Jethro-1 is Tullow’s first well drilled offshore Guyana, located in the Orinduik block. The license is operated by Tullow (60%), with Total E&P Guyana B.V. (25%) and Eco (Atlantic) Guyana Inc (15%) as partners.
The well encountered 55 m of net oil pay in high-quality sandstone reservoirs of Lower Tertiary age.
The industry’s attention has been fixed on Guyana since 2015, with US-based ExxonMobil claiming most of the spoils over the past four years with 13 discoveries. ExxonMobil is expected to produce 0.75 MMbopd, and production is expected to rise to 1 MMbopd over ten years. In comparison, Norway produces approx. two million barrels a day.
Westwood Global Energy Group has calculated that Guyana will thus be the country that produces the most barrels per capita (about 450 barrels). Norway comes in at just under 150 barrels per capita as number 6 on this list, after Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Rystad Energy exploration analyst Palzor Shenga said: “After dominating the list of major offshore discoveries in 2018, Guyana has extended its winning streak. With multiple prospects identified, Tullow and its partners could easily be sitting on a multi-billion-barrel block.”
This discovery significantly de-risks other Tertiary age prospects on the Orinduik licence, including the shallower Upper Tertiary Joe prospect which will commence drilling later this month, targeting around 150 MMboe of gross prospective resources.
Colin Kinley, COO and Co-Founder of partner Eco Atlantic, commented: “The Jethro-1 well confirms the continuance of the petroleum system onto the Orinduik block, up-dip from the prolific discoveries on the Exxon-operated Stabroek block. The well has resulted in a mitigation of risk of the presence of quality reservoir sands, seal and trap parameters. We have multiple drilling targets on the block with similar geophysical characteristics, and we are moving the Stena Forth drillship immediately to its next target, Joe-1. The Joe-1 location is just a short move to a shallower target and is expected to spud mid-August.
Later this year Repsol will drill its Carapa-1 well on the Kanuku block, where Tullow is partner, targeting some 200 MMboe in Cretaceous oil play and CGX will spud the Utakwaaka-1 well in its Corentyne block by the end of the year.
