Q1-2020 EARNINGs CALL - NORTHERN CORENTYNE AREAIt appears Exxon/Hess will be back to exploration on Stabroek starting in June - with priority to test several deeper intervals in the Santonian.
It will be interesting to see if this upcoming 'priority exploration campaign' (starting in June) includes drilling the deeper Haimara interval that was metioned by Hess several quarters ago. Recall, Hess mentioned the Haimara prospect had a deeper interval that was not penetrated in the original wellbore. Moreover, drilling the deeper interval below Haimara was (according to the partnership) a clear priority - with a projection of returning to Haimara within 12-18 months. Of course, those comments were made about a year ago. Hess Q&A is below
Analyst:I just was curious if we could get into the impacts of the deferrals done in Guyana thinking, first off, the near-term issues would be deferrals on the rigs, how that affects kind of overall economics of the wells. And the June start date, how good does that look at this point? Is there something specific we're waiting to see that, that is a good day to use, or are we at risk of further delays there?
Greg Hill: So Roger, in my opening remarks, I talked about that's solely COVID-19 related that those rigs have been idled, and that's purely to do with crew changes. And so in order to protect those crews, they're quarantining people for 14 days. So if you kind of run through all the math on that, ExxonMobil made the decision really to hot stack. We are on track to get both of those rigs (Noble Tom Madden and the Stena Carron) running again by June. So we're in good shape, no worries there. In terms of the wells, really no impact on the economics of the wells, right? I mean really what has been deferred is the start of Phase two drilling. And of course, the exploration that we want to get done as well. And so as we look forward now with four rigs going by June forward, there's really three objectives that we're trying to do. One is to finish the Phase one Yellowtail. Two is get 2-3 more exploration wells in the ground, including a couple that have tailed to go down and test the deeper or penetrate the deeper Santonian. And then the third objective is to continue drilling on Phase one and get started on Phase two, producer drilling. So that's how the program is going to kind of layout between now and the end of the year.
On a seperate (though related) subject - we have also heard from Total and Apache they are in the process of fast tracking their appraisal campaign for Maka Central on Block 58 offshore Suriname. Total also mentioned on their earnings call - Suriname was one of only a few projects they would be willing to FID in 2021...
In quick summary, it appears there may be some near term exploration / appraisal activity in close proximity to CGX's Northern Corentyne Area. Something for CGX shareholders to be on the lookout for...