“Guyana is the gift that keeps on giving…” – Exxon’s latest well could produce 300M barrels of oil -Wood Mackenzie
ExxonMobil’s latest discovery offshore Guyana, the Pluma-1 well, could very well produce around 300 million barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable reserves.
This is according to Wood Mackenzie, in its preliminary estimation of the well. Wood Mackenzie is said to be a global leader in commercial intelligence for the energy, metals and mining industries.
Specifically making this known recently however was Wood Mac’s, Julie Wilson.
During one of Wood Mac’s proadcast discussions, (https://soundcloud.com/woodmac...s-hit-double-figures), the Research Director said that Pluma is another Cretaceous sandstone discovery. In fact, she explained that there have been 10 discoveries so far and eight have been in the Cretaceous play.
Wilson said, “And of course, we have had two discoveries in other plays. One in the carbonate play for the north Ranger and one in the Miocene play and that was the Hammerhead…The consortium is talking about a further 18 or more prospects on the block. I suspect that the majority of those are Cretaceous.”
The Research Director continued, “Now what is remarkable about the block is that 12 exploration wells have been drilled and only two have been a miss. That is an incredible success rate, but not unprecedented in new provinces like this opening up…We saw similar success rates in other places like Angola and Mozambique.”
She added, “What we might see as the operator works down the prospect list is that we might begin to see more dry holes. So the success rate might fall away a little bit as they start to drill riskier prospects. And I expect them as well to target other Miocene prospects…But the resource estimate has increased to over five billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resource and that’s not all in the Pluma discovery… So our preliminary estimate for Pluma is 300 million barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resource…”
Wilson said that this is a remarkable story and one that is highly successful for the participants. She and her other colleagues at Wood Mac said that at this rate, Guyana could easily end up producing one million barrels of oil per day.
“Guyana is the gift that keeps on giving,” they said.
The Pluma-1 well is ExxonMobil’s tenth and latest discovery to date on the Stabroek Block. The discovery was announced in December 2018. Pluma was drilled in a new reservoir and encountered approximately 121 feet (37 metres) of high-quality hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone.
The Noble Tom Madden drillship (Photo Credit: OilNow)
The Noble Tom Madden drillship began drilling it on November 1, last. The well is located approximately 17 miles (27 kilometres) south of the Turbot-1 well.
The gross recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block is now estimated to total more than five billion oil-equivalent barrels, including Liza and other successful exploration wells such as Payara, Liza deep, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, Pacora, Longtail, and Hammerhead.
The Noble Bob Douglas continues to drill the Liza Phase One development wells and will continue drilling exploration wells. It will move to drill the Tilapia-1 prospect located 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometres) west of the Longtail-1 well.
The Stena Carron drillship was docked in November last for scheduled 10-year maintenance, during which new K-Pos Dynamic Positioning, K-Chief Automation, K-Thrust Thruster Control, and a Kongsberg Riser Management System will all be installed, after which it will return to Guyana.