This presentation looks at the recent exploration history and geology of the deepwater Guyana Basin, offshore Guyana and Suriname and its conjugate basin across the Atlantic in west Africa. We begin with an overview of the exploration histories of the Exxon Guyana Liza and Apache Suriname Kwaskwasi areas (now at well over 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in over 20 discoveries in Guyana, and five in Suriname). Included is a brief geologic evolution and exploration history of the Atlantic margin focusing on the plate tectonic events, sequence stratigraphy, and resulting depositional processes that created the source, reservoir, and seals in this area. The talk concludes by looking at and exploration approach that examines the key risks of the Guyana Basin plays.

BIOGRAPHY: John Dribus is a Global Reservoir Geologist and Advisor who retired from Schlumberger in 2018, and established Dribus Geologic Consulting, LLC. He has over 40 years of experience as a sedimentologist and exploration geologist, and specializes in deepwater depositional systems, below-salt plays, petroleum systems analysis, deepwater geologic hazards, and geologic training and development. His current areas of focus include the Gulf of Mexico, Guyana and Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. He initiated his career as a uranium field geologist in the American West. After five years, he worked in the Gulf of Mexico for 18 years for Mobil Oil Corporation, and then the next 18 years as a Global Geologist for Schlumberger. He received the Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award from the Society of Petroleum Engineers in 2013. In 2017, he was recognized by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) as a Heritage Geologist, and received the 2017 Best Technical Paper of the Year Award for the New Orleans Geological Society. In 2019, he received the A. I. Levorsen Memorial Award at the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Convention.