Greenfield Economics Under Pressure
Economics in oil & gas are getting harder.
For greenfield projects, the challenge is proving that a discovery can survive cost inflation, supply-chain constraints, and lower price assumptions before it reaches FID.
The pressure is real:
- Wood Mackenzie estimates that for 95 major conventional undeveloped projects, a 20% cost increase can lift average breakevens by more than $15/bbl.
- The IEA said lower oil prices and a more uncertain investment climate in 2025 prompted companies to reassess upstream priorities.
- Offshore cost inflation has eased in some segments, but has not disappeared. - Wood Mackenzie still expected installation costs to rise 12% in H1 2025 as capacity tightened.
That pressure changes how greenfield opportunities need to be evaluated.
Traditionally, long screening cycles, fragmented assumptions, and delayed economic visibility are too slow for a market where the margin for error is shrinking.
What matters now is speed with transparency:
- Rapid production forecasting
- Probabilistic downside/upside cases
- Early breakeven visibility
- Fast comparison of development concepts before major technical spend
This is exactly where tools like QuickField.ai can create value.
If you can turn limited early subsurface inputs into auditable production scenarios in minutes rather than months, you improve the quality of pre-sanction decisions and reduce the cost of advancing the wrong project.
In today’s market, the biggest risk in greenfield is spending too long and too much capital to discover that the project was never robust enough to sanction.
