Who will be held accountable for the wasted money on Brazil. Technical ladder told management ladder not to do it and what did they do? Overpaid for the leases big time and then drilled dry holes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-quits-drilling-in-brazil-after-failing-to-find-oil-3d43c8dc
Executives put a lot of effort into crushing all enthusiasm for Guyana when that first well was planned and drilled.
The stated Senior Management objective to the team was “Drill the cheapest dry hole possible”.
The Executive that had gone to Dallas and requested EM sell all of Guyana leases was pushing all plans for Guyana to drill a dry hole and forbid any planning around testing that exploration well or designing the well to be a producer.
It was laughable when EM Executives started taking credit for the huge discovery and made statements about how their expertise had led to success.
@1sij+1lZKr63p Clearly you weren’t as I was there and this is exactly what went down.
Not sure about Brazil but calling bullsh-t on the technical story for Guyana. I was there and no one was pushing hard for Guyana.
We all know the real problem is not bonehead mistakes by executives it is all the money we were spending providing cups and offices for engineers! Neighborhoods will save us! Don’t forget your cup!
Knowing that we farmed it out for pennies really burns me up. Such a lost opportunity.
And to make the Brazil story worse we overpaid the second place bid by a huge amount. The second place bid was significantly less than our #winning bid.
@buu+1lZKr63p is 100% correct on what happened. Unsurprisingly those involved collected their bonuses and continued to be promoted.
Wasn’t @XOM leaving not to long ago and then a quick turn around back?
@buu don't forget that the single well we planned to drill in Guyana was deferred because of weather - so we drilled the alternate site where they found the gusher - when they came back and drilled the original target it was dry as a bone.
if not for that storm, we would've relinquished the entire block with nothing to show for it...
Backstory is that senior executives disregarded technical experts in both cases.
In Guyana technical folks told executives that it was best thing ever and the senior Exec in Spring went to Dallas and recommended selling all of Guyana interests without drilling. Dallas only allowed selling half and required drilling at least one well before selling all interest. That well was amazing and started the whole Oil rush for Guyana.
In Brazil the technical folks said likely nothing in our lease and Senior Exec went to Dallas requesting full effort to explore and develop. Hundreds of millions if not billions wasted.
No accountability.
Anyone have the backstory on what is being referred to for Brazil and Guyana?
Funny how the technical team had to push hard for Guyana after management wanted to ki-l it vs management overpaying and overselling Brazil. Some heads need to roll.