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ExxonMobil gets back part of Stabroek Block it relinquished years ago – source reveals
Kaieteur News – While ExxonMobil, like all oil companies operating in Guyana, has the responsibility to relinquish sections of the oil blocks it owns, this oil major strategically positioned itself to regain an area it had to relinquish years ago, according to a source.
ExxonMobil has had the exploration rights to the behemoth Stabroek since 1999.
However, it could not have kept the entire block, due to the relinquishment clause it has committed to in the agreement with the Government of Guyana.
The provision provided that the company would have to relinquish parts of the block to the government, at intervals.
Relinquishment is provided for in the Petroleum (Exploration and Production), in which it states that if an area is relinquished, the licence ceases to have effect in relation to that area.
When Mid-Atlantic applied for an exploration licence in early 2013, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) knew that the area was relinquished by ExxonMobil.
By then, the area was available. So the regulator, having satisfied itself that the application met all the conditions required, was awarded the block.
Kaieteur News understands that ExxonMobil had conducted 2D seismic work, which extended to the area that is now the Canje block, prior to its relinquishment.
Hence, seismic data on that area reverted to the exclusive domain of GGMC when the area was relinquished.
That data serves to inform oil companies of the prospectivity of their licences.
Fast forward to February 2016, ExxonMobil made a deal with Mid-Atlantic and its partner JHI Associates to farm in to the Canje block, and become the operator. There is no publicly available information about how much was paid to the initial owners of the block.
Total SE also farmed in, in 2018. Information on the transaction is similarly scarce.
As a result of its ownership and operatorship of the Stabroek, Canje and Kaieteur blocks, ExxonMobil now has control of 11.8 million acres of Guyana’s offshore area.
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