Guyana to become a major oil producer
Ron Bitto, Contributing Editor, Source - https://www.worldoil.com/magaz...a-major-oil-producer
A flurry of deepwater discoveries in the Atlantic off Guyana’s coast has changed the future for the small South American nation, which has yet to produce a barrel of oil. Since the Liza-1 discovery in May 2015, ExxonMobil and its partners have identified reservoirs containing at least 5.5 Bboe of recoverable reserves. The operator has fast-tracked the Stabroek Block development with the first of at least three FPSOs expected on location in September 2019 and first oil anticipated in early 2020. The rapid approach of oil revenue and the likely transformation of the nation’s economy have given the government and civil society a tight schedule to prepare for the opportunities and problems that will result from becoming a major oil producer.
Guyana-Suriname basin resource assessment. From 1975 to 2014, about 40 exploratory wells were drilled in Guyana and Suriname–both on and offshore–without finding commercial results. The oil and gas industry’s interest in the Guyana-Suriname offshore basin was piqued by a 2000 USGS assessment of South American undiscovered resource potential. Updated in 2012, the report identified the basin as the second-largest prospect on or near the continent, behind Brazil’s pre-salt Santos basin. The assessment’s mean values for the basin were 13.6 Bbo, 21.2 Tcf of natural gas, and 574 MMbbl of natural gas liquids. In 2012, CGX and Repsol drilled exploratory wells that encountered high pressures, but both were plugged without commercial finds.
Flurry of discoveries. In 1999, before the USGS assessment, Exxon Mobil and Shell signed an agreement with the Guyanese government for offshore exploration. Shell pulled out of the arrangement in 2012, and Exxon Mobil (45%) brought in Hess (30%) and CNOOC’s Nexen (25%) as partners in the 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block, 90 mi off the Guyana coast. In May 2015, the Liza-1 exploration well, drilling in 5,719 ft of water, encountered 295 ft of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone upon reaching 17,825 ft, TVD. Exxon Mobil estimated that the reservoir contained recoverable reserves between 800 MMboe and 1.4 Bboe. Based on these results, Exxon Mobil contracted Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) to conduct the largest 3D seismic survey in the operator’s history, to provide a more detailed assessment of the Stabroek Block’s geology. By March 2017, Exxon Mobil had confirmed the Liza discovery with three appraisal wells, and had made new discoveries with the Payara-1 and Snoek-1 wells, confirming the promise of the USGS assessment,Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Exxon Mobil’s discoveries in Guyana’s Stabroek Block.
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