Energy Global Recap 2024 and 2025 Perspectives
As usual, we are pleased to share with you the Energy Global Recap 2024 and 2025 perspectives as we see it from our projects database www.projectsmartexplorer.com
Despite all the uncertainties accumulated at the beginning of 2024, the oil and gas demand stood at its higher level. As a consequence, the investments in energy projects reached new summits in 2024 as shown on the barre graph below. Exported from Project Smart Explorer
This graph includes investments in greenfield and brownfield projects covering:
- Oil & Gas in blue
- Refining & Petrochemical in red
- Energy Transition (Renewables, Decarbonation, Recycling) in green.
From these figures we can see how capital expenditures continued to grow in 2024 over previous year, mainly because of the Energy Transition sector. In the same time Oil & Gas remained stable, while Refining & Petrochemical declined slightly.
If we should go deeper in the Refining & Petrochemical details, we should observe a transfer of capacity investments toward decarbonation (efuels, eAmmonia, …) and recycling investments. The decarbonation of the fossil industry is well ongoing although the demand for hydrocarbon products still increases.
Anyway, within this big picture, the situation varies significantly between regions.
Awarded Projects per Region in 2024
Geographically, the investments in energy sectors, are more and more driven by the global demand and the local political agenda to (re)locate industries and help energy transition.
The first table indicates the split of Capital Expenditure (Capex) per Energy sector (Oil & Gas, Refining & Petrochemical, Energy Transition).
The second table shows the same investments, but per region. Here we can see how Middle East topped the list again in 2024, followed by North America and Europe, just ahead Asia-Pacific. To see North America and Europe on these positions is quite unusual and results from large gas projects and a mass of Energy Transition investments on both sides of the Atlantic as illustrated below:
In Oil & Gas, North America comes on second position behind Middle East historical leader.
In Refining & Petrochemical, Asia-Pacific confirms its world domination because of China, India, but not only.
In Energy Transition, Europe continues to run at the spearhead of North America and Asia-Pacific.
For some years now, we alert our readers about this geographical discrepancy in energy sectors to adjust their sales organization accordingly. It just incremented one step more in 2024.
Awarded Projects according to Operator Profile
When it comes to the most dynamic operators in 2024, with no surprise, the National oil Companies (NOCs) are leading the game with 56% of the awarded Capex as per below:
Then, the Independent companies (Independents) come number 2 at 31%, while the International oil Companies (IOCs) are lagging far behind at only 12%.
We can notice how different are the projects sizes depending on the operator. The Independents propose the smallest projects, but the mass effect cannot be ignored anymore, and their short project time frame speeds up the business development of the supply chain.
Perspectives in Energy Projects for 2025
Regarding the perspectives in energy projects for 2025, several large countries such as USA, India, Japan will benefit from economic stimulus. Even though Europe and Middle East – Africa should remain flat, the global demand for energies will grow substantially in 2025. For crude oil, the increase should run around 1,3 million barrels per day (b/d) and for natural gas 100 billion cubic meter (m³).
As directly related to the demography and the economic development of the non-OEDC countries, the demand for energy is not about to dry up before decades. In this context, the renewable energies are ramping up, but so far just to cope with the additional consumption.
As a consequence, the perspectives on energy projects for 2025 and beyond look pretty strong as per below:
This barre graph represents the volume of investments awarded between 2015 and 2024, and to be sanctioned in 2025 and following years. The decline after 2025 does not means that the market is disappearing, but it reflects the vision we have on future projects at the date of today. The further we look, the less visibility we have on future projects.
Having said that, the volume of expected investments on the period 2025 to 2028 is massive in all areas: Upstream, Midstream and Downstream including Energy Transition. About 20 to 30% of these projects will be postponed or delayed because of the lack of financing or engineering capacities. Therefore, the pipeline of projects should remain robust at the current high level until 2030 at least.
Perspectives in Energy Projects per Region
In 2024, we saw that Middle East dominated the Capex in Energy, but for 2025, the situation looks much more balanced.
Beside Brazil, Guyana, and Surinam in South America, all the other regions intend to proceed with large investments in Energy projects including renewables, decarbonation and recycling.
Then, if we dive into more details, the three sectors Oil & Gas, Refining & Petrochemical, and Energy Transition will continue to differ in 2025 and following years.
In Oil & Gas, Africa will come back to the top, ahead of Asia-Pacific and North America.
For Refining & Petrochemical, Asia-Pacific should remain on the far lead, just challenged by Middle East.
Regarding Energy Transition, Europe intends to stand on pole position with North America, Asia-Pacific and Middle East competing behind.
Perspectives on the key players
From above, we anticipate a robust energy market on the period 2025 – 2030. But who are the key players to boost projects on the next five years?
Volume wise, the NOCs will continue to dominate the market, especially on Refining & Petrochemical projects. But their volume of investment should remain stable.
By comparison, the IOCs and Independents intend to increase their volume of Capex. They will be the key players at the source of the market increase. The IOCs will focus on Oil & Gas while the Independents will play the game changers in Energy Transition.
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