Exxon doubles down on Payara project despite no approval

Nov 21, 2019 News

…as Senior VP confirms more drillships for deeper waters in 2020

By Gary Eleazar

The Guyana Government has placed on hold the Field Development Plan (FDP) submitted by ExxonMobil Guyana, to begin developing a third oil field in the Stabroek Block, but the company remains steadfast in its 2023 commitment for that field.

ExxonMobil representatives engage stakeholders at their GIPEX 2019 booth at the Marriott Hotel

Confirmation of this was established yesterday, at the opening ceremony for the 2019 Guyana International Petroleum Exhibition (GIPEX), currently underway at the Marriott Hotel, during the keynote address by ExxonMobil’s Senior Vice President, Upstream Oil and Gas Deep Water, Hunter Farris.
Without acknowledging that the FDP, and inherently, the formal investment decision for the plan has been held up by the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Farris told participants “we remain committed to bringing ‘Prosperity’ online as early as 2023”
In fact, the company, in addition to adding another drillship to its operations offshore Guyana, will be ramping up exploration and production activities into deeper waters, bringing on board even more vessels.
According to Farris, once the Liza Field had been discovered, ExxonMobil deployed its project machine to work, leveraging partners and relationships around the world, to develop the Liza-1 discovery. He said that the Floating, Production, Offloading and Storage (FPSO) vessel, Liza Destiny, is currently moored in the Stabroek Block, where it is being hooked up and commissioned.
First oil from that development, he said, “is targeted for the near future.”
Speaking to the second vessel, Liza Unity, the ExxonMobil Senior VP said this is currently under construction.
“We worked together with government ministries and agencies to secure authorization for the Liza-2 project, targeted for first oil in early 2022.”
Right now, he said “we are building, together with our contractors, its FPSO, which we are calling Unity.”
As it relates to the third proposed field development at Payara in the Stabroek Block, Farris told GIPEX participants that the FDP and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had been submitted. He did not divulge, however, that these have been placed on hold by the Department of Energy so that they can be properly vetted before any approvals are granted.
What he instead told participants is, “we are committed to working with the Government of Guyana to achieve a timely approval of the project and together with our co-venturers and contractors, we remain committed to bringing ‘Prosperity’ online as early as 2023.”
Speaking to the additional activities in the coming year, Farris informed the industry stakeholders, that in addition to a fourth drillship, which was added to the fleet this past month, “we have plans for a fifth drillship next year.”
According to the ExxonMobil Senior VP, “in 2020 we plan to expand our drilling to the first wells in the Canje and Kaieteur Blocks in even deeper waters of Guyana.”
It was pointed out that “taken together, this is an astonishing level of exploration success…”

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