Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat recently announced that Bayphase, an international oil and gas consultancy firm, is reviewing ExxonMobil’s Field Development Plan (FDP) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for its sixth Stabroek block development.
Bharrat said that the “Whiptail development… will be the sixth development with our sixth FPSO [floating production storage and offloading vessel], Jaguar…”
The Jaguar is featured on Guyana’s coat of arms and is the country’s national animal.
Dutch floater specialist, SBM Offshore has been awarded contracts to perform front end engineering and design (FEED) for the FPSO.
Bayphase worked on the review for Exxon’s last approved project, Uaru, and is now retained for the Whiptail project due to familiarity.
Bharrat has explained that the ministry has been working with ExxonMobil’s technical teams, even before the FDP was submitted. “Our technical team meets on a weekly basis with the operator technical team. So, if there are issues to be resolved along the way, we work it through before the final FDP is submitted to us.”
Bayphase’s six-month contract extends beyond the production license to encompass negotiations and other related processes. Bharrat said, “We however don’t want to say to Bayphase that you must finish this [review] in a period of time because that can compromise the integrity of the license.”
The Whiptail development is expected to demonstrate production levels of 250,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd). The FPSO, to be delivered by SBM Offshore, would take Guyana’s total offshore production to over 1.3 million bpd by 2027. Being the last of six projects planned to come online in the Stabroek block by 2027, it has an estimated cost of US$12.933 billion.
