When it comes to Liza Phase One — the most mature of the Stabroek Block developments — it certainly stands out as one of the most outstanding achievements the industry has seen in a “long, long time.” This was recently noted by Liam Mallon, the President of ExxonMobil’s Upstream Oil and Gas Division.
The official noted during a recent conference call that ExxonMobil will bring on Liza Phase One in less than five years from discovery to first oil. He said that this is a “staggering achievement” since the industry average is nine years between discovery and bringing it on-stream for deepwater floating production and storage type development.
Mallon said, “Decreasing the cycle time between when you discover something and when you bring it on is ultimately the key to value creation. And this is a textbook example of that. So what do we believe are the things that have enabled this rapid pace of development? Very quickly, the relationships with our partners, and the relationship with the regulator and the government are key.”
The ExxonMobil official said that everyone has to be aligned to the same goal and things have to be done in a way to enable this pace in a way that satisfies standards of good oilfield practice around the world. It is a partnership with Guyana and it has enabled Exxon to move at a very rapid pace, the official expressed.
The other factor he cited was ExxonMobil’s global development capability. Mallon said that this covers the whole gambit, from drilling through contracting strategy, through supply chain integration.
The official said, “So this is the ultimate goal; once you’ve done it, you just scale up and you replicate. And the cost advantages, the time advantages, the efficiency advantages are absolutely enormous. And that’s what we’re seeing.”
