Energy Musings - April 23, 2026
A recent Wall Street Journal article on oil company exploration efforts accelerating in the shadow of Hormuz's closure ignores equally important changes in the industry driving activity.
The WSJ’s Energy Reporting Continues To Deteriorate
On April 19, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Big Oil Plows Billions Into Far-Flung Drilling Sites to Escape Iran Turmoil.” The WSJ’s website’s Quick Summary stated: “Energy companies are accelerating searches for new oil-and-gas prospects outside the Middle East amid war and high prices.” The thrust of the article was that the world’s largest oil market disruption in history and resultant high oil prices were driving international oil companies to pour billions into drilling prospects around the world, but importantly, outside the Persian Gulf. While factually correct, the reporter ignored so much more of the story.
The article’s author, Collin Eaton, an energy writer we thought was solid, wrote, “companies are speeding up their searches for new oil-and-gas prospects – far away from the perils of the war in the Middle East.” According to Eaton, the companies are driven by the high prices and loss of oil supply to ramp up their global exploration efforts. If he is a solid energy reporter, he would know that major oil companies do not undertake major international exploration efforts without serious research and planning. Something that doesn’t happen in days or weeks.
While writing about the many oil company projects in “far flung” places, Eaton fails to note that many of them are in highly prospective and active oil-producing locations. He cites ExxonMobil’s effort to increase drilling in Nigeria’s deepwater oil fields. What was not mentioned is that ExxonMobil is the second-largest oil producer in Nigeria, a country where a company subsidiary has been active since 1955. That is over 70 years of working in Africa’s most significant oil-producing country.
Chevron was noted for its efforts to expand its footprint in Venezuela, where it is the largest foreign operator. Chevron continued to operate for years while Venezuela’s Maduro government worked to seize the assets of other Western oil companies operating there. Venezuela also has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, over 300 billion barrels, making it an attractive place to work if you are sure of the laws and politics.
Eaton wrote that European oil companies BP and TotalEnergies are stepping up their expansion efforts. BP has bought a 60% interest in three offshore Namibia blocks. BP’s increased activity is in response to several discoveries (12) announced in 2025 by the joint venture BP has with Italy’s ENI. BP has already announced another two discoveries this year. Namibia is attracting significant industry activity from two other European oil companies, Shell and TotalEnergies.
Eaton also noted that TotalEnergies was stepping up its exploration activity in Turkey, a large country strategically located between the Middle East and Europe. Turkey imports 93% of its oil, so finding more oil and gas could significantly impact its economy. The Turkish government is trying to become the hub of oil and gas transportation between Europe and the Middle East. It already hosts an oil pipeline bringing Iraqi oil to a Mediterranean port. It also has a gas pipeline running from Georgia through Greece to Italy, bringing natural gas from Turkmenistan. It is talking to Qatar and Saudi Arabia about building gas and oil pipelines extending through Syria and eventually on to Europe.
Turkey’s plan to become the oil and gas hub for Europe.
Some of Eaton’s information is attributed to Wood Mackenzie, an energy research and consulting firm. They estimate that a group of international oil companies could “create $120 billion in value from their exploration ventures in coming years.” No time frame is given, but it is an attractive prospect. Wood Mackenzie says this group of oil companies spent, on average, $19 billion annually over 2021-2025 seeking new reserves. That is an impressive value-creation figure, until you realize that ExxonMobil’s current market capitalization is $620 billion.
While Eaton seems to attribute the stepped-up investment in new exploration and developments in non-Persian Gulf countries to the impact of the Strait shutdown and high oil prices, one must question why such a spending spree wasn’t launched in 2022. That February, Russia invaded Ukraine and commenced a takeover attempt. The European Union was suddenly confronted with the end of cheap Russian natural gas and oil supplies. Oil and gas prices soared, energy shortages were experienced, and countries began searching for alternative petroleum supplies. Did you read about major oil companies ramping up E&P budgets and launching search efforts in far-off places? Why not?
Will oil prices this year follow the pattern of 2022?
Maybe it was because euphoria erupted that the end of fossil fuels was that much closer. European governments had been the leaders in pushing the climate change and global warming narrative. Avoiding the climate catastrophe required a quick exit from carbon-emitting fossil fuels and a rapid transition to renewable energy sources.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) had recently begun pushing a forecasting scenario that predicted a peak in oil and gas consumption by 2030, followed by a rapid decline. Oil and gas company reserves were expected to become “stranded assets,” casting doubt on the value of these companies and the prospects for future earnings and dividend growth.
Climate warfare was unleashed, and Shell’s plans for reducing its carbon emissions were found inadequate by the highest Dutch court, which mandated a rapid reduction. In the U.S., climate activists were filing nuisance lawsuits against oil companies for pollution in state courts more friendly to the plaintiffs. Renewable energy was in an ascendancy, and the days of fossil fuels were numbered.
In 2022, the oil industry was still recovering from the Saudi Arabia oil price war of late 2014, which drove prices down for years and undercut the industry’s economics. Companies heavily indebted due to accelerated spending during the prior shale boom were forced into bankruptcy or shotgun consolidations. Major oil companies cut costs and reduced headcounts to weather the downturn.
The industry had barely found a sound footing when COVID arrived in 2020, shutting down global economic activity and briefly sending oil prices into negative territory. The recovery in 2021, followed by the oil price spike in 2022, had the industry in a better financial and profitability position. However, there was no oil boom underway, despite $100+ oil for months.
Last year, the IEA was suddenly forced to acknowledge that its oil-peak scenario was flawed. It reinstituted the Current Policies scenario, and predicted in its 2025 World Energy Outlook that oil demand would grow through 2050. More importantly, the IEA officials called for the industry to accelerate E&P spending to avoid a future catastrophe of insufficient supply and soaring prices. This reversal was needed, but it shocked the climate movement, which had considered the IEA an ally in its argument that renewable energy would soon replace oil and gas.
If Eaton was truly trying to explain the recent announcements of oil company exploration investments, he should have introduced this narrative. Historically, oil and gas companies have reported their E&P plans alongside year-end financial results and outlined their expectations for the current year and beyond.
For a long-time reader of the WSJ (65 years), we are no longer surprised by the deterioration in the quality of coverage of the energy industry. This condition has been a topic of discussion among industry colleagues for years, who have also become disappointed with the quality of reporting.
As a long-time Wall Street energy analyst, we dealt with WSJ energy reporters and other media reporters over the years. We had observed the deteriorating coverage, but always hoped the next reporter would be better.
While reading the WSJ article, we connected on LinkedIn with Nick Deilius, the recently retired CEO of CNX Resources, an Appalachian driller. He provided us with a report he prepared about the deterioration in the quality of energy reporting by the WSJ.
He had been clipping and copying WSJ energy articles for years, as his dismay grew. He finally compiled a study of 122 articles published between mid-August 2024 and December 2025. He found these articles to contain flawed assumptions, errors, misstatements, omissions of key points, and other problems. Not surprisingly, he found many articles contained a combination of these problems.
Deiuliis created a list of tools the WSJ energy reporting staff used to err and misreport energy news. His Dirty Dozen tactics employed in energy reporting include:
1. Repeating the mantra of the ‘existential threat of climate change’, ‘increasing severity of weather due to climate change’, and the ‘high consensus level of climate science’ without providing tangible, measurable evidence in support.
2. Only if one believes that these forms of energy or transport carry zero CO2 emissions footprints can one warrant that an economy and society could plausibly function under net-zero policies.
3. Warranting the most expensive, unreliable, and non-scalable forms of power (wind and solar) are the lowest cost, most reliable, and easily scalable.
4. Citing a quoted source and assigning it the respect of an expert, decisive study, or established authority on the matter despite lacking credibility or carrying an apparent conflict of interest.
5. Cherry-picking data sets and time periods to manufacture a desired conclusion or to ignore a reality that is counter to the desired conclusion.
6. Applying inconsistent logic or different standards within the same article or across energy articles.
7. Making obvious errors of omission.
8. Avoiding the opportunity to expose obvious problems or flaws.
9. Applying theatrical language and descriptors that trigger emotion and paint a desired picture.
10. Implying that companies and industries are ready and willing to do the right thing, but for being stopped by pro-fossil fuels or pro-capitalist interests or policies, despite the lack of substantive supporting evidence.
11. Cheerleading the favored beliefs and unfairly criticizing the disfavored views in headlines and stories.
12. Abusing simple statistical associations to imply causation.
What Deiuliis found when he examined the backgrounds of the 70 reporters who wrote the 122 articles he studied was that they ranged from interns to seasoned veterans—many held degrees from elite universities and advanced degrees. The group was multinational, adding to the global scope of experience and helping cover a global industry. However, none possessed degrees in the classic STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines.
For Deiuliis, the absence of STEM degrees is a problem. He wrote in his report:
“The dearth of STEM education among 70 journalists reporting on energy for the WSJ creates a serious blind spot, particularly for topics such as energy and climate, which are complex, rapidly evolving, and steeped in STEM. The lack of STEM training raises legitimate questions about whether the energy reporting team understands the science and engineering underlying the issues they report on.”
We, too, are dismayed by the lack of education that can limit the understanding of the dynamics behind the energy industry. With respect to Eaton’s article, we are dismayed that he failed to note the dramatically changed climate activism environment and the reversal of the IEA’s forecasting. He should know that major oil companies do not shift strategically based on a few weeks of better oil and gas prices. These exploration efforts require significant research and vetting by executives and often the company’s board of directors. Moreover, every example he cited of new exploration initiatives is in a country where the company has been active and successful. Why wouldn’t an explorationist go back to where the likelihood of success is higher because of the record of past successes?
The WSJ would benefit from a more educated reporting staff and an editorial staff that can correct shortsighted narratives. The deterioration of business reporting follows the mainstream media’s decline. While we would like to hold out hope for improvement, we will not hold our breath.