LONDON –Tullow Oil has made its first discovery in its Orinduik license offshore Guyana, exceeding pre-drill forecasts and paving the way for more exploration wells in the near future.

Paul McDade, Tullow Oil Chief Executive Officer, said “This substantial and high value oil discovery in Guyana is an outcome of the significant technical and commercial focus which has underpinned the reset of our exploration portfolio. It is an excellent start to our drilling campaign in the highly prolific Guyana oil province. We look forward to drilling both the Joe and Carapa prospects in our 2019 drilling campaign and the material follow-up exploration potential in both the Orinduik and Kanuku licenses.”

The Jethro-1 exploration well was drilled by the Stena Forth drillship to a Total Depth of 4,400m meters in approximately 1,350 meters of water. Evaluation of logging data confirms that Jethro-1 is the first discovery on the Orinduik license and comprises high quality oil bearing sandstone reservoirs of Lower Tertiary age. The well encountered 55m of net oil pay which supports a recoverable oil resource estimate which exceeds Tullow’s pre-drill forecast. Tullow will now evaluate the data from the Jethro discovery and determine appropriate appraisal activity.

This discovery significantly de-risks other Tertiary age prospects on the Orinduik license, including the shallower Upper Tertiary Joe prospect which will commence drilling later this month following the conclusion of operations at the Jethro-1 well. The non-operated Carapa 1 well will be drilled, later this year, on the adjacent Kanuku license to test the Cretaceous oil play.

Tullow Guyana B.V. is the operator of the Orinduik block with a 60% stake. Total E&P Guyana B.V. holds 25% with the remaining 15% being held by Eco(Atlantic) Guyana Inc.