Oil production offshore Guyana is generating over US$1.5 billion a month, ExxonMobil Guyana Vice President, Philip Rietema said.
“Today, we’re producing over 600,000 barrels a day and oil produced is revenue produced, is revenue to be shared among the people of Guyana and our shareholder group. At current prices… the revenue generated is over US$1.5 billion a month currently,” Rietema said on a Sunday airing of the Guyana Energy Perspectives Podcast.
In a year, that would amount to US$18 billion.
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The Guyana government had projected that US$16.8 billion in oil exports will be generated in 2024, its budget showed. The government expects 202 lifts of a million barrels each to be exported. This amounts to approximately 552,000 barrels per day (b/d), an apparent underestimation, considering that output in the first five months averaged 619,000 b/d. This average could trend higher with optimization expected later this year. However, there is a planned upcoming two-week shutdown of the Liza projects to facilitate hook-up for the Gas-to-Energy project.
Of the projected exports in 2024, the majority will go to the Exxon-led Stabroek Block consortium as they recover their investments. Guyana expects US$2.08 billion in revenues from sales of its lifts of crude. The Exxon-led group is also expected to pay Guyana US$319.9 million in royalties.
Rietema reminded that three more projects (Yellowtail, Uaru and Whiptail) are set to start production in the next few years. “So, by the end of 2027, we expect to have production capacity of over 1.3 million barrels a day. With that will be increased revenue and if you look at production over a million barrels a day at current prices, that’s annual revenues north of US$30 billion which will be shared with the people of Guyana and our group,” Rietema said.
That would make just eight years from no production to a level that will generate so much revenue for Guyana, Rietema called it “transformative.” He reminded that ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Darren Woods, has said Guyana will go down as one of the most successful deepwater developments in history.
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“It took over 15 years before we had our first discovery, and from that time, we’ve really been driving significant value for Guyana,” Rietema said.
He lauded the Stabroek Block petroleum agreement, though some have criticized the fiscal terms as too generous. He said the contract is doing what it set out to do, which is to bring a foreign investor like Exxon to Guyana.
Rietema said, “We expect to be operating here in Guyana for decades, and so it’s very important that the contract terms stay stable during that period to enable all this investment.”
Exxon is the operator of the Stabroek Block with a 45% stake along with co-venturers Hess (30%) and CNOOC (25%).
