By: Franyi Sarmiento, Ph.D., Inspenet, June 17, 2022
The large global energy company ExxonMobil and its partners Hess and CNOOC have made a significant number of high-quality oil finds off the coast of Guyana. In April 2022, Exxon announced that it made three more discoveries on the 6.6 million acre Stabroek block, where it is the operator with a 45% interest with 30% owned by Hess and the remaining 25% held by CNOOC. .
The discoveries were made in the Barreleye-1, Patwa-1 and Lukanani-1 wells, all of which are to the east of the Liza oil field and Payara development. That brings the number of oil discoveries so far this year off the coast of Guyana to five and a total of at least 31 discoveries in the Stabroek Block since 2015. Exxon estimates that those latest discoveries give it about 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources at Stabroek. block. This is the world’s largest oil discovery in two decades.
The swath of oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana is not limited to the Exxon-led consortium’s operations in the Stabroek Block, other energy companies are reporting finds of similar quality. In January 2022, the Canadian drilling rig Frontera Energy, the third largest oil producer in Colombia, together with its partner CGX Energy, of which Frontera is the controlling shareholder, announced the discovery of oil in the Corentyne Block.
The Kawa-1 wild well was drilled at the northern end of the block to a depth of 21,578 feet or 6,577 meters and encountered 177 feet or 54 meters of hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs. Then, in a May 2022 press release, Frontera said that additional drilling at Kawa-1 had identified an additional 51 feet or 15 meters of net pay with multiple hydrocarbon zones extending 69 meters. The Canadian intermediate oil producer plans to drill the Wei-1 wildcat well, 14 kilometers northwest of Kawa-1, on the Corentyne Block during the third quarter of 2022.
Industry insiders say the northern end of the Corentyne Block encompasses the same oil lane that runs through the Stabroek Block to Block 58 off the coast of Suriname. According to Frontera, the geology found in the Corentyne Block is comparable to Block 58 offshore Suriname, where operator TotalEnergies and 50% partner Apache have made five quality oil discoveries.
Those numbers combined with clear signs that the oil potential of the Guyana Suriname Basin significantly exceeds the average undiscovered oil resource estimated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in May 2001 of about 15.25 billion barrels. Hess CEO John Hess stated in early June 2022 that he believes larger hydrocarbon discoveries will be made in the Stabroek block when drilling deeper.
This material from the PetroBanca portal was edited for clarity, style and length.
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