Decarbonizing the Global Oil and Gas Industry: Strategies, Challenges, and Regional Perspectives

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Decarbonizing oil and gas operations is a central near-term climate challenge; however, existing studies often examine technologies, regions, and policy contexts in isolation, limiting a comparative understanding of mitigation potential, cost, maturity, and implementation barriers. This review synthesizes producer-controlled supply-side decarbonization strategies through a structured narrative review of 14 major oil and gas-producing countries, using a common operational Scope 1 and Scope 2 boundary. Evidence from peer-reviewed literature, institutional reports, policy documents, and project-level sources was gathered through targeted searches and synthesized thematically around four mitigation pillars: renewable integration and electrification; carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS); methane and flaring abatement; and low-carbon hydrogen. Cross-country variation is assessed using a semi-quantitative readiness rubric linking policy credibility, implementation evidence, infrastructure maturity, and measurement, reporting, and verification capacity. The results classify the United States, Norway, and Canada as leaders; Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brazil as advancers; China, Russia, Kuwait, Algeria, and Iraq as emerging players; and Iran as laggard. Across regions, methane and flaring abatement offer the most immediate and broadly applicable operational reductions, while renewable integration, CCUS, and hydrogen remain complementary and context-dependent. Cross-country variation is shaped by policy enforceability, infrastructure readiness, financing conditions, and measurement, reporting, and verification capacity, rather than by technology availability alone. Operational decarbonization is therefore advancing through region-specific portfolios but remains insufficient on its own to deliver a 1.5°C-consistent transition.