5 Trends Shaping Oil and Gas in 2025
The demise of oil and gas might have been exaggerated.
From Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “Drill, baby, drill” to India’s accelerated push to exploit its offshore oil fields, the 2020s are shaping up to be a decade of resurgence for the oil and gas industry.
While the decade started with the idea of a phaseout of fossil fuels, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led governments worldwide to prioritize energy security, spurring investment in new projects. Meanwhile, lingering geopolitical risk—particularly around the Strait of Hormuz—have kept a floor under oil prices, boosting company cash reserves.
However, in 2025, the industry will attempt to avoid repeating mistakes from past boom-and-bust cycles. We offer four priorities: accelerating project timelines, making facilities more adaptable to evolving conditions, addressing workforce challenges and meeting stricter regulations and stakeholder demands on carbon emissions and sustainability.
Trend #1: A Greenfield Boom Underpinned by Technology
Continuing the trend of the past few years, 2025 should see sustained investments in new projects. According to WoodMackenzie, investments in oil and gas among the world’s largest producers are set to increase by 60% by next year to meet the rebound in global demand.
Offshore developments, in particular, are witnessing a revival, with mega-projects poised to transform nations with untapped deepwater and ultra-deepwater reserves, such as Namibia and Guyana, into petrostates. Oil and Gas majors hope to convince investors that new technologies and efficiency gains will slash project costs while dramatically reducing emissions during extraction, strengthening the case for greenfield investment.
However, the wave of mega-projects underway today differs from earlier decades in its reliance on digital technology throughout the project lifecycle. Digital twins, in particular, have emerged as the cornerstone of lifecycle information management, with GlobalData estimating that the market for oil and gas digital twins would grow sixfold to $154 billion by 2030.
What’s driving this adoption? A recent report by Hexagon shows that digital twins deliver financial advantages, with an annual ROI of 27% derived from both revenue growth and cost reductions. Beyond financials, these technologies are enabling companies to accelerate their methane and CO2 reduction goals, helping to align operations with sustainability imperatives.
Trend #2: A Performance Push in Brownfield Sites
While greenfield projects are accelerating, they are also raising the bar for existing facilities. Brownfield sites are under pressure to boost efficiency and remain competitive, especially in regions with high breakeven costs, such as the UK, Nigeria, and Qatar, as well as for offshore facilities or aging infrastructure.
The pressure and push for greater performance and reliability extend to midstream and downstream operations. Europe’s refineries, in particular, have been under scrutiny due to dwindling margins and overcapacity, leading several key players to downsize.
The grim outlook leads brownfield operators to turn to technologies for efficiency gains and margin points, notes McKinsey, a consultancy:
“Industry players are driving performance and focusing on improved capital expenditures and cost efficiency. To achieve these goals, players are embracing new technology, including AI. For example, industry players are using predictive maintenance to analyze vast amounts of real-time operational data alongside historical performance to predict and avoid equipment failure.”
An overlooked motivation behind this performance push is the value it adds to asset sales. Companies looking to divest can command better prices by improving the efficiency of their assets, while tools like Enterprise Asset Management software streamline the due diligence process. With 2025 projected to be a record year for transactions, spin-offs, and portfolio reconfigurations, brownfield improvements are a key strategy for maximizing returns.
Trend #3: The Price of Poor Safety Goes Up
Beyond operational performance, another factor will play a major role in the industry’s fortunes: its safety and environmental record in the next few years.
In the 1980s and 1990s, major oil spills durably reshaped perceptions and turned the public opinion against oil and gas. Today, as new offshore projects come online, media and activists are quick to remind the world of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Times have changed, and the industry has made progress—reports indicate it’s safer than ever to work in—but safety remains a financial and operational imperative. Poor safety records can lead to fines, lawsuits, and rising insurance premiums at a time when insurers are increasingly reluctant to cover oil and gas projects. Facilities with a bad track record could find themselves uninsurable, adding another layer of risk.
One overlooked factor driving operational risk is poor asset information quality. When employees cannot trust the accuracy of the data they rely on, they are forced to turn to costly and inefficient field verification to ensure safety and operational standards. This undermines the industry’s ability to address risks proactively.
To improve safety outcomes and reduce inefficiencies, we expect companies to increasingly adopt more comprehensive risk management approaches, such as Risk-based Criticality Assessment or Operational Risk Management, and address persistent issues like inadequate alarm systems, outdated procedures, or manual permit-to-work processes. Investments in automation and reducing human presence in hazardous areas will also grow, driven by the twin goals of cost efficiency and injury prevention.
Trend #4: AI (Almost) Everywhere
And whether it is for safety, efficiency or production optimization, the oil and gas sector is banking on AI.
In Hexagon’s Digital Twin Industry Report, 47% of industry professionals said they plan to add AI capabilities, putting the sector ahead of many others in adoption.
So what is AI good for? On new projects, it helps streamline data take-on and contextualization, reducing project timelines, rework and cost overruns. AI can also extract and verify information from legacy sources, addressing long-standing issues with data quality. This is critical, as AI is only as effective as the quality of the information it processes—the principle of "garbage in, garbage out" still applies.
In existing facilities, AI is already making predictive maintenance commonplace, using machine learning to forecast equipment failures, cut downtime and lower costs. Condition monitoring is often integrated into these systems, adding another layer of efficiency.
The scope of AI is also widening. Safety and inspection are key growth areas, with 23% of oil and gas employees reporting their companies are using AI for these tasks. Computer vision, for example, is enabling automated anomaly detection and inspections in hazardous environments.
Of all industries, Oil and gas employees are among the most optimistic when it comes to the potential of AI: 70% believe it can boost productivity, according to the 2024 Global Energy Talent Index.
Trend #5: The Generational Shift Could Cause Productivity Woes
Raising productivity will indeed be a defining challenge of the next few years as the industry is grapples with a significant generational shift.
As of 2022, one in five oil and gas workers was over the age of 55, highlighting an aging workforce and the sector’s long-standing struggle to attract younger talent, particularly in skilled trades. In recent years, employees have also left for other sectors, including renewables, which has shrunk the available talent pool even further.
As hiring ramps up, the focus is shifting to training and upskilling to meet growth demands. The challenge? Bridging the gap between the experience of 20-year veterans and new hires with only a few years on the job. Digital tools are essential here, helping companies capture the informal knowledge that doesn’t appear in procedures—the kind of practical expertise that keeps operations running smoothly.
New-generation procedure management tools could be part of the answer, helping organizations document real-world practices while also enabling competency validation. These tools can bridge the gap between procedural knowledge and practical expertise by contextual linking training materials with on-the-job learning opportunities.
The trend fits into a broader narrative: In an industry built on hard-won expertise but slow to adopt workplace technology, 2025 could mark a turning point—shifting oil and gas from being seen as an industry to phase out to one that can evolve into a better version of itself.