 Despite diplomatic protests from Venezuela, the government of Guyana awarded the American oil corporation Exxon a license to drill for oil in the disputed maritime area in early 2015.In May the government of Guyana announced that Exxon had indeed found promising results in their first round of drilling on the so-called Stabroek Block, an area offshore the Guayana Esequiba territory with a size of .The company announced that further drillings would take place in the coming months to better evaluate the potential of the oil field.