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Operator delays exploration in controversial Kaieteur oil Block
Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil Guyana has decided to delay a planned second exploration well in the controversial Kaieteur Block offshore Guyana.
The announcement was had Monday by ExxonMobil’s partners in the Block, Westmount Energy, which noted that the oil majors are looking to take more time to nominate the prospect target for the second exploration well on the Kaieteur Block.
Westmount Energy, an indirect partner in the Block on Monday cited Ratio Petroleum, which owns a 25 percent stake in the offshore Block, as saying that the date for elective nomination of the prospect target has been extended by seven months to March 22, 2022.
The original Kaieteur second well prospect nomination date was reportedly August 22, 2021, with any drilling consequent to this decision to start within nine months of the nomination date.
ExxonMobil last year made a non-commercial oil discovery at the Tanager-1 well, in the Kaieteur Block, failing to replicate a string of successes made in the nearby Stabroek offshore Block, where it has so far found more than nine billion barrels of oil.
The Tanager-1 exploration well, drilled by the Stena Carron Drillship, was the deepest well drilled in the Guyana-Suriname Basin to date. It was spudded on August 11, 2020, eventually reaching a total depth of 7,633 metres.
Westmount said that the Kaieteur Block partners agreed to the decision to delay the nomination date, “to facilitate continuing analysis by the operator and integration of extensive multi-play drilling results and comprehensive data collection programmes into regional petroleum system models and the prospect nomination decision.”
Cataleya Energy Limited (CEL), the company that was first awarded the Kaieteur Block in 2015 by former President, Donald Ramotar, had sold one fifth of its 25 percent working interest in the offshore concession to Hess Corporation.
As a result of the transaction, Hess’ working interest has moved from 15 percent to 20 percent, while Cataleya is now left with 20 percent.
Meanwhile, the other partner on the Block, Ratio Guyana Limited, holds a 25 percent stake while ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), holds 35 percent, thereby making it the operator of the Block.
The sale between Hess and Cataleya was reported by Westmount Energy Limited, a UK investment firm that gives overseas firms opportunities to buy shares in the licenced operators of Guyana’s offshore Blocks. According to Westmount in its latest report, the increase in Hess’ working interest has occurred on the back of the Tanager-1 oil discovery, announced in November, 2020.
For several years, this newspaper was at the forefront of calls for there to be a thorough, independent investigation into the award of two Blocks, Kaieteur and Canje, since several industry stakeholders who examined the matter, concluded that they were awarded under suspicious circumstances.
With respect to the Kaieteur Block, this publication previously reported that it was awarded by Ramotar on April 28, 2015, just two weeks before the 2015 general and regional elections on the advice of former Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud. Two companies received the Block with 50-50 stakes, Ratio Energy Limited (now Cataleya Energy Limited) and Ratio Guyana Limited.
Ratio Energy was incorporated in Gibraltar on April 15, 2013, and registered in Guyana on October 23 later that year. Independent watchdog, Global Witness, said in its damning report ‘Signed Away’ (which was subsequently pulled by the organisation), that at the time of receipt of the Block, the company was owned by an Israeli-based lawyer named, Richard Roberts.
Ratio Energy’s name was then changed on August 3, 2017, after it received the Kaieteur Block. Its two directors are Canadian, Michael Cawood, and Guyanese, Ryan Perreira, who have experience in mining.
The other initial owner of the Kaieteur Block is Ratio Guyana, a subsidiary of the Israeli company, Ratio Petroleum.
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