The Atlantic Margin is one of the most consistently successful exploration provinces globally, delivering material discoveries across multiple basins and exploration cycles. Since 2010, more than 70 Bnboe has been discovered along the margin, underlining its ability to generate sustained success across both frontier and mature basins. This performance has kept the region firmly in focus for the industry, particularly the majors who are in search of scale and the next frontier.
How are the majors positioned?
This exploration push is evident in how some of the majors have positioned their acreage. More than 540,000 km² of net acreage along the Atlantic Margin is currently held by the majors alone, with 2025 having been the most active year for licence awards and farm-in activity since 2020 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Shell and Chevron have been on the front foot in loading Atlantic Margin acreage, building scale across both Africa and the Americas. Both have leaned into a conjugate-margin exploration strategy, maintaining deliberate exposure across key frontier basins, including the Orange and the Pelotas basins. In contrast, companies like TotalEnergies and Eni maintain more regionally concentrated portfolios, focusing their exposure on core areas in Africa.
What is the drilling outlook?
Over the next 12-18 months, more than 45 exploration wells are expected to be drilled across the Atlantic Margin, with around 30 drilled by majors and large NOCs, highlighting the region’s continued strategic significance. Activity is largely centred on emerging and frontier basins, most notably the Orange Basin, the Pelotas Basin, and the Foz do Amazonas.
What’s next for the Atlantic margin
Looking ahead, several clear signposts will determine whether the Atlantic Margin’s current momentum translates into tangible exploration success.
In Africa, commercial follow-through in the Orange Basin through project sanctioning is an important step in demonstrating that recent technical success can translate into real value. A final investment decision (FID) on TotalEnergies’ Venus discovery is expected later this year.
On the frontier side, a basin-opening discovery on the South American conjugate margin, particularly in Uruguay or southern Brazil, would validate conjugate margin acreage captured by Shell and Chevron and refocus industry attention.
While commercial outcomes will continue to vary by basin, the Atlantic Margin remains one of the few regions capable of delivering material, high-impact discoveries at scale. As a result, it is likely to remain a key testing ground for exploration strategies over the coming decade.
