New Discovery Near Liza
One of the most exciting discoveries of 2015 was Liza, in Guyana’s offshore Stabroek Block, which opened up a new South Atlantic play and was the first commercial field found in the country. This has now been followed by another promising discovery on the same block, about 16 km north-west of Liza. Well Payara 1 was drilled in 2,030m of water at the end of 2016 and reached a TD of 5,512m. ExxonMobil said the well targeted similar-aged reservoirs to those proven successful in Liza, and found over 29m of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs. Two sidetracks have been drilled to evaluate the discovery and testing is underway to better determine the full resource potential, which is thought to be in the region of 250 MMboe.
The 26,800 km2 Stabroek Block, located approximately 200 km offshore Guyana, contains multiple prospects and play types. The Liza field is believed to hold recoverable reserves of between 800 MMboe and 1.4 Bboe in Upper Cretaceous reservoirs, while recent appraisal drilling identified an additional high quality, deeper reservoir, estimated to contain 100–150 MMboe, directly below the field.
Guyana Stabroek Block. (Source: Hess)
Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd. is operator with 45% interest in the Stabroek Block, while Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds 30% and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited has 25%.
