Liza 3 Solidifies ExxonMobil Guyana Find
Wednesday 26 October 2016
A key appraisal of ExxonMobil’s large Liza oil discovery offshore Guyana was successful, further boosting the resource estimate for what was already the largest oil discovery of 2015.
The Liza 3 exploration well “was successful,” according to ExxonMobil partner Hess, and further solidified the potential recoverable oil in the reservoir.
“Based on the Liza-3 results, we now expect the estimated recoverable resources to be at the upper end of the previously announced range of 800 million to 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent,” Hess said when announcing the results.
The well was drilled on the large Stabroek block with the Stena drillship Stena Carron.
It is understood that ExxonMobil drilled a sidetrack into the reservoir after reaching total depth on the probe before setting production casing.
According to an ExxonMobil representative, the rig is still on the Liza 3 location.
ExxonMobil spud Liza 3 on 4 September and, like its predecessor Liza 2, the well will focus on testing the flank of the Liza structure to determine the aerial extent of the reservoir.
Liza 2 hit more than 190 feet of net pay and caused ExxonMobil, along with partners Hess and China National Offshore Oil Corporation subsidiary Nexen, to boost their estimate of the recoverable oil resource at Liza to between 800 million and 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
In July, ExxonMobil submitted a development plan for Liza to Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency to begin the environmental review process that involved a floating production, storage and offloading vessel with capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day of oil.
Under that plan, first production would come online sometime in 2020 or 2021.