ExxonMobil honours PSA, Relinquishes 20% of Canje Block
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, July 30, 2019
In accordance with the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that ExxonMobil has with Guyana, the oil giant has relinquished 20 percent of the Canje Oil Block.
While these blocks are now accessible, Director of the Department of Energy, Dr. Mark Bynoe explained that several legislations and policies will first have to be put in place in preparation for first oil before this can happen.
“Our priority is first oil because we need to be prepared for that, and first oil is staring us in the face, while we still work on fleshing out those other elements for future licensing rounds and future issuing of blocks.”
Dr. Bynoe was adamant that more must be done with the provisions of the 1986 Act, saying that “That Act is fairly silent on mid and downstream activities. We need to make it a lot more robust in regards to decommissioning as well as how it fits the local content dimensions that we are elaborating on.”
With this and the local content policy draft in place, the department will then begin looking at marketing the block again.
Just last April, ExxonMobil announced its 13th discovery offshore Guyana at the Yellowtail-1 well, the Noble Tom Madden had begun drilling the Yellowtail well on March 27, 2019.
In February, ExxonMobil announced its 11th and 12th discoveries offshore Guyana at the Tilapia-1 and Haimara-1 wells in the southwest section of the Stabroek Block.
ExxonMobil intends to drill more than 10 exploration and appraisal wells offshore Guyana in 2019 and 2020. The company has noted the potential for at least five floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels on the Stabroek Block producing more than 750,000 barrels of oil per day by 2025.