Global oil investments are expected to drop 6 percent in 2025, in the first such decline in a decade excluding the year of the Covid slump, according to the International Energy Agency.
“This decline in oil investment is driven by the economic uncertainties, the lower demand expectations, and lower prices,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in an interview as the agency published its annual World Energy Investment report. The drop is mostly the result of a “sharp decline in spending on US tight oil,” according to the report.
Crude prices have fallen as US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy threatens to slow the global economy, while OPEC+ accelerates the revival of its production into a market that was already well supplied.
The IEA’s initial estimates for 2025, based on company announcements, showed that oil and gas spending would be flat, but sentiment has since become more downbeat as oil prices are coming under pressure, according to the report.
Lower expenditure on oil brings IEA expectations for overall upstream oil and gas investment for 2025 to just under $570 billion, a decline of about 4 percent. Of this spending, about 40 percent goes toward slowing down production declines at existing fields. Global refinery investment in 2025 is set to fall to its lowest level in the past 10 years at around $30 billion.
Spending in natural gas fields is set to maintain the levels seen in 2024, and investment in new liquefied natural gas facilities “is on a strong upward trajectory” as new projects in the US, Qatar, Canada and elsewhere prepare to come online.
“Between 2026 and 2028, the global LNG market is set to experience its largest ever capacity growth,” according to the report.
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