Financially challenged, Toronto-listed junior CGX Energy has hit oil in a wildcat being drilled offshore Guyana, one of the world’s exploration hotspots, but it is too soon to know if it has a commercial discovery on its hands.

ExxonMobil’s Stabroek block has a monopoly on viable oil discoveries in Guyana, with any wells drilled on adjacent acreage that find hydrocarbons being either too small to develop or housing poor quality oil.

However, CGX and Frontera Energy — a far bigger player whose shares also trade in Toronto — hope to change that dynamic with their challenging Wei-1 probe in the Corentyne block, just 10 to 20 kilometres or so from ExxonMobil discoveries in Guyana and TotalEnergies’ finds in Suriname.