Frontera, CGX Energy Eye Wei-1 Exploration Well Offshore Guyana

A joint venture (JV) comprised of Canada-based E&P companies, Frontera Energy Corp. and CGX Energy Inc., plan to spud an exploration well offshore Guyana located in close proximity to the prolific Stabroek block.

The well, called Wei-1, will be located approximately 14 km northwest of the Kawa-1 exploration well in the Corentyne block, 200 km offshore from Guyana’s capital city Georgetown, Calgary, Alberta-based Frontera announced June 16 in a press statement. Wei-1 is the second exploration well in the Corentyne block.

Frontera and its JV partner, CGX Energy, continue to eye potential offshore Guyana in the Corentyne block in hopes of replicating at least some of the success seen in the nearby Stabroek block with hopes of eventually moving a project to the development stage. Estimation of potentially recoverable reserves for the northern section of the Corentyne block is expected after the Wei-1 and potentially subsequent exploration and appraisal wells, Frontera and CGX executives announced during a webinar last month.

The Wei-1 well will be drilled in the third quarter in water depth of approximately 1,912 ft to a targeted total depth of 20,500 ft. The well “will target Maastrichtian, Campanian and Santonian aged stacked channels in a western channel complex in the northern section of the Corentyne block,” Frontera said on June 16.

Earlier this year, the JV encountered approximately 177 ft of hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs within Maastrichtian, Campanian and Santonian horizons from Kawa-1, the JV’s first well on the Corentyne block. The intervals are of similar age and can be correlated using regional seismic data to recent finds in Guyana’s prolific Stabroek block and in the adjacent Block 58 in Suriname, Frontera reported on Jan. 31.

Kawa-1 was drilled to a depth of 21,578 ft and located in the northern section of the Corentyne block. Results from Kawa-1 support the JV companies’ geological and geophysical models and have helped them de-risk equivalent targets in other parts of the Corentyne license area.

Demerara Relinquishment

Frontera and CGX continue to integrate data from the Kawa-1 well into preparations for Wei-1 and have formally decided to focus their attention on Corentyne and not the Demerara block. The decision regarding Demerara follows the significant find at Kawa-1.

“Frontera has, in principle, reached an agreement with the government to allow for the relinquishment of the Demerara block through a mutual termination agreement whose terms remain to be defined and documented,” Frontera said in the statement.

Guyana and Suriname share the offshore Guyana-Suriname Basin, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 2012 had F50 undiscovered, technically recoverable oil potential of 12 billion boe. F50 represents a 50% chance of at least the amount tabulated, according to the agency which estimated the basin’s F5 potential at 26 billion. 

To date, Exxon Mobil Corp. and partners Hess Corp. and CNOOC Ltd. estimate the Stabroek block contains gross discovered recoverable resources of approximately 11 billion boe.