Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 01 2022

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

“Debt keeps growing because companies are and mismanagement, have made it increasingly
being paid just a fraction of what they gener- challenging to attract foreign investment.
ate in monthly services to PdVSA,” the repre- Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin
sentative of one service company told Reuters American Energy Program at Rice University’s
anonymously. Baker Institute in Houston, claims that in order
Despite these promising results, concerns for Venezuela to maintain its increased produc-
surrounding the South American state’s ability tion rate, PdVSA will have to invest in additional
to maintain the increase in production linger. wells and improved drilling infrastructure.
Venezuela and its oil sector are still under US He further warned that while base produc-
sanctions, so PdVSA’s access to financing and to tion levels for 2021 were well below Venezuela’s
specialised equipment remains limited. These drilling capacity, they were gradually edging
limitations, along with the country’s debt load towards this limit. ™

GUYANA
ExxonMobil strikes oil again at Fangtooth

and Lau Lau fields within Stabroek block

US-BASED ExxonMobil reported on January 5
that it had made two additional discoveries at
Stabroek, a block offshore Guyana that is already
known to contain more than 10bn barrels of oil
equivalent (boe).
In a statement, the super-major said it had
found crude oil in both the Fangtooth-1 and
Lau Lau-1 exploration wells. Fangtooth-1
encountered about 50 metres of high-quality
oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs, it noted, while
Lau Lau-1 encountered around 96 metres of
high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs.
ExxonMobil added that it had used the Stena
DrillMAX drillship to sink the former well at a
location approximately 18 km north-west of the
Liza oilfield in 1,838-metre-deep water. It also
said it had used the Noble Don Taylor drillship
to sink the latter at a site about 68 km south-east
of Liza in 1,461-metre-deep water. These two
vessels are among the six drillships that the US
giant’s local subsidiary has hired to support its
exploration and drilling operations at its three
blocks in Guyana’s offshore zone.
The company did not comment on the likely
size of the Fangtooth or Lau Lau fields. But Mike
Cousins, ExxonMobil’s senior vice-president of
exploration and new ventures, pointed out that
the new finds would help shed light on the ques- Fangtooth and Lau Lau lie along the same trend as Liza (Image: Hess)
tion of exact how much crude the company’s
licence area contains. Second and third FPSOs
“The Fangtooth discovery is a successful ExxonMobil also said it was moving forward
result of our strategy to test deeper prospec- with its second and third development projects.
tivity, and the Lau Lau discovery adds to the On the one hand, it reported, the Liza-2 oil-
large inventory of development opportunities field is still on track to begin production in the
in the south-east part of the Stabroek block,” first quarter of 2022, as previously announced.
he commented. “Both discoveries increase our The Liza Unity, a floating production, storage
understanding of the resource, our continued and off-loading (FPSO) vessel built to sup-
confidence in the block’s exploration potential, port upstream operations at the site, is already
and our view that the many discoveries to date in place after arriving in Guyanese waters last
could result in up to 10 development projects.”. October, it said.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 06•January•2022