The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a spike in oil prices. Now, the Orinduik Block partners – Eco Atlantic, Tullow Oil, TotalEnergies and Qatar Energy – plan to revisit the commercialisation potential of the Jethro discovery.
Two tertiary discoveries were made at the Orinduik Block in 2019 at the Jethro and Joe wells, both heavy oil finds. Jethro, in particular, had encountered 55 metres of net oil pay. Tullow’s Chief Executive, Paul McDade had told S&P Global Platts that the Joint Venture (JV) is “confident of the commercial value” of the project, even as a standalone development, but a development decision did not come to fruition. The consortium had decided to move on with plans to target lighter crude in the future.
This is not the first time the Orinduik partners decided to revisit the potential commerciality of the Jethro discovery. But now that the price of crude is high, the Jethro well is much more valuable. However, partners will have to contend with the fact that government intends to renegotiate fiscal terms for any find outside of the Stabroek Block that contractors intend to produce.
If the partners do decide to tap this well, it could be the first Guyana development outside of the prolific Stabroek Block. Another contender could have been CGX Energy with the Kawa-1 discovery, but the company dubbed it a “finder well” and is moving on to another prospect at Wei-1.
Orinduik Block operator, Tullow Oil, is also preparing to submit drilling commitments to the Government of Guyana for the Orinduik Block.
“Eco and its JV partners are committed to further drilling on the Orinduik Block and, with its JV partners, are assessing all opportunities available to drill at least two exploration wells into the light oil cretaceous targets as soon as practical,” Eco said. “The company is fully aligned with its JV partners on careful target selection based on the reprocessed 3D and the block and nearby oil discoveries for the next drilling campaign and Eco expects to be able to update the market on further drilling plans in due course,” the company said on Monday.
A recently updated report showed that the best gross prospective resource estimate for the Orinduik Block is 8.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, with 681 million barrels of oil owed to Eco Atlantic and 544 billion cubic feet of gas.
The Orinduik Block lies 170 kilometers (km) offshore and covers 1,800 square kilometers (km²). Tullow has 60% operating interest while Eco-Atlantic has 15% working interest and the TotalEnergies/Qatar Energy JV has 25%.
