Guyana: ExxonMobil’s Third Well in Canje Offshore Block Disappoints – Offshore Engineer

Sapote-1, ExxonMobil's third well in the Canje Block offshore Guyana, has, after the first two wells, Bulletwood-1 and Jabillo-1, failed to unearth evidence of commercial hydrocarbon volumes, too.

Westmount Energy, an indirect partner in the Canje Block through its stake in JHI Associates, the Sapote-1 well on the Canje Block was drilled in 2,549 meters of water by Stena Drilling's Stena DrillMAX drillship to a total depth of 6,758 meters.

The Sapote-1 well was designed to test Upper Cretaceous reservoirs in a stratigraphic trap. The well, spudded in August, is located some225 km northeast of Georgetown.

"The well encountered non-commercial hydrocarbons in one of the deeper exploration targets," Westmount Energy said.

The Canje Block is operated by ExxonMobil (35%), with TotalEnergies (35%), JHI Associates (17.5%), and Mid-Atlantic Oil & Gas Inc. (12.5%) as partners. Westmount holds a 7.2% interest in the issued share capital of JHI.

Eco Atlantic, also an indirect partner in the block through its a 6.4% interest in JHI, said the Sapote-1 well recorded hydrocarbon shows while drilling, and in the logging sequence, in a deeper interval than anticipated, but had no shows in the upper primary objective horizon.

"With sidewall coring and wireline logging complete, ExxonMobil will now work to define the reservoir properties, including porosity and permeability, and the cored samples will be analysed for hydrocarbons," Eco Atlantic said.

Gerard Walsh, Executive Chairman of Westmount, said: "Sapote-1 is the sixth well, offshore Guyana, that Westmount has participated in via our investee companies, since 2019.

"This portfolio of drilling outcomes has yielded 3 oil discoveries, but no standalone commercial success to date. While this outcome from the Westmount portfolio is below expectations the results to date provide encouragement and must be viewed in the context of initial 'large step-out' wells, in a frontier setting, evaluating giant stratigraphic prospects while seeking to establish the perimeter of the multiple play fairways both to the northeast and southwest of the prolific Stabroek Block."

"The immediate focus of the Canje Joint Venture group now switches to synthesis, analysis, and regional integration and modeling of the extensive multi-play data suite acquired during the 2021 drilling campaign with a view to high-grading and selection of the potential follow-on drilling targets on the block. In this regard, we note that the operator of the Canje Block, has already submitted, to the Guyanese Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an application for environmental authorization with respect to a new 12 well drilling program on the block from 2022.

The Sapote-1 well is located in the southeastern section of Canje, about 50 km north of the Haimara discovery in the Stabroek Block which encountered ~207 feet (63 meters) of high-quality, gas-condensate bearing sandstone reservoir and approximately 60 km northwest of the Maka Centraldiscovery in Block 58 which encountered ~164 feet (50 meters) of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoir.

The 2021 exploration program on the Canje Block seeks to test the extension of the prolific hydrocarbon system which has resulted in 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resources discovered so far by ExxonMobil and its partners Hess and CNOOC in the adjacent Stabroek Block since 2015.

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Guyana: ExxonMobil's Third Well in Canje Offshore Block Disappoints - Offshore Engineer