July-29-2020: HESS EARNINGS CALL NOTESHess:
- Our company is always looking to optimize the value of our portfolio, but one of the lowest cost highest return investments in the industry is our position in Guyana. We see a lot more running room there and it's actually something if we could get more of it, we'd like more of it. So no, we don't have any interest in selling down our Guyana assets. Nothing competes with it in the industry.
- At this time, Hess/Exxon (Stabroek venture partners) have had only several santonian penetrations. And then of course hearing the success Apache is having on the neighboring block in Suriname we obviously remain – are very excited about the potential of the Santonian. As I've mentioned previously, the Santonian is just an older river system that looks very similar on seismic to the Liza-type deltaic environment. Now obviously, it's early days. So we've got to get a lot more penetrations in the Santonian to understand it. And that will be the big – will be a big part of the exploration and appraisal program going forward in the next couple of years, but we remain very excited.
- Yellowtail and Redtail are really going to form the basis of another FPSO development. The partnership is looking at all the cadence of Phase 4 and Phase 5 development opportunities. Moving up Yellowtail and Redtail development in the queue is looking very promising (likely). And of course, it's got some higher value as compared to Hammerhead, because it's got a higher quality oil. So, the potential for Yellowtail and Redtail to jump the queue and being much earlier in the queue is certainly a lot higher given what we've seen in Yellowtail-2 and what we expect to see in Redtail as well.
- In terms of Payara FID (or other Guyana project FIDs) and associated government approval - the Court of Appeal in Guyana is expected to issue a ruling tomorrow, and we hope the ruling will provide further clarity on the election outcome. Ultimately, we expect the will of the Guyanese people will be expressed in this final results. I think, it's really important to know. The leadership of both major political parties has stated support for the Stabroek production sharing contract. And in terms of Payara and moving the development forward, the joint venture is ready to move forward as expeditiously as possible as soon as the government is ready to do so.