Oil bonanza

– Guyana tops the world in oil-and-gas discoveries for 2018

GUYANA is leading the world in terms of oil and gas discoveries for 2018, at least for the first half of the year, according to Rystad Energy – an independent research and business intelligence Norwegian company providing data, tools, analytics and consultancy services to the global energy industry.

In a statement on Friday, Rystad Energy said global discoveries of conventional oil and natural gas are seeing an exciting recovery with discovered resources already surpassing 4.5 billion barrels of oil-equivalent (BoE).

The intelligence company said the average monthly discovered volumes Year to Date (YTD) are estimated at 826 million barrels of oil-equivalent, up approximately 30 per cent compared to 625 million boe in 2017.

“During H1 2018, Guyana led the top five countries in terms of total discovered resources added, followed by the United States, Cyprus, Oman and Norway. These five countries hold three-fourths of the total resources discovered this year. The discoveries in Guyana, the United States and Cyprus are located in ultra-deepwater and are 100 per cent owned by oil majors… (which) indicates that oil majors have started to re-focus on deepwater exploration,” Rystad Energy explained.

It added, “the biggest offshore discovery to date this year is believed to be the Eni-operated Calypso gas find offshore Cyprus, while the largest onshore discovery, a gas-condensate find, was reported on the Mabrouk North East prospect, operated by Petroleum Development Oman.”

Rystad Energy’s analysis comes days after U.S. oil giant – ExxonMobil– increased its estimate of the discovered recoverable resources for the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana to more than four billion oil-equivalent barrels.

The increase follows completion of testing at the Liza-5 appraisal well, a discovery at Ranger, incorporation of the eighth discovery – Longtail into the Turbot area evaluation and completion of the Pacora discovery evaluation. The previous recoverable resource estimate was 3.2 billion oil-equivalent barrels.

ExxonMobil’s three major oil discoveries for 2018 at Ranger, Pacora and Longtail wells collectively have an estimate of one billion barrels of oil or more, Rystad Energy noted.
Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Senior Director of Public and Government Affairs, Deedra Moe, on Saturday told Guyana Chronicle that the company will increase activities within the Stabroek Block.

“Our work in Guyana is very exciting. We’ve had incredible success with our drilling programme and are looking to increase activity, given that success. We are happy to be a partner with the country to continue to explore and develop its resources,” Moe said.
In the United States, oil discoveries have been made at Ballymore and Dover prospects in the Norphlet play in deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

“The Norphlet play, which is characterised by high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) conditions accompanied with complicated and elusive structures revealed to be fortunate for Chevron and a prevailing success for Shell. Chevron discovered a significant oil play at the Ballymore prospect with its first exploration well in the subtle play whereas the Dover discovery located 13 miles from the Appomattox host was Shell’s sixth discovery in the play,” Rystad Energy explained.

It said that Cyprus marked its entry in the list owing to Eni’s promising gas discovery at Calypso 1 NFW ultra-deepwater well in Block 6. The discovery well encountered an extended gas column in rocks of Miocene and Cretaceous age, confirming the extension of “Zohr-like” play in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone, Rystad Energy said.

“Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) announced a giant gas-condensate discovery at Mabrouk North East prospect in the northern part of its concession area located west of Saih Rawl field. In the Norwegian Sea, significant discoveries were reported by OMV and Wintershall in the Aasgard and Aasta Hansteen area respectively, with combined recoverable resources close to 240 million boe. While in North Sea, Aker BP and Equinor made the other two discoveries which together added 75 million BoE,” it added.

According to the research and business intelligence company, the discovery trend is expected to continue in the second half of 2018, backed by ongoing exploration in emerging offshore provinces and many promising high-impact wells targeting potential resources in the millions.

“An uptick of 30 per cent from the abnormally low levels in 2017 might seem encouraging, but E&P players are currently facing a low reserve replacement ratio, on average of less than 10 per cent. This is worrisome considering the impact on global oil supply in long term,” said Espen Erlingsen, Head of Upstream Research at Rystad Energy.

 

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