China Petroleum Exploration ›› 2025, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (6): 58-69.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-7703.2025.06.005

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Execution, Implementation Essentials and Insights of Eni’s “Dual Exploration Model”

Qin Yanqun, Xiao Kunye, Chen Zhongmin, Yuan Shengqiang, Wang Li, Ou Yafei, Yang Yu, Zhou Hongpu   

  1. PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, Beijing 100083, China
  • Online:2025-11-14 Published:2025-11-14

Abstract: Under the dual pressures of global energy transition and low oil price cycles, major oil and gas companies worldwide face survival challenges including shrinking exploration investments and tight cash flows. Italy’s Eni Group has innovatively developed the “Dual Exploration Model,” leveraging its deepwater technical advantages to achieve early value realization through equity sales after exploration discoveries,successfully establishing a closed-loop system of “discovery-monetization-rediscovery.” This paper systematically reviews the model’s connotation,execution status, and implementation essentials, analyzing case studies from Mozambique, Egypt, and C?te d’Ivoire to reveal its path of achieving low-cost discoveries and efficient development through technology-driven approaches, capital optimization, and strategic synergy.Research shows that the “Dual Exploration Model” features: low cost and major discoveries as the foundation, high equity and fast monetization as the essence, and retaining operator status and risk diversification as safeguards. The main implementation process consists of three stages (block acquisition, independent exploration, and self-recycling) with 10 detailed steps. It is suitable for low oil price periods but requires specific resource, pipeline, policy, capital, and technical conditions. Currently, it still faces numerous challenges including resource scarcity, external market environment, and internal technical capabilities. Based on the current status of PetroChina’s overseas oil and gas assets, this paper proposes recommendations such as establishing full-lifecycle assessment systems and equity management matrices for existing projects and forming a new business philosophy of “sustainable monetization” for new project acquisitions.

Key words: dual exploration model; Eni Group; business strategy; investment portfolio; satellite model; upstream assets

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