The exploratory work done by ExxonMobil and its partners in certain parts of the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana have led to 10 discoveries which amount to an estimate of more than five billion barrels of oil equivalent resources—enough for five FPSOs.
But according to Senior Vice President (VP) of Exploration at Hess, Barbara Lowery-Yilmaz, “the prolific Guyana Basin could have more to give.”
In this regard, the Senior VP recently highlighted that there is the huge swath of acreage on the north and west side of the Stabroek Block, where no prospects or discoveries have been put on the map—yet. “We are going to acquire 7,500 square miles of 3-D seismic data and over time we’re going to use that data to underpin a future portfolio and our understanding of the basin,” Yilmaz said.
Lowery-Yilmaz said,too, that existing data for other parts of the Stabroek Block will be processed to “further refine and incorporate well results to continue to mature our inventory of works underway.”
In addition to this, the official said that Hess has a number of exploration and appraisal plans for the Stabroek Block this year. The Senior VP noted that most of the discoveries on the 26,800-sq-km Stabroek Block where Exxon Mobil is the lead operator, have been concentrated in the southern portion of the block. She articulated that these include the Liza, followed by Liza Deep, Payara, Snoek and Turbot. Lowery-Yilmaz then reminded of the Ranger well, a discovery outside of the southeast area, which was announced in January 2018 as a Carbonate play opener.
She said, “Exploration prospects are scattered across the block near existing discoveries and a large area south of the Ranger discovery. The Tilapia-1 prospect, which is about 5.5 km (3.4 miles) west of the Longtail-1 well, is up next for drilling by the Noble Tom Madden drillship. Other prospects in the Turbot area include Yellowtail and Tripletail. You can expect the resource to be drilled sometime this year. We will do additional work in the Pluma well too… We’re also drilling a sidetrack farther out and we’ll do a coring programme.”
Lowery-Yilmaz added, “So there’s a lot of activity to be conducted this year both in exploration and appraisal in the southeast Turbot area. As the lead operator had announced, we started drilling the Haimara-1 exploration well, the first of two planned wells this month. That well is east of the Pluma-1 discovery (It marked the tenth find for Exxon and partners in December 2018). But our 2019 to-do list also includes more appraisal work for Hammerhead, the Miocene play south of Liza Deep, and Ranger.”
