ExxonMobil’s first well in the Canje offshore block has been deemed non-commercial, according to Westmount, an investor in one of the partners in the venture.
In a statement today, Westmount said that it has received a shareholder communication from its investee company, JHI Associates Inc. (JHI), which confirms that the first well on the Canje Block, Bulletwood-1, was safely drilled in 2,846 meters of water by the Stena Carron drillship to its planned target depth of 6,690 meters and encountered quality reservoirs but non-commercial hydrocarbons.
Westmount, an AIM-quoted oil and gas investing company focussed on the Guyana-Suriname Basin, said that data collection at Bulletwood-1 confirms the presence of the Guyana-Suriname Basin petroleum system and the potential prospectivity of the Canje Block. It noted that Bulletwood-1 is the first of three wells scheduled to be drilled on the block in 2021 with drilling of the independent prospects Jabillo-1 and Sapote-1 to follow over the coming months.
Westmount holds an indirect interest in the Canje Block as a result of its approximately 7.7% interest in the issued share capital of JHI. Following a 2018 farm-out to Total, JHI is carried for the drilling of up to four wells, including Bulletwood-1, and is funded for the drilling of additional wells, the Westmount statement said.
Exxon, which started drilling the well at the end of December last year has not yet made a statement on Bulletwood-1.
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 and expertise to explore the blocks.
The Tanager-1 well which was drilled in the nearby Kaieteur Block in November last year was also reported to be a non-commercial discovery.
Exxon has however had enormous success on the Stabroek Block. The 18 discoveries on the block to date have established the potential for at least five production platforms producing more than 750,000 barrels of oil per day by 2026.
