Liberia’s hope of being an oil producing nation has been renewed with the announcement of plans to commence drilling by the Texas headquartered Exxon Mobil.

The company said on October 19 it would start drilling its first exploratory well off the coast of Liberia in November, report said.

“ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Liberia Limited, an affiliate of ExxonMobil, plans to drill a deepwater exploration well on the Liberia-13 Block, located about 50 miles offshore Liberia, beginning in November 2016,” a spokeswoman of the company was quoted saying.

The world’s largest publicly-traded oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp shares the Block LB-13 situated offshore Liberia With a junior partner, the Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL).

Cautious

The oil block, which was first acquired in 2013 has long been tipped as the first to fulfill Liberia’s dream of being an oil producing nation, a promise that has been dashed severally by a mixture of disappointing exploration results and allegations of mismanagement of the country’s petroleum sector.

Exxon is one of eight exploration companies Liberia has issued licenses to since 2010.

The others include Chevron, Anadarko Petroleum, Kosmos, and the Nigerian owned company Oranto, all of whom have remained laid back for various reasons.

Despite Wednesday’s announcement, however, Exxon Mobile was cautious about the prospect of the block.

It said it was “too soon to tell if any finds will be oil or gas.”

Expectations were based on similar finds off neighbouring Ivory Coast and Ghana to the east.