Four mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs), made up of drillships owned by Noble Corporation and Stena Drilling, have buckled down and resumed hydrocarbon exploration at the Stabroek block off the coast of Guyana, enabling ExxonMobil Guyana, a subsidiary of America’s oil major ExxonMobil, to stay the course and continue searching for more oil and natural gas resources on South America’s North Atlantic coast, Offshore Energy reported.
ExxonMobil Guyana (45%) and its Stabroek block co-venturers, Hess (30%) and CNOOC (25%), have committed nearly $55 billion to develop six sanctioned offshore projects on Guyana’s Stabroek block. Once all six projects are up and running, production capacity is expected to surpass 1.3 million barrels of oil per day.
Wheels are also in motion to secure the go-ahead for the development of Hammerhead as the seventh deepwater oil project in Guyana, adding between 120,000 and 180,000 barrels per day by 2029 to raise the country’s overall production capacity bar to nearly 1.5 million bpd. Since Guyana became an oil-producing nation five years ago, ExxonMobil has drilled many wells.
On January 12, 2025, the U.S. giant restarted developmental drilling operations with the 2013-built Noble Bob Douglas drillship at the YT_3P05 well site within the Stabroek block of Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), based on the insights provided by the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD).
These drilling activities are slated to conclude on February 28, 2025, and will incorporate the support from multi-purpose subsea vessels designed for well intervention, subsea construction and equipment installation, alongside IRM and ROV services, such as Havila’s Havila Phoenix, C-Innovation’s C-Installer, and DOF’s Skandi Nomad.
Other ships assisting ExxonMobil in Guyana are Gary Rook, Russell Bouziga, Horn Island, Russell Adams, Aldemir Souza Tide, Emily Day Mc Call, Skandi Skansen, Ted Smith, C-Confidence, Breaux Tide, Paradise Island, Clarence Triche, Wine Island, Seacor Amazon, Bucha Sphit McCall, and Guyana Hero.
The well site is situated approximately 112.6 nautical miles, or 208.5 kilometers, off the coast of Guyana and covers an area of 0.29 square nautical miles, or 1 square kilometer. On the other hand, the Stena Drillmax MODU, which continued demobilization about 105.6 nautical miles, or 195.571 kilometers, offshore Guyana, was expected to depart Guyana’s EEZ on January 15, 2025.