Hassa-1, ExxonMobil’s latest exploration well, in the offshore Stabroek Block, has come up dry and the company yesterday announced that it encountered hydrocarbons at other intervals and will be assessing its data.
“The Hassa-1 exploration well in the Stabroek block did not encounter hydrocarbons in the primary target reservoirs. However, the well did encounter hydrocarbons in other intervals. We are evaluating the data which will be integrated into our regional subsurface interpretation and modelling,” the company’s Public and Government Affairs Advisor Janelle Persaud said.
Persaud posited that the dry hole “serves as a reminder that geologic risk is inherent to frontier oil and gas exploration activities” but added that “ExxonMobil remains committed to evaluating the potential in our offshore Guyana blocks using our world-class technology and technical capabilities”.
While it has had 18 successes in the Stabroek Block, Hassa-1 is the second consecutive well here to be declared non-commercial. Back in November, at its first well drilled in the adjacent Kaieteur Block, the company also had a similar result.
Then, ExxonMobil had said that while Tanager-1 showed hydrocarbons it did not appear to be economic on a standalone basis but the company pledged to press on with exploration activities in the area.
The company last month began spudding its first well in the controversial Canje Block and said it was expected to be on location for several weeks.
A notice by the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) had stated that as of January 1st, 2021, the company would continue with the exploration drilling operation at the Bulletwood-1 well site with those works expected to end by February 23rd.
ExxonMobil had said that it has some three wells scheduled to be drilled in the Canje block.
ExxonMobil is the operator of all three deepwater blocks: the Stabroek, Kaieteur and Canje and the circumstances of its buying into the operations of the latter two have come in for much scrutiny. This is because months after the signing of its renegotiated Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) in June 2016, the company bought shares in both the Canje and Kaieteur blocks. The Canje and Kaieteur blocks had been controversially awarded in 2015 just prior to Exxon’s first major oil strike in the Stabroek Block. The small companies that snagged the rights did not have the required capital or expertise to explore the blocks.
