The global oil industry saw approximately 120 oil and gas discoveries in 2024, the overwhelming majority of which were small incremental reserve additions. This stands in contrast with the previous years when the 2022 discovery of Venus in Namibia, followed by the 2023 Mopane find in the same country, instilled hope in the global upstream community that multi-billion-barrel discoveries are still possible. Last year, it was only Kuwait’s al-Nokhatha that fit that description, and it could very well happen that the largest 2025 find would once…