Westmount Energy Limited (LON:WTE) (OTCQB:WMELF), an investor in oil exploration assets in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, has increased its stake in JHI Associates to 7.2% following the purchase of 250,000 shares for US$400,000.
The main asset of Ontario-registered JHI is a 17.5% carried interest in the Canje Block, which covers over 4,800 square kilometres, offshore Guyana. It sits next to and in the same geologic basin as the Stabroek Block which has delivered eighteen substantial oil discoveries since 2015 for a total of nine billion oil-equivalent barrels.
JHI is carried for up to four wells and is funded for the drilling of additional wells.
Work will begin on Bulletwood-1, the first target of the Canje campaign, before the end of the year “or soon thereafter”, with additional wells to follow-on in the first half of 2021.
In a recent interview with Proactive, director Dermot Corcoran said: “Where the basin is today, this is not the typical junior resource story. Everything here in Guyana is going to happen in a very compressed timeframe for Westmount investors.
“Since the Liza discovery was made in 2015 there has been over 30,000 square kilometres of 3D seismic shot in the Guyana sector. The prospect inventory has been established, five drillships are in the basin and more are coming, and it is now basically about drilling outcomes.”
He pointed out that the inventory of drill targets, which are all Upper Cretaceous, are largely independent of each other.
“As an investor, you’re not reliant upon one exploration well,” he explained. “It is going to be a story where the wells are going to come rapid-fire over the next year, and, we will be reliant on the drill-bit results to be either heroes or zeros.
“But, we think we can benefit from the portfolio effect, the large number of wells coming in the basin and the track record in terms of success rate achieved by ExxonMobil in this prolific basin.”
