The Yellowtail area offshore the South American country of Guyana contains oily fluids similar to those of the Liza discovery which US oil major ExxonMobil made back in 2015. With the recent additional reservoirs found in this location, it is likely to be moved up the queue as the fourth development at Stabroek Block.
John Hess, CEO of Hess Corporation, a 30 percent stakeholder at the Stabroek Block, said this week that drill stem testing will be conducted this year at both Yellowtail-1 and Yellowtail-2 to get more production information about the quality of the reservoirs found there.
In July it was announced that appraisal drilling at Yellowtail-2 identified two additional high-quality hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs, one adjacent to, and the other below the Yellowtail field.
“What I’d like to say is that this greater Yellowtail area is showing that it’s a very significant oil accumulation of high quality oil like Liza, and you know with this appraisal work that we’re doing and the drill stem test, that’s going to give us very valuable information to basically assess moving the greater Yellowtail area up in queue to potentially be the fourth FPSO,” Hess said in a presentation at the Barclays CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York on Wednesday.
The first three FPSOs for Guyana are the Liza Destiny, Liza Unity, and the Prosperity. The Prosperity FPSO is targeting production at the Payara development.
“I’d say the read-through is very encouraging that both Yellowtail 2 and Redtail will make the greater Yellowtail area a significant oil accumulation that will underpin a future FPSO and most likely the fourth ship,” Hess stated.
The 18th discovery at the Stabroek Block was announced on September 8 at the Redtail-1 well adding to the previously announced estimated recoverable resource of more than 8 billion oil-equivalent barrels (boe) on the block. The updated resource estimate now stands at approximately 9 billion boe.
