ExxonMobil has announced that they have increased their estimate of discovered recoverable resources for the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, South America to over 4 billion oil-equivalent barrels, and have therefore decided to  advance their support of the project’s third phase of development. The previous recoverable resource estimate at Liza-5 was approximately 3.2 billion oil-equivalent barrels. The company is also considering two additional phases.

The estimate increase follows the completion of testing at the Liza-5 appraisal well, in addition to a discovery at Ranger and the incorporation of the eighth discovery, Longtail, into the Turbot area evaluation, among others.

“Outstanding resource quality across these opportunities combined with industry-leading project execution capabilities will provide great value to resource owners, partners and our shareholders,” announced Neil Chapman, Senior Vice President at Exxon Mobil Corporation.

“Continued success in Guyana and progress in other upstream growth projects in the U.S. Permian Basin, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and Brazil are giving us additional confidence in achieving our long-term earnings growth plans that we outlined in March,” he said.

Liza Phase 1 will use a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to produce 120,000 barrels of oil per day, starting by early 2020. The Liza Phase 1 development is approximately 190 kilometres offshore, in water depths of 1500 – 1900 metres.  Liza Phase 2 is expected to be producing by around mid-2022 and will use an FPSO vessel that was designed to produce up to 220,000 barrels of oil per day. It has been predicted that the FPSO facility will develop approximately 450 million barrels of oil from the Liza Field over its lifetime.

More information on this project’s development can be accessed here.