A flurry of activity is expected offshore Guyana this year as U.S. oil major ExxonMobil ramps up its search for even more hydrocarbons, targeting deeper and risker prospects.
The company has also confirmed that it will be boosting its drill capacity with the addition of two more rigs adding to the four currently conducting exploration and development drilling operations offshore the South American country.
During a virtual interview with OilNOW in December, President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, in responding to questions about the company’s exploration plans for this year, said that the offshore activities are about to get even busier.
“We’re adding two more drilling rigs to our activities and that is to give us more capacity to drill additional wells,” Routledge said. “We expect to drill more than a dozen exploration and appraisal wells over the next year and several of those would be out with that core area in the southeast of the Stabroek block.”
The southeastern area of the 6.6 million acres Stabroek block is where the bulk of the 18 discoveries have so far been made. Routledge said the company also intends to target wells west of these discoveries. So far, the Ranger well is the farthest the company has drilled in the northwest section of the block and is also the deepest well ever to be drilled at Stabroek.
“We also plan two to three wells in the Canje block. So…we are stretching out,” he stated, pointing out that the company is taking more risks.
Guyana set to lead Southern Caribbean offshore drilling in 2021
Bulletwood-1, targeting around 500 million barrels of oil, was spudded at the end of December in the ExxonMobil-operated Canje block. The other prospects being targeted there include Jabillo, and Sapote.
“This is still a frontier exploration basin, very few wells have been drilled to give us a true understanding of the formation and the distribution of the resource in the rocks,” Routledge pointed out.
So far, the company has found approximately 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources offshore Guyana.
