ExxonMobil drilling Banjo-1 Well in search of more oil

Jun 23, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – United States oil major, ExxonMobil through its subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) has commenced exploration activities at another site in the Stabroek Block, in search of more sweet crude.

The Noble Sam Croft drillship

On Monday, EEPGL started drilling activities at the Banjo-1 Well site, using the MODU Noble Sam Croft. The drilling activities are expected to wrap up by August 15, 2022. The oil company in a notice published in Kaieteur News said 25 vessels would provide support services for the operations.
The well site is situated approximately 93.4 nautical miles or 173 kilometeres from the Coast of Guyana and covers an area of 0.29 square nautical miles.
Already, ExxonMobil has discovered close to 11 billion barrels of oil within the Stabroek Block. According to the schedule of exploration activities for the oil giant operating in the Stabroek Block, the company is currently engaged in an aggressive 25 well exploration campaign that begun back in June of last year.
That drilling campaign is expected to last until the end of 2025.
This is in addition to a separate 12 well campaign that had begun back in December 2020 in the Stabroek Block and ended earlier in 2021.
Outside of the loaded Stabroek Block, Exxon is also engaging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to commence two separate 12 well drilling campaigns in the Canje and Kaieteur oil blocks. In fact, the Environmental Assessment Board (EAB) will host a public hearing today (Thursday), where members of the public who raised concerns over the waiver on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the drilling activities will be heard.
For the Canje Block, Exxon is hoping to commence its drilling campaign in the fourth quarter of this year and wrap up in the first quarter of 2025. Hundreds of tons of waste will be generated on a monthly basis as Exxon’s subsidiary EEPGL, embarks on this project. The Canje Block is located offshore, in deepwater of Guyana, southeast of the Kaieteur Block, and north-northeast of the Stabroek Block.
Meanwhile for the Kaieteur Block, this exercise, once approved, would start in 2022 or 2023 and conclude by the first quarter 2027.
Kaieteur News understands that the project will generate hazardous and non-hazardous wastes. The Kaieteur Block, which spans 13,500 km2, holds a gross, estimated prospective resource of over 2.1 billion barrels of crude.