Majors Shift Away From Gulf

The world’s biggest oil companies are steering new spending toward Africa and South America as Gulf shipping risk has become harder to price. (unctad.org) The trigger is the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that carried about 20 million barrels a day of oil and petroleum products in 2025. The International Energy Agency says that flow equals roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption, with few practical alternatives if traffic is disrupted. (iea.org) That risk stopped looking theoretical after Iran-related fighting in early 2026. The Congressional Research Service said Iranian forces declared the strait “closed” on March 4, 2026, after U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran began in February, and the Dallas Federal Reserve said the conflict followed the outbreak of war on February 28, 2026. (congress.gov) (dallasfed.org) The shift in capital lines up with where supply growth is already concentrated. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in December that Brazil, Guyana and Argentina would account for 0.4 million barrels a day of the world’s 0.8 million barrels a day of crude production growth in 2026. (eia.gov) Africa is pulling in projects that had looked slower or riskier a year ago. TotalEnergies said on January 29, 2026 that it had fully restarted Mozambique LNG, and on February 2 it said a three-well appraisal campaign at Namibia’s Mopane discovery would begin in 2026. (totalenergies.com 1) (totalenergies.com 2) South America is drawing the same kind of long-cycle money. Saipem said on April 21, 2026 that ExxonMobil Guyana had issued a limited notice to proceed worth about $150 million for subsea work on the Longtail project in the Stabroek Block. (saipem.com) Brazil remains the biggest near-term growth engine in that basket. The Energy Information Administration said two additional floating production vessels at Petrobras’s Buzios field were expected to help lift Brazil’s crude output by 0.2 million barrels a day to an average 4.0 million barrels a day in 2026. (eia.gov) The Gulf is still central to world energy supply, but the economics of concentration have changed. The Energy Information Administration said Hormuz handled more than one-quarter of global seaborne oil trade in 2024 and early 2025, while the World Trade Organization and AXSMarine built a dedicated 2026 tracker to monitor the disruption. (eia.gov) (wto.org) Host governments in Namibia, Mozambique, Guyana and Brazil now have more leverage over terms, local-content rules and infrastructure because the projects are no longer fringe bets. The next marker is whether this year’s contract awards and drilling campaigns turn into final investment decisions that lock the new map in place. (totalenergies.na) (mozambiquelng.co.mz) (eia.gov)