ExxonMobil Guyana has assigned two drillships to development drilling at separate sites in the Stabroek Block, according to notices from Guyana's Maritime Administration. The vessels are the Stena Carron and the Noble Don Taylor. One is tied to Liza Phase 2 and the other to Whiptail.

The Stena Carron is operating at the LIZ_4i10 drill center, part of the Liza Phase 2 project. The notice gives 6 October as the start of its work and 31 October as the scheduled completion date. The drillship is therefore into the first days of a programme expected to last just under four weeks. The notices do not say how many wells will be drilled, what type of well is planned, or whether the work is intended to maintain or increase output at the field.

The Noble Don Taylor drilled at the WT_4i02 drill center, which belongs to the Whiptail project. Its development drilling began on 30 September and ended on 1 October, a window of about two days. That work has already finished. The notice does not explain why the programme was so brief, nor does it say whether the vessel will return to the site or move to another location in the block.

The Whiptail project is a newer development than Liza Phase 2. Drilling at its sites forms part of the continuing build-up of the project, though the notice itself provides no detail on the stage the development has reached or on its production status.

Notices of this kind are issued by the Maritime Administration to inform other vessels using the waters around offshore operations. Drillships and their support craft work within defined areas, and mariners are expected to keep clear of them. The notices record the vessel, the location and the dates, and they do not carry operational or financial detail. For that reason, much of what readers might want to know about the drilling is absent from the source material.

The Stabroek Block lies off the coast of Guyana and is the country's main source of crude oil. ExxonMobil operates it on behalf of a group of partners. Crude from the block has been a major driver of Guyana's recent economic growth, and other developments there are at various stages of progress. Liza Phase 2 and Whiptail are two of them. The figures for the block's output and the number of wells drilled to date are not given in the notices and have not been included here.

The two assignments show the operator running more than one drilling programme at once. They also show that the work is carried out in short, defined periods, with each vessel assigned to a particular drill center and a stated timetable. The Stena Carron's schedule runs to the end of this month, while the Noble Don Taylor's has already ended.

ExxonMobil has not been quoted in the material available, and no comment from the company or from the Maritime Administration was provided beyond the notices. The dates given are those published by the Maritime Administration and could change if operational conditions require. Operators sometimes extend or shorten programmes, and the notices would normally be updated or replaced if that happened.

Further information on the scope of the drilling, including the number of wells and their expected contribution to production, would need to come from ExxonMobil Guyana or from the Ministry of Natural Resources. Neither had published such detail in the material supplied. Readers should treat the account above as a summary of two navigation notices rather than a full report on the state of drilling in the Stabroek Block.

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