– Westmount Energy is forecasting
– said Guyana, one of the few areas for ‘blue chip’ interest in high impact exploration
By Navendra Seoraj
THE year 2021 is preparing to be significant for exploration and appraisal operations in the Guyana-Suriname basin, with more than 12 audit and appraisal wells scheduled for Guyana alone, Westmount Energy said.
Westmount Energy, a holding company for a group of subsidiaries, operating in the oil and gas-related industries, owns an indirect interest in the Canje block through a 7.7 percent shareholding in JHI Associates, which is in turn owned 17.5 percent. participate in the audit project.
The company’s current investment portfolio is now focused on the ongoing drilling operation operated by ExxonMobil in the Canje Block, with the result of the drilling of two additional large independent forecasts, Jabillo-1 and Sapote-1, due to be revealed shortly.
Its portfolio also includes exposure to other Guyana offshore opportunities, including the Bulletwood-1 well, which has been confirmed to have hydrocarbons but not in commercial volumes. Data from the Bulletwood-1 well are still being analyzed.
“Drilling activity in the Guyana-Suriname basin continues to accelerate, driven by the industry’s focus on ‘privileged barrels due to the unique combination of prospect sizes, reservoir quality, low carbon density and low cost recovery metrics ( US $ 25 to US $ 35 per barrel), available offshore Guyana, ”reasoned Westmount.
The investment firm believes that any commercial discovery at one of Canje’s “wells” could lead to transformative value changes for them.
It is on this basis that Westmount made its positive forecast for 2021, which follows a report by Norwegian independent energy research and business intelligence firm Rystad Energy. Rystad Energy had stated that 2021 had “much promise” for Guyana’s growing petroleum sector.
According to Rystad Energy, ExxonMobil, in addition to the Canje Block, will “consolidate” resources in the southeastern part of the Stabroek Block, where deeper plays have been seen under existing discoveries.
The Stabroek Block is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers), and the recoverable resources currently found are estimated to be more than nine billion barrels of oil equivalent. The 18 discoveries on the block so far have established the potential for at least five floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels producing more than 750,000 barrels of oil a day by 2026.
ExxonMobil’s first offshore Guyana project, Liza Phase One, began production in late 2019, well ahead of the industry average for development time. Phase Two Liza remains on track to start oil production by early 2022.
Liza Phase Two will produce up to 220,000 barrels of oil per day at peak rates, using Liza Unity FPSO. Late last year, the oil giant, following an agreement with the Government of Guyana, decided to proceed with the development of Guyana’s offshore Payara field.
Payara is ExxonMobil’s third project in the Stabroek Block, and is expected to produce up to 220,000 barrels of oil a day, having started in 2024, using the FPSO ship. The US $ 9 billion development will target an estimated resource base of about 600 million oil-equivalent barrels.
“Rystad Energy’s data suggests that on average, nearly 300 million barrels of oil equivalents have been found for every exploration well (wildcat and appraisal) drilled in the country over the past six years,” analyst attached to Rystad Energy’s upstream team, Santosh Kumar, said in a recent report.
GREEN-CHIP INTEREST
According to Westmount Energy, Guyana, with its positive prospects and huge potential, remains one of the few areas of “blue chip” interest in high impact exploration. Investopedia defines blue chip stocks as safe investments because they pay off as well as grow steadily and steadily over time.
It has recently been reported that Guyana’s role in the global petroleum industry may be greater than it appears on the surface, as an analysis by global energy research and consulting group Wood Mackenzie shows that the country among five countries that will produce most of the remaining deepwater oil resources.
“We found that 80 percent of the remaining deepwater oil resources will come from five countries (Brazil, the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, Guyana, Nigeria, and Angola). Therefore, understanding the quality of their reservoirs is key to identifying who has the best oil, ”Vice President of Sub-surface Research for Wood Mackenzie, Dr Andrew Latham, is quoted as saying in a report by Wood Mackenzie.
Guyana attracted international attention after ExxonMobil made the first commercial discovery of Guyana’s offshore oil in 2015 and started production in December 2019. In September 2020, ExxonMobil made its 18th Guyana offshore discovery at the Redtail-1 well.