Next to people, reserves are our most significant asset. Yet, what we produce today is gone tomorrow. So we are constantly on the hunt for more.

We still see huge value in conventional exploration and exploitation in select basins. As the world’s easy-to-find oil is being depleted, exploration efforts are heading offshore and into deeper waters. We believe the smart choice is to focus our programs in familiar territory, namely the deep-water Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and offshore West Africa. Here we’ve had past success, we hold significant acreage, infrastructure exists and great potential remains. Third-party studies confirm we are headed in the right direction. Over the past decade, these three basins have ranked top ten in the world for adding value from exploration.

Our Usan development, offshore West Africa, is a great example of value created through the drill bit. With hundreds of millions of barrels to produce, it is expected to come on stream in 2012 and boost our oil production by about 36,000 bbls/d. And there’s a lot more to explore in the area.