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Hess slaps Guyana with US$34M bill for oil hunt and dry wells
(Kaieteur News) – In 2025, Guyana received a bill of US$34M for exploration activities in the Stabroek Block by one of the three partners, Hess Guyana Exploration Limited.
According to the company’s financial statement for last year, its exploration expense was GYD 21.4M. This was not the only bill it handed the country for its ongoing search for more oil in Stabroek, as the company also charged Guyana for its unsuccessful wells that were drilled. Hess said its “exploratory dry hole” expense for 2025 was GY 12.4M.
Hess holds 30% interest in the Stabroek Block while the Chinese oil company, CNOOC has 25% and ExxonMobil 45% as the operator of the block.
CNOOC and Hess also added exploration and dry hole expenses to the cost bank but have not yet filed their financial statements.
One of the drillships that operate in Guyana’s Stabroek Block, Noble Sam Croft.
In accordance with the terms of the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that governs the prolific acreage controlled by these companies, all costs related to exploration activities can be recovered. This means that Guyana forks out millions to pay the companies to explore, even if they find no oil.
This has often been the subject of debate as stakeholders hold the firm view that there is generally a cost of business and by footing all exploratory bills, Guyana takes on the risk while the companies milk the country’s profits.
The oil deal is designed to allow the companies to recover all petroleum-related expenses upfront, before Guyana can benefit from an equal split of the revenue generated. Up to 75% of revenue each month is allocated to the companies for cost recovery, while the remaining 25% is split equally with Guyana as profits.
Notably, oil-producing states around the world, including neighbouring Suriname have blocked oil companies from recovering costs spent to hunt for oil. Before production activities commenced, Exxon claimed US$1.6B for exploration activity in the Stabroek Block during the period 1999 to 2017.
Despite the ongoing exploration activities in the block, ExxonMobil, the operator has not announced any new discoveries since March 2024. The company’s latest publicly announced oil discovery offshore Guyana was at Bluefin in the Stabroek Block.
In November 2025, Kaieteur News reported that although no new discoveries were announced for the year, the Mid-Year Report published by the Ministry of Finance made a bombshell disclosure, a whopping three oil discoveries reportedly made by the contractor for 2025.
ExxonMobil later clarified in a statement that the discoveries cited in the report by the GoG were deemed “non-commercial” hence they were not publicly announced.
In April 2022, Exxon said the reserves in the Stabroek Block totaled 11 billion barrels. After mounting public pressure, two years and eight discoveries after the last resource update, government said this grew to 11.6B. Notably, although Exxon supplies government with data, the company said its estimate of the resources was lower than 11B barrels.
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