Exxon Mobil makes a discovery in Pinktail, off Guyana

Sept. 9 (Reuters) – U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Thursday it had made a discovery at Pinktail in the Stabroek block off Guyana, as it develops a major new oil and gas discovery. gas.

Exxon operates the 6.6 million acre Stabroek block as part of a consortium that includes Hess Corp (HES.N) and Chinese company CNOOC Ltd (0883.HK).

The company said the discovery would add to the previous estimate of recoverable resources of 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent, without specifying the size of reserves from its latest discovery.

The company also said floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) Liza Unity set sail from Singapore to Guyana in early September.

The FPSO will be used for Liza Phase 2 development and is expected to start production in early 2022, with a production capacity of around 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil.

The consortium began producing crude at Liza’s Phase 1 development in late 2019, and Hess chief executive John Hess said on Thursday the project was producing at its nominal capacity of 120,000 bpd.

He said the company expected the Stabroek block to produce at least 1 million bpd through six FPSOs by 2021.

The Payara project, the consortium’s third in the Stabroek block, is expected to start in 2024, Hess said at an investor conference hosted by Barclays.

Hess COO Greg Hill said he expects the Guyanese government to approve the consortium’s development plan for Yellowtail, its fourth project, by the end of this year.

Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi and Edmund Blair

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