US independent Hess has made an oil discovery in the US Gulf of Mexico's Green Canyon area which hosts the company's Stampede offshore production platform, and sees additional prospectivity in the northern area.

The company said it had completed drilling operations on the Huron prospect on Green Canyon Block 69 with encouraging results.

“The well hit high quality, oil-bearing Miocene-aged reservoirs and established the existence of a working petroleum system. Well results are still being evaluated and an appraisal sidetrack is planned.”

Gregory Hill, Hess' chief operating officer, said the company was "really encouraged by the results that we discovered good, high-quality oil in good quality Miocene sands. And we're also planning an appraisal sidetrack up dip on that well".

"I think the second thing that's really exciting about it is a result - as a result of what we're seeing at Huron we see additional prospectivity in that Northern Green Canyon area, and we have a very competitive leasehold position there."

Further drilling and appraisal wells in the area will follow.

Hess is the operator with a 40% interest and Chevron and Shell each has 30%. The Green Canyon area hosts Hess’ Stampede tension-leg platform.

The company also reported a positive drilling result at the Llano-6 well on the Shell-operated Llano field.

Llano-6 logged 123 feet of high-quality Miocene pay and is a tie-back opportunity that will be brought on stream in August.

Hess said it has “a robust inventory of both infrastructure-led tie-back opportunities and exploration prospects” in the US Gulf.

The company said that for the full year of 2022 its forecast net production from the US Gulf is 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Updated to include comments by Hess' chief operating officer Gregory Hill.

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