Page 10 - LatAmOil Week 08 2021

LatAmOil GUYANA LatAmOil

Alistair Routledge, the head of ExxonMobil National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) to
Guyana, responded by saying: “Of course, we develop Stabroek, which lies in the deepwater
are all interested in ensuring that we never do section of Guyana’s offshore zone. To date, the
this again. This is not what we call normal opera- partners have discovered oil in 18 sections of
tions. We’re very unhappy with the way that this the block, which appears to contain around 9bn
vessel started up.” barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable
He also told OilNow.gy that ExxonMobil reserves.
had taken a proactive approach by incorporat- Liza-1 became the first section of Stabroek
ing the data collected from Liza Destiny into the to begin commercial production in December
construction of the Liza Unity and Prosperity 2019. ExxonMobil has also sanctioned devel-
FPSOs at shipyards in Singapore. opment at Liza-2, which is slated to begin pro-
ExxonMobil has been working with Hess, duction in 2022; and Payara, which will come on
a US-based independent company, and China stream in 2024. ™

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo (Image: Headline News Guyana)
Stena drillship to begin work on Longtail-3

appraisal well at Stabroek next month

EXXONMOBIL (US) is gearing up to drill an Stena DrillMAX will move to ExxonMobil’s
appraisal well at Turbot/Longtail, a section of the next drilling site, which lies within Stabroek’s
offshore Stabroek block. Whiptail section. It is due to spud the Whiptail-1
According to Stena, one of the drilling con- exploration well at a location about 19.3 km east
tractors chosen by the US super-major, work on of Liza, Guyana’s only producing oilfield, in May
the Longtail-3 exploration well is due to begin of this year.
in March. Longtail-3 will target deeper layers Longtail-3 and Whiptail-1 are not the
of the field – namely, the lower Campanian and only targets of ExxonMobil’s drilling 2020
Santonian strata – than those reached by previ- programme.
ous wells drilled nearby, including Turbot-1 and According to Alistair Routledge, the pres-
Longtail-1, which struck oil in 2017 and 2019 ident of the US super-major’s subsidiary in
respectively. Guyana, many more wells are scheduled to be
ExxonMobil is using a sixth-generation, spudded in the near future.
harsh-environment, dual activity dynamically “We expect to drill more than a dozen explo-
positioned (DP3) drillship from Stena for the ration and appraisal wells over the next year, and
project. The vessel, known as the Stena Drill- several of those [will] be outwith that core area
MAX, has already arrived in Guyana’s deepwater in the south-east of the Stabroek block,” Rout-
offshore zone. ledge stated during a recent interview with Oil-
Once the Longtail-3 well is completed, the Now.gy. ™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 08 25•February•2021