ExxonMobil eager to fully explore Stabroek Block

ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) spent $55.5 billion on exploration costs last year, a sum far exceeding the $8.7 billion spent the year before.

The company’s Vice President and Business Services Manager Phillip Rietema told reporters that the company is keen on further exploration in the prolific Stabroek Block offshore Guyana even as it continues to expand oil production.

The $55.5 billion sum accounts for five dry wells. In the oil and gas industry, areas where hydrocarbons have not been discovered in commercial quantities are known as dry wells.

And exploration costs, Rietema said, account specifically for dry wells. If a commercially-viable discovery is made at a well, the cost of development is recorded elsewhere.

“… we want to fully explore the Stabroek Block and find all resources and then we have a rigorous process of testing to test the attractiveness of the opportunities,” Rietema told reporters during an engagement at ExxonMobil Guyana’s office in Kingston, Georgetown.

Aside from the exploration costs, the company’s revenue for the year went past $1 trillion ($1.1 trillion, to be exact) and its total operating expenditures have been pegged at $356.1 billion. It netted $614. 6 billion in profits.

Revenues refer to the amount of income the company generates while the operating expenditures, in simple terms, are the company’s expenses and responsibilities.