Country Manager of ExxonMobil Guyana, Rod Henson, says the eighth oil find offshore Guyana leading to the addition of more than 500 million barrels of oil to the current estimated recoverable reserves which exceed 3.2 billion barrels will see a third drillship added to the fleet offshore.
“We are very encouraged by what we have seen so far and so we do intend to bring in a third drillship and this will be dedicated to exploration drilling initially. We don’t have the exact ship named yet or timing but likely it will be later this year,” Henson said in an interview on Wednesday just hours after the announcement of the eighth discovery was made.
The Stena Carron and Noble Bob Douglas drillships are currently operating offshore Guyana. The new discovery was made by the Stena Carron while the Bob Douglas is drilling development wells for the Liza Phase 1 project.
ExxonMobil said it encountered approximately 256 feet (78 meters) of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoir at the Longtail-1 well located in the Stabroek Block, in close proximity to the Turbot discovery southeast of the Liza field.
The Country Manager explained that, “Between Turbot and this most recent discovery we are still evaluating what this means but we feel pretty confident that those two will be at least 500 million oil-equivalent barrels recoverable.”
ExxonMobil, in its announcement on Wednesday, said Longtail-1 was safely drilled to 18,057 feet (5,504 meters) depth in 6,365 feet (1,940 meters) of water.
The Stabroek Block is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers). Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited is operator and holds 45 percent interest in the Stabroek Block. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds 30 percent interest and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited holds 25 percent interest.
Very encouraging news.