial separation seal, specifically engineered to safeguard dry gas seals in turbomachinery by preventing oil ingress and maintaining non-contacting operation, even during upset or failure scenarios. With a robust design capable of handling up to 70 bar and high rotational speeds, it achieves a significant reduction up to 80% in nitrogen consumption compared to conventional designs, thereby lowering operating costs and emissions. Its bi-directional capability, extended ten-year design life, and ability to remain functional under separation gas loss or dry gas seal failure set a new benchmark for reliability and safety in compressors used across oil and gas, LNG, refining and petrochemicals.

Complementing this hardware innovation, our SENSE Turbo solution embeds sensors directly within the dry gas seal to deliver continuous, high-fidelity monitoring of temperature, leakage, contamination and vibration. By providing early warning insights and real-time diagnostics, SENSE Turbo enables predictive intervention, extends mean time between repairs, and reduces unnecessary maintenance costs one case study demonstrated it prevented eight days of unplanned downtime, avoiding millions of dollars in lost production.

Together, these technologies are transforming turbomachinery reliability in Saudi Arabia and the wider region, where major operators in Saudi such as Aramco are actively pursuing localisation, digitalisation, and life-extension programmes. While traditional time-based maintenance remains common, the adoption of predictive monitoring and asset management is accelerating as customers seek to optimise efficiency, cut costs, and enhance safety. In this context, John Crane is collaborating closely with our customers delivering advanced sealing solutions, deploying SENSE Turbo on critical assets, and building local service capabilities to drive innovation, improve uptime, and support the Kingdom’s sustainability and Vision 2030 goals.

ORME: How can predictive monitoring and asset management solutions help to increase operational efficiency, reduce downtime and lower maintenance costs in the oil and gas sector? To extent are these solutions being deployed, or is there still a reliance on traditional methods?

HA: Predictive monitoring turns real-time machine and seal health data into early-warning insights, so teams fix the right issue at the right time. The result is fewer emergency shutdowns, longer mean time between maintenance, better spares planning and lower lifecycle cost per MW of compression. Asset-management frameworks then lock in those gains by standardising work processes, closing the loop from alert → root-cause → action → proven outcome.

Deployment is accelerating across the region, especially on critical compressors and pumps, but many plants still blend traditional time-based maintenance with digital programmes. The near-term opportunity is pragmatic hybridisation; start with the most consequential assets, prove value quickly, and scale.

ORME: How is John Crane collaborating with Aramco to drive innovation and raise performance in the oil and gas sector?

HA: We work with Aramco on three fronts:
1. Application engineering & upgrades: tailoring sealing solutions (including T93AX families and dry-gas-seal enhancements) to site conditions, aiming for higher reliability, lower emissions and safer operation.
2. Digital reliability: deploying SENSE-enabled monitoring on priority turbomachinery to provide early-warning diagnostics, accelerate troubleshooting and shorten turnaround windows.
3. Localisation & capability building: partnering through our KSA footprint to localise services, strengthen spare-parts responsiveness, and upskill local talent via training and joint problem-solving.
This integrated approach, engineered hardware plus digital insights, delivered locally, helps Aramco and the wider Saudi ecosystem improve uptime, reduce maintenance cost and support sustainability objectives.

Farabi Petrochemicals Company has inaugurated its fourth integrated Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) plant in Saudi Arabia

The US$950mn state-of-the-art facility, located in Yanbu Industrial City, adds 120,000 metric tons per year of LAB capacity. Built adjacent to Aramco’s refineries, the plant leverages locally produced kerosene and benzene feedstocks, ensuring world-class integration, efficiency, and sustainability performance.

The new plant underlines Farabi’s commitment to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 objectives of downstream diversification, localisation and GDP growth.

The company also signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Unilever to expand their 20-year strategic partnership. Unilever is the world’s largest buyer of LAB, a key ingredient in household and industrial cleaning products.

The expanded agreement aligns Farabi’s capacity growth with Unilever’s constantly growing global demand in home care products, supporting innovation and sustainable growth. Both companies expressed confidence that this deepened collaboration will generate long-term value and advance their shared sustainability goals.

Eng. Mohammed Al Wadaey, CEO of Farabi Petrochemicals Group, said, “Farabi Petrochemicals is proud to be the world’s largest producer of LAB and NP which is the result of consistent growth, product diversification, advanced industrial infrastructure and dedication of our talented employees. We actively support Vision 2030 driving economic diversification, creating job opportunities, contributing to Saudi Arabia’s position as a global industrial hub, while maintaining a positive impact in the environment.”

Digital Edge Subsea continues to enhance its offering as a world leader in digital video recording and inspection systems for the subsea industry, capitalising on the growing demand for remote inspection

Digital Edge Subsea at ADIPEC

Digital Edge Subsea's busy programme of events for 2025, continues in November at ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi where we will be attending as part of the EIC UK pavilion.

Partnership with Ashtead Technology

Digital Edge Subsea is delighted to announce that following their successful acquisition of Seatronics, Ashtead Technology will continue to supply customers with our industry leading digital video recording and inspection systems.

As well as continuing to support existing customers, this partnership is already allowing Digital Edge Subsea to service more regions, with new rental stock having been delivered to Ashtead Technology's bases in Abu Dhabi and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

With access to the full range of products including 2u and 3u DVRs, as well as the existing 4u, workstation and laptop solutions, Digital Edge looks forward to working with Ashtead Technology across the globe.

Remote Inspection

The partnership between Digital Edge Subsea and Harvest Technology, the Perth, Australia- based video-streaming experts, has taken another leap forward. The ability to stream live video and serial data to the cloud, facilitating remote situational awareness for the offshore was a game changer in the subsea inspection market in 2024 and this year the solution has been enhanced with the addition of audio streaming. The solution still uses Harvest Technology’s proprietary Nodestream technology.

For 2025, Digital Edge Subsea is seeing an increase in demand for full remote inspection, whereby the inspection engineer is based onshore. Utilising Harvest Technology’s all-new Flex hardware, four HD video feeds and serial data can be streamed to shore over low bandwidth. The four HDMI outputs from the onshore Flex decoder connect directly to the Digital Edge Subsea DVR and the frame synchronised serial data from offshore can be input via the DVR’s serial ports.

With full two-way audio communication, the inspection engineer can be located onshore, recording four HD video channels, with overlay and logging raw data from offshore, as easily as if they were based on the vessel. All of this can be achieved over very low bandwidth, negating the requirement for additional low earth orbit satellite communication to be added to the spread.

This development represents a significant reduction in costs to subsea service contractors with inspection personnel and technical representatives able to work remotely, from anywhere in the world. By reducing travel requirements, the carbon footprint of offshore operations can be reduced, with the added benefit of fewer personnel working in potentially hazardous environments.

Despite advances in digital technology, many oil and gas sites across the Middle East still rely on manual entry for tank and vessel inspections, resulting in days of downtime, high scaffolding costs and risk to human life

What if you could change all that with drone technology?

Inspections drones such as the Elios 3 are revolutionising the world of confined space inspections, improving safety, reducing downtime and enhancing operational efficiency.

Join us for an exclusive live webinar hosted by Flyability in association with Oil Review Middle East on ‘Transforming oil and gas operations with the Elios 3 drone’ on Tuesday 2 September at 2pm GST. Industrial experts will explain how drones such as the Elios 3 are transforming confined space inspections, and how you can integrate this technology into your operations seamlessly.

Key highlights:

Drone integration: learn how to safety and effectively implement drones in confined space
Safety and training: understand essential safety protocols and training strategies for your team
ROI: discover how to measure and achieve a strong return on investment with drone technology
Real world use cases: hear from the engineers using drone tech in the field on the impact Elios 3 is having on in oil and gas inspections.

Speakers and host:

Fabio Fata – senior sales manager, Flyability (moderator)
Eralp Koltuk – inspection lead engineer, Tüpraş
Danijel Jovanovic – director of operations, ZainTECH

Take your operations to the next level! Don’t miss out on gaining valuable insights into how drones can make inspections safer, faster and smarter .

From making inspections in hazardous confined spaces much safer to streamlining the whole process and providing valuable real-time data, you will get to see exactly how the Elios 3 is changing the game.

Register for the free webinar here.

While ammonia and methanol are gaining traction as low-carbon fuels and hydrogen carriers to support the global energy transition, large-scale adoption is slow due to uncertain demand, says data and analytics company GlobalData

Demand for low-carbon ammonia and methanol is being driven by industries such as shipping, power generation, fertilizers, and chemicals, given their potential to decarbonise existing operations. GlobalData’s Strategic Intelligence report, “Ammonia and Methanol in Energy Transition,” reveals that countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, and members of the European Union are backing low-carbon projects, while companies including Yara, Maersk, CF, and Mitsubishi are exploring large-scale investments to boost their production.

Low-carbon ammonia capacity is estimated to grow to nearly 250 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by 2030, with more than 460 upcoming plants globally. Low-carbon methanol is also projected to grow, with plant numbers approaching 150 by 2030. However, many projects are in early stages of development, with some hydrogen-linked initiatives already seeing delays or cancellations.

The report also highlights that low-carbon ammonia and methanol are closely linked to the scaling of hydrogen, acting as carriers for transport and storage. However, growth depends on stronger infrastructure commitments, technology advancements, and regulatory requirements. Shipping is seen as the most promising immediate opportunity, but significant investment and regulatory clarity are required to move beyond pilots.

Ravindra Puranik, Oil and Gas analyst at GlobalData, commented, “Low-carbon ammonia and methanol could complement the energy transition by acting as fuels and hydrogen carriers, but their role is far from guaranteed. Cost competitiveness, safety standards, and infrastructure development will be critical. Without supportive regulation and faster project execution, many of the current net-zero ambitions may not translate into reality.

“Low-carbon ammonia and methanol initiatives had a promising start earlier this decade. However, the pace of development is already slowing, with some high-profile hydrogen projects seeing cancellations or postponement. Combined with high production costs and technical challenges in handling, this raises doubts about whether low-carbon ammonia and methanol can achieve the scale once envisioned. These challenges underline the gap between announced capacity and what will realistically materialise by 2030.”