Updates on global oil and gas reserves and production, how renewable energy is set to grow through 2030, and remembering the scientists we lost in 2025 who shaped our understanding of the Earth.
As we say farewell to 2025 this week, this edition of Core Elements will focus on big-picture energy surveys and remembering some geoscience events from this year. Best wishes for 2026 from all of us at AAPG! Thank you for your fellowship. Please recommend Core Elements to your friends and colleagues! They can sign up to receive it free in their inbox once per week.
Rasoul Sorkhabi
Editor, Core Elements
Oil and Gas Worldviews
Siwakorn TH/Shutterstock.com
Each year, Oil & Gas Journaldevotes its December edition to a global review of oil and gas reserves. Let’s look at the 2025 report.
Reserves:
Global proven oil reserves stand at 1,773 billion barrels, up from 1,757 billion barrels in 2024.
Global proven natural gas reserves are estimated at 7,743 trillion cubic feet (tcf), up from 7,677 tcf in 2024.
U.S. crude oil and condensates reserves decreased by 3.9 percent to 46.4 billion barrels.
U.S. natural gas reserves fell by 12.6 percent to 603.6 tcf.
Production:
Global production of crude oil, condensate, and NGLs averages 98.75 million barrels per day, up 2.6 percent from 96.26 million barrels per day in 2024.
OPEC’s oil production averages 33.78 million barrels per day, up from 32.59 million barrels per day in 2024.
A roughly 2-percent increase in non-OPEC production mainly comes from the United States, Brazil, Canada, Guyana, and Argentina.
ExxonMobil’s Global Energy Outlook: Oil giant ExxonMobil has also published its 2025 Global Outlook. Here are some of its highlights.
2050 energy mix: The global energy mix in 2050 will be comprised of:
Oil and natural gas (55 percent)
Coal (14 percent)
Nuclear power (6 percent)
Bioenergy (10 percent)
Non-biomass renewables (15 percent)
This differs from the International Energy Agency’s forecasts, which predict:
Oil and natural gas (45 percent)
Coal (13 percent)
Nuclear power (7 percent)
Bioenergy (11 percent)
Non-biomass renewables (24 percent)
Growth in energy consumption:
According to ExxonMobil, about 4 billion people, roughly half of the world’s population, lack energy resources needed for basic societal and living standards of at least 50 million British thermal units per year per person.
This energy use in the developed countries is about 160 million British thermal units per capita each year.
The world’s population will grow by 1.5 billion by 2050, most of which will occur in developing countries.
Developing countries will use 25 percent more energy as living standards improve.
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The report’s premise is: “Clean energy technologies are essential to America’s economic future, but competition is heating up, and the United States is losing the race to lead in new technologies.”
China’s rise: The report emphasizes that China has seen tremendous growth in the renewables between 2021 and 2023, including:
Solar power by 81 percent
Wind power by 68 percent
Batteries by 82 percent
Heat pumps by 39 percent
Nuclear by 57 percent
Policy recs: The report recommends the following long-term bipartisan U.S. policies:
Create geopolitical leverage through international partnerships and investing in clean energy supply chains.
Bolster national security with multi-use technologies: For instance, lithium-ion batteries and strong magnetic materials have many applications and could be prioritized.
Develop science that supports long-term, broad-based economic growth: Investments in new and clean energy technologies could be viewed as part of “energy dominance” or “energy abundance” policies.
Reduce reliance on foreign powers and secure energy autonomy in the long term: This is especially relevant to AI’s explosive load growth.
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The 2025 Japan Prize was given to Russell Dean Dupuis (United States), a material engineer and professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Carlos Manuel Duarte (Spain), a marine ecologist and currently a professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Jane Goodall, prominent British biologist and renowned for her work in the studies and preservation of chimpanzee communities in East Africa, died in April 2025 at age 91.
Xavier Le Pichon, a French geophysicist and a pioneer of plate tectonics, died in March 2025 at age 87.
Bevan French, a long-time NASA scientist in the field of meteorites and meteorite impacts, died in May 2025 at age 88.
Denise Maurene Stone, a petroleum geologist who served AAPG in various capacities, died in May 2025. She was 68.
Riccardo Pozzobon, an Italian scientist from the University of Padua, died on the Mendenhall Glacier in September 2025 while doing field work. He was 40.
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