U.S Oil major ExxonMobil, operator at the 6.6 million acres Stabroek Block in Guyana, is planning to submit a development plan to authorities in the South American country for its fourth project offshore, by the end of the year.
The company said on Wednesday that despite challenges associated with the pandemic, teams working on projects such as Liza Phase 2 and Payara have been able to remain on schedule, which will allow for the timely completion of the FPSO units being constructed in Singapore.
“Liza Phase One achieved nameplate capacity in 2020 with reservoir performance above expectations. The hull for Liza Phase Two, the Liza Unity, is in Singapore for the topsides installation and is on schedule for startup in 2022. The Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel is expected to arrive in Guyanese waters in the second half of 2021. Payara achieved Final Investment Decision in 2020 with plans to commence production in 2024,” Senior Vice President of Upstream, Neil Chapman, told investors on Wednesday.
Turning his attention to the fourth planned development in Guyana, Chapman said, “We recently announced additional exploration successes at our Yellowtail and Redtail prospects and are confident that this area will progress as our fourth major development on the block.”
The Yellowtail area contains oily fluids similar to those of the Liza discovery which Exxon made back in 2015. The company has also been looking to conduct additional tests in the area to get more production information about the quality of the reservoirs found there.
“We plan to submit a development plan to the Government of Guyana before the end of this year,” Chapman said. “Looking out even further, we would anticipate having two additional FPSOs online by 2027, with a total capacity of more than one million barrels of oil per day.”
He pointed out that Exxon’s acreage position in the Guyana-Suriname basin is the “largest of all the international oil companies.”
“The Stabroek Block alone which we operate is about 6.6 million acres which is equivalent to more than 1000 blocks in the Gulf of Mexico. Seventeen of our eighteen discoveries have been in the Southeast region of the Stabroek Block. Importantly, the resources we’ve discovered to date are high-quality,” Chapman added.
He said this, combined with the size and density of the resource, enables a highly capital-efficient development with the potential of extending production plateaus and keeping the production facilities full through integration.
