Govt. should allow third parties to verify oil companies’ drilling results

Govt. should allow third parties to verify oil companies’ drilling results – Petroleum Engineer

Jan 21, 2020 News

Guyana would do well to allow third parties to conduct their own analyses of oil and gas companies’ drilling results, says Petroleum Consultant and Engineer, Paul Nicholas Ramsaywack.

Petroleum Consultant & Engineer, Paul Nicholas Ramsaywack

This verification, he said, can be done using well logs. They contain detailed records of the finds made by companies like ExxonMobil, which currently boasts 15 successful commercial hydrocarbon discoveries in the Stabroek Block.
Thus far, logs for drilling done offshore Guyana are not publicly available. But the Consultant informed Kaieteur News that many American States have a very different modus operandi.
The engineer, who has worked over a decade with exploration and production operators across multiple onshore US basins, said that those States have some of the strictest regulations and requirements for public release. He advises Guyana to follow in America’s path.
In a previous publication, Kaieteur News reported that Ramsaywack suggested one year of public confidentiality between companies and the State to reward the operators for making a risky investment. That, he indicated, encourages others to drill.
The Consultant added that third parties would also be held to confidentiality agreements for that period.
Nevertheless, Ramsaywack said that most States eventually publish the information themselves after the period of confidentiality is over.
Even while that is being satisfied, third party companies hired by Government or conducting their own, private analyses, would be able to determine the veracity of oil companies’ reports to the State.
In Guyana’s case, independent analyses would allow the public to know the proportion of oil to gas in ExxonM

ExxonMobil operates the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, which contains most of Guyana’s discovered commercial hydrocarbon reserves

obil’s 15 discoveries. The public is currently in the dark about the proportion in most of the finds, which Exxon says amounts to over 6 billion oil-equivalent barrels.
Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, has said that the Government knows the gas content in Liza Phases One and Two. There have been 13 subsequent discoveries. Of those, Kaieteur News is aware that the 11th discovery by Exxon, in the Haimara, is a gas condensate reservoir.
Questions were posed to Exxon’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), late last year about the gas content in the discoveries, and the company’s Government and Public Affairs Advisor, Janelle Persaud, responded that it was still analysing its discoveries.
But Ramsaywack said that by now, ExxonMobil would know the proportion of oil to gas in their discoveries, because they have logs.