Global Oil & Gas Capital Expenditure Breaks $1 Trillion Level

Global Data – increased activity in the Exploration and Production (E&P) sector will be the primary driver in pushing oil and gas capital expenditure (capex) to an enormous $1,039 billion for 2012, states the latest report by natural resources experts GlobalData.

The new report predicts that the total oil and gas capex will increase by 13.4% this year over the 2011 total of $916 billion, as oil companies intensify upstream operations across locations as diverse as offshore Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Circle.

North America is expected to witness the highest capex globally, with $254.3 billion, representing a share of 24.5% of the 2012 global total. Compared to a global average capex growth rate of 13.4%, North America is expected to witness a capex growth of 15.7%. The increase of unconventional oil and gas activities, especially the continuing exploitation ofshale oil and gas sites and the development of Canadian oil sands are the major drivers for these investments.

GlobalData predicts Asia-Pacific to follow very closely with a capex of $253.1 billion, while the Middle East and Africa are forecast to spend $229.6 billion.

This relates to energy analysis of the cost of replacing fossil fuels. If the world is spending more than trillion dollars per year on fossil fuels then shifting that same level of spending on replacement energy is perfectly reasonable. In total my calculation of the costs for nuclear energy to replace all additional fossil fuel for the next 35 years would be more in range of $30 trillion. This would be mostly nuclear power construction from China, South Korea, Russia and India.

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