Canadian oil company CGX and its majority shareholder Frontera have struck oil at an exploration well off the coast of Guyana, adding to the growing tally of major oil discoveries in this frontier region.
The partners announced a successful find at the Wei-1 well in the Corentyne block, located about 100 nm off the coast of Georgetown, Guyana. The drill rig Noble Discoverer encountered more than 200 feet of oil-bearing sands dating to the Santonian, a geologic period spanning 83-86 million years ago. The rig recovered core samples and wireline logs, but because of a tool failure downhole, they were not able to obtain oil samples from this promising oil well. A third-party lab will analyze the materials recovered in order to evaluate the find and determine net pay.
CGX and Frontera previously announced discoveries in two younger strata from the late Cretaceous, which added up to 77 feet of net pay. One contains light crude and the other contains sweet medium crude.
The find adds to the discovery of promising channel complexes at the nearby Kawa-1 well in the northern Corentyne block, as well as a prospective central channel complex which has not yet been evaluated. The partners plan to integrate all of their data to create an updated view of the block's potential.
With the drilling campaign completed, the partners will release the Noble Discoverer in early July.
Guyana is a major emerging player in offshore oil, and it is leasing E&P blocks to multiple foreign firms like Exxon and CGX in order to exploit its resources as fast as it can. After reports that Guyana had been approached by OPEC and invited to join the cartel, Guyanese VP Bharrat Jagdeo told the Wall Street Journal that his country is not interested in OPEC-style production limits. "The idea is to get as much of these resources out of the ground as quickly as possible given that we are not sure of the window we have in the future," he said.
