Guyana is currently the world’s third largest per capita oil producer, according to scientific publication Our World in Data (OWID).
The country’s rapid ascent to this position comes just five years after ExxonMobil started crude oil production in December 2019. The company heads a group, including Hess and CNOOC, that is responsible for all crude oil extraction in the country.
OWID measured countries’ production based on a standard of kilowatt-hours (kWh). Its numbers considered not only crude output, but other production like shale oil, oil sands, condensates, and natural gas liquids (NGL). The ranking is based on the countries’ 2023 data, sourced from Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, The Shift Data Portal, and others.
Guyana’s 278,363 kWh trails only Kuwait (377,134 kWh) and Qatar (317,308 kWh). Guyana’s 2023 crude oil production of 391,000 barrels per day (b/d) expanded more than 50% to 608,000 b/d in 2024, based on government data from January to October.
With this increase, Guyana likely has already surpassed the 2023 per capita energy production of Kuwait and Qatar. Arthur Deakin, former Energy Director of Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) had said Guyana will be the world’s largest per capita oil producer in 2025. But when Deakin made his projection in 2021, ExxonMobil had not yet fully executed optimization measures that boosted extraction by about 100,000 b/d. Now, instead of a target of 810,000 b/d (as Exxon’s projects’ designs suggest), oil extraction capacity in 2025 is expected to increase to about 900,000 b/d.
Exxon is also expected to start piping gas to shore in 2025. The Guyana government expects this to provide about 4,000 b/d of NGLs.
These advancements mean that, based on OWID’s parameters, Guyana could be the world’s largest per capita producer in 2025 by a long shot. The country’s small population of less than a million people lets it move up per capita rankings quickly.
ExxonMobil expects to further increase production to more than 1.2 million b/d by 2027.
While Guyana’s oil windfall is underway, it will take time for the growth to register in the society and transform ordinary people’s lives. The country still grapples with substandard utilities, inefficient public service, and underdeveloped (but rapidly improving) public infrastructure. Government is using the revenue from oil to invest in improving the quality of healthcare, education, energy and other critical contributors to quality of life. The newfound wealth is also being used to build climate mitigation and adaptation infrastructure.
