Exxon’s latest and deepest well not commercial – Westmount
Westmount Energy, the energy investing company focussed on the Guyana-Suriname Basin today said that further to the announcement by Ratio Petroleum Energy, that the Tanager-1 well, offshore Guyana, has been reported as an oil discovery which is currently considered to be non-commercial as a stand-alone development.
The Tanager-1 exploration well is the deepest well drilled in the Guyana-Suriname Basin by ExxonMobil to date. It was spudded on the 11th August 2020, using the Stena Carron drillship, and reached a total depth of 7,633 metres in recent days.
Evaluation of wireline logging and sampling data confirm 16 metres of net oil pay in high-quality sandstone reservoirs of Maastrichtian age, Westmount said. Preliminary evaluation of the fluid samples from the Maastrichtian reservoir shows heavier oil than is reported from the Liza Phase I producing field crude assays and these samples will be the subject of further detailed analysis over the coming months. Although high quality reservoirs were also encountered at the deeper Santonian and Turonian intervals, interpretation of the reservoir fluids is reported to be equivocal at this stage and requires further evaluation, Westmount said. It is anticipated that the well will now be plugged and abandoned in the coming days.
The Kaieteur Block is currently operated by an ExxonMobil subsidiary, Esso Production & Exploration Guyana Limited (35%), with Cataleya Energy Limited (‘CEL’) (25%), Ratio Guyana Limited (‘RGL’) (25%) and a subsidiary of Hess Corporation (15%) as partners.