Westwood has highlighted 13 wells planned for the remainder of 2022 as ‘key wells to watch’. These include a number of frontier play tests, for example Raia offshore Mozambique, and Pensacola, offshore UK; extensions of proven plays, including Zanderij offshore Suriname and Hoodoo, US Gulf of Mexico; and large prospects in proven plays, such as Wei, offshore Guyana.
Westwood
The Hoodoo prospect cited by Westwood is operated by BHP and is in East Breaks Blocks 699 and 700. At Sale 257 (11/17/2021), BHP was the sole bidder on 4 blocks just to the north of this prospect. The lease sale was vacated by a Federal judge in January. If the vacature of Sale 257 is not reversed, either by appeal or legislation, one or both of the following outcomes could easily occur:
- BHP loses the opportunity to potentially develop those blocks as part of or in conjunction with the Hoodoo project.
- Based on their knowledge of the BHP bids, which are public information, other companies could submit bids for these blocks in a future sale. BHP would have to defensively raise their bids or lose the blocks to another company.
Either outcome would be unfair to BHP and would discourage investment in OCS exploration and development.
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