GUYANA – ExxonMobil moved its Stena Carron drillship on Thursday, to test the third prospect of the Stabroek Block.
According to global oil and gas news provider Upstream in article dated November 10, “the drillship left the Liza 3 location early Thursday for a 10-mile move north-east to the Payara location, where ExxonMobil and its partners will drill the latest wildcat on the sprawling Stabroek block”.
Hess Corporation’s Chief Executive, John Hess told Upstream Payara was a “very similar stratigraphic trap and same kind of reservoir sequence as the other Liza wells”.
United States’ Oil Company, Hess Corp and Nexen which is a subsidiary of CNOOC each holds a share in the Liza prospect. The oil companies are expecting results from the Payara exploration by January 2017.
The Stabroek Block consists of 6.6 million acres offshore Guyana and is where the Lizas are located. According to Upstream, the Stena Carron “drilled Liza 3 to a total depth of 18,100 feet in 6000 feet” and Hess noted that Liza 3 has the e “same high-quality reservoirs” as the other two Lizas. This year, ExxonMobil’s Liza-2 offshore exploration found high propensity sandstone reservoirs that could produce more than 1.4 billion barrels of recoverable high quality oil.
Hess Corp and ExxonMobil are looking to the end of 2017 to develop the Liza field. Hess’ third quarter report indicated that a used Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel will be retrofitted for the environment at the Liza well. “Moving Liza to production is very important for all parties,” Hess Corp noted.
Meanwhile, Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman told the Government Information Agency (GINA) in a recent interview that “a number of other companies have asked to be given exploratory permits” following Exxon’s significant discovery.
“We have Tullow which is a British company there, here, Repsol the Spanish company we’re in talks with them right now because they’ve asked for extra acreage so to speak. There is CGX of course and Total which is a French company wrote recently asking for the ability to come and to do some exploration in Guyana,” Minister Trotman pointed out.
These companies will have to first conduct their seismic surveys before drilling exploration can begin, the minister noted. (GINA)
