Whenever ExxonMobil decides to develop its highly prized Hammerhead discovery on the Stabroek Block, its neighbours Tullow Oil, Total, and Eco Atlantic on the Orinduik Block are very likely to be financial beneficiaries.
For months, Eco Atlantic has been saying that its seismic data shows that the tail end of the Hammerhead discovery extends into its Orinduik Block and, as such, it was already considered to be de-risked. The operator had said, too, that drilling in that area did not make much economic sense since it had confirmed that oil is already in that area. It was felt to be more prudent to make a discovery in another part of the block.
With the success of the Jethro-1 well located in the Tertiary Play of the Block, Eco shareholders were interested in ascertaining how the Hammerhead extension will be considered.
In fact, one shareholder for Eco Atlantic wrote to Tullow Oil, the operator for the Block, for clarity.
In the response that the Guyana Standard has an exclusive copy of, Tullow Oil said, “We updated all prospect polygons in our map for last week’s announcement so [we] decided to show the portion of Hammerhead that we believe falls into our licence which we can see on seismic.”
“We don’t intend to drill in this section, but at a later date when Exxon may develop Hammerhead, it is likely we’ll need to discuss some simple unitisation in order to recover a [percentage] share that falls within our block. This is not unusual as often discoveries cross over licence boundaries.”
It was on August 30 that ExxonMobil made its ninth discovery offshore Guyana at the Hammerhead-1 well.
Exxon had said that Hammerhead-1 encountered approximately 197 feet (60 meters) of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoir.
It was further noted that Hammerhead-1 is located approximately 13 miles (21 kilometres) southwest of the Liza-1 well and follows previous discoveries on the Stabroek Block at Liza Deep, Payara, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, Pacora and Longtail.
