ExxonMobil Guyana President, Alistair Routledge said during an April 30 press conference that the company’s reserves estimate for the Stabroek Block has not changed much beyond the 11 billion barrels stated in 2022.
The company made 10 more discoveries after announcing the update to 11 billion two years ago, prompting discourse about why an update is taking so long.
One opposition official believes as much as 30 billion barrels may have been discovered in the Stabroek Block.
Routledge said “Everybody’s asking about the 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels. That number we continue to refine but with the more discoveries we’ve had, we get some ups and downs, we’re doing testing. We’re relooking at all the modeling, fluids that we take by way of sample. It’s a hugely complex ongoing exercise. We provide quarterly updates to the government.”
Pressed for more details on the discoveries, Routledge said that as the company analyzes its discoveries and revisits models, sometimes “those numbers actually come down.”
He also said there may be a larger estimate, representing the estimated resource in place but that it is not all technically recoverable.
“Our greater focus now is on, how do we move resource to reserves, because that’s what generates revenue for the country,” Routledge stated.
Of the 11 billion barrels, 4.8 billion barrels have been committed under six sanctioned projects, he revealed. These include Liza 1, Liza 2, Payara, Yellowtail, Uaru and Whiptail. The projects are expected to cumulatively produce 1.3 million barrels per day (b/d) by 2027, with potential for close to 1.5 million b/d with optimization.
Exxon is also contemplating a seventh offshore development.
