HOUSTON, TEXAS – ExxonMobil’s Senior Director of International Government Relations, Craig Kelly, said Guyana’s rapid oil development is positioning the country as a gateway for investment across northern Brazil and the southern Caribbean.
Speaking on Day Two of the Offshore Technology Conference’s Around The World Panel Series in Houston, Texas, Kelly urged investors to look beyond Guyana’s population size and focus on the country’s geographic position and expanding infrastructure network.
“Look at it as an anchor for investment in an entire sub region of northern Brazil and the southern Caribbean,” Kelly said.
He said road upgrades linking Guyana and Brazil, along with plans for a future deepwater port, could create faster export routes for agricultural products coming from northern Brazil.
Kelly pointed to production in Brazil’s Roraima state, which currently depends on longer shipping routes through the Amazon basin.
“If they can go straight through on the road that Guyana is now upgrading from Lethem to Brazil to an eventual deep water port, this is a transformational change in the region,” he said.
Guyana has become one of the world’s fastest-growing oil producers since ExxonMobil’s 2015 Liza discovery in the Stabroek Block. ExxonMobil and its partners Hess and CNOOC started production offshore Guyana in December 2019. Four floating production, storage and offloading vessels are currently producing oil at more than 900,000 barrels per day (b/d) offshore Guyana, with production capacity projected to reach approximately 1.7 million b/d by the end of the decade.
Guyana plans an additional gas-fired power plant in Berbice︱OilNOW
Kelly said the country’s development is expected to support wider industrial growth through lower energy costs and future gas projects.
“Once we proceed to our eighth project, which is known as Longtail, we will not only be sending more gas to the Wales area, but also eventually bringing gas to shore in the Berbice area, where the government has a vision of several different onshore possibilities, whether it’s fertilizer, alumina, power, data centers and so forth,” Kelly said.
ExxonMobil is also expanding its offshore position elsewhere in the region. In Trinidad and Tobago, the company has acquired deepwater acreage and is pursuing exploration opportunities as it builds out its portfolio in the southeastern Caribbean basin.
