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Houston Geological Society Bulletin

Abstract


The Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Vol. 63 (2020), No. 3. (November), Page 11

Abstract: R.E. Sheriff Lecture: Hess’s Journey into an Emerging Superbasin and Ultra-High Impact Previous HitExplorationNext Hit for an Independent E&P Company

Timothy Chisholm1

Hess’s entry into the Guyana-Suriname Basin is the highest impact Previous HitexplorationNext Hit access in the company’s history. The story is about technical capacity, innovation and risk, with a bit of luck thrown in as well. It is a story that is grounded on those brilliant minds that came before us, a complete shift in Previous HitexplorationNext Hit strategy and a result that has entirely reshaped a mid-sized independent E&P company. In 2014 Hess Corp, after a multi-year hiatus in Previous HitexplorationNext Hit activity, reset the company’s Previous HitexplorationNext Hit strategy to focus on the Atlantic Margins. Additionally, the evolution of decades of subsurface knowledge in the Guyana-Suriname Basin was followed by the Stabroek license coming out of Force Majeure, and then evaluation of current 2D and 3D data sets, followed by ExxonMobil and their partner opening a data room. Hess’s shift in strategy and farming into the block turned out to be the classic story of right place, right time. The joint venture is made up of ExxonMobil operating at 45%, Hess at 30%, and CNOOC at 25% working interest. Previous HitExplorationNext Hit in Stabroek has followed a discovery trajectory of finding >8 BBOE recoverable in less than 5 years since first discovery at Liza-1 in 2015. Hess secured an early, low cost acreage position across Guyana and Suriname totaling nearly 60,000 km2 or ∼1,500 GoM OCS blocks across the heart of the basin. The joint venture in Stabroek has worked continually to optimize rapid appraisal and repeatable development concepts to maximize value for all the benefiting stakeholders – with, of course, the people of Guyana being the largest interest holder! Uniquely, the development is also occurring at a time when costs are near the bottom of the market. The value therefore unlocked by this opportunity is both company changing and Country changing. It will put Guyana at the very highest production per capita in the world with a plan to produce over 750 kbopd by 2026 and much more future potential to come. This opportunity has allowed Hess to move from 4th to 1st Quartile in Previous HitexplorationNext Hit performance since 2014 and is delivering a leading position amongst our peers in total shareholder returns.

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Timothy Chisholm joined Hess in 2014 as VP Previous HitExplorationNext Hit and is currently responsible for leading a non-operated and integrated organization across the business spectrum of Previous HitexplorationNext Hit, appraisal, and developments in the emerging Guyana-Suriname Basin. The joint venture with ExxonMobil and Nexen/CNOOC plans to go from zero to over 750 kbopd production by 2025 in the Stabroek license. Tim is also a member of Hess’s Previous HitExplorationNext Hit Council that acts as the decision review board for all aspects of global Previous HitexplorationNext Hit and appraisal.

Prior to joining Hess in 2014, Chisholm was the Director of Previous HitExplorationNext Hit and New Ventures – Americas at Apache Corp. and prior to that was Regional Previous HitExplorationNext Hit Manager for Apache Egypt.

He began his career at Exxon in various technical roles, including Previous HitExplorationNext Hit Geophysicist and Expert Structural Geologist working the Gulf of Mexico and International New Ventures. He also spent more than a decade working for Shell in various Previous HitexplorationNext Hit roles in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, Northwest Borneo in Malaysia, and the Nile Delta in Egypt where his teams contributed to major oil discoveries at Gumusut, Vito, and Appomattox.

Dr. Chisholm holds a bachelor’s degree in Geology with Distinction from Colorado State University and a master’s degree in Previous HitGeophysicsTop with Honors from the University of Utah. His master’s thesis in 1990 on inferring climate change from borehole temperature profiles led to multiple NSF grants and research that is ongoing to this day. Between degrees Tim did an internship in environmental geology with Hydrofluent in Los Angeles, CA.

Acknowledgments and Associated Footnotes

1 Timothy Chisholm: Hess

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