ExxonMobil commences drilling 1st well in Canje Block

…Bulletwood-1 is 500M-barrel oil prospect

Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), a subsidiary of United States oil giant ExxonMobil, has started drilling another exploration well, this time in the Canje Block offshore Guyana in what will be the first foray into that block in search of oil.

The announcement was made by investment company Westmount Energy on Tuesday and follows on the heels of recent notices from the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) to vessels.
According to the company, Exxon has commenced drilling the Bulletwood-1 well with the Stena Carrondrillship. According to Westmount, Bulletwood-1 is a 500 million barrels of oil prospect, similar to the profitable Liza Field wells.
Westmount, itself holding shares in the Canje Block by owning an indirect interest of 7.2 per cent through Exxon’s partner JHI Associates, also included comments attributed to its Chairman, Gerard Walsh. According to Walsh, the campaign will evaluate deeper reservoir targets, with the possibility of boosting Westmount’s share value.

“Bulletwood-1 is the first well in a multi-well, fully funded drilling campaign being operated by ExxonMobil on the Canje Block over the next six months or so. This campaign will evaluate high impact Upper Cretaceous prospects in the proven Liza play fairway with, in some cases, additional deeper reservoir targets,” Walsh said.
“It also provides Westmount shareholders exposure to a portfolio of drilling outcomes over a compressed timeframe. Success from some of the wells in this portfolio could result in transformational value changes for Westmount.”
The Bulletwood-1 well will be the first exploration well in the Canje Block by ExxonMobil as operator. Exxon has a 35 per cent interest, while French company Total has another 35 per cent, JHI 17.5 per cent and Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas 12.5 per cent.
There has been talk of spudding Bulletwood since last year. Besides Bulletwood-1, it is known that there are two other initial prospects in the Canje Block – Jabillo and Sapote. Based on information put out by Westmount previously, the Canje Block could hold as much as 10 billion barrels of oil in total.

Stabroek Block
However, it is the Stabroek Block that has gained the most attention for its oil-producing qualities. In 2019, Exxon made five discoveries in the Stabroek Block. Discoveries were made in the Tilapia-1 well, Haimara-1, Yellowtail-1, Tripletail-1 and Mako-1 wells. These discoveries had pushed the total estimated recoverable barrels of oil equivalent to over six billion.

The company also discovered oil in the Uaru-1 well back in January 2020. Uaru was ExxonMobil’s 16th oil discovery in the Stabroek Block. The Uaru-1 well was drilled in a new reservoir, encountering approximately 94 feet (29 metres) of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoir and was drilled in 6342 feet (1933 metres) of water.
In July of 2020, ExxonMobil’s partner in the Stabroek Block, Hess Corporation, had revealed that two high-quality reservoirs offshore Guyana were found in 2020 around the time the company was appraising the Yellowtail-2 well. So far, the Liza-1 well has accounted for all of Guyana’s oil production.
Guyana, with oil giant ExxonMobil as operator, began producing oil on December 20, 2019, in the Stabroek Block, lifting its first million barrels of profit oil from the Liza-1 well in February 2020. Oil tanker Cap Phillippe transported this lift from the Liza Destiny Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, allowing Guyana to receive its first payment the next month.
That money, $11.4 billion, constituted Guyana’s first oil revenue-based earnings from production in the Liza Field. It was deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in March of this year.
An additional sum of $7.3 billion was subsequently deposited, as well as royalty payments. However, this money has remained untouched, as the protracted political crisis that followed the March 2nd General and Regional Elections sabotaged any attempt to set up a system for withdrawing funds.
The Natural Resource Fund Act stipulates that various committees must be established to provide oversight for the fund. It is expected that this legislation will be reviewed by the current Government this year. (G3)