The billions of barrels of oil resources that have been found offshore Guyana could help fill gaps in supply in the coming years if US upstream producers continue to stick to capital discipline as a corporate strategy, which shows no sign of disappearing even at current high crude prices at or over $100/b, S&P Global Platts said in a report this week.
Just this week, US oil major ExxonMobil sanctioned the Yellowtail development offshore the South American country, which is the fourth and largest project to date on the Stabroek Block.
Yellowtail will use the One Guyana FPSO production vessel to develop an estimated resource of roughly 925 million barrels of oil. Six drill centers are projected with up to 26 production wells.
When it comes online in 2025, Yellowtail will add to Liza Phase 1, 2 and Payara, taking total production to more than 800,000 barrels of oil per day.
The four developments have oil breakeven prices ranging from $25/b to $35/b Brent, according to Hess, with Yellowtail specifically at $29/b.
So far, two Stabroek developments are producing. Liza Phase 1 came online in December 2019 and reached its its FPSO Liza Destiny’s peak production of 120,000 b/d exactly a year later, while work is underway to expand that to 140,000 b/d.
Liza Phase 2 came online in February and continues to ramp up to its FPSO Liza Unity’s peak production capacity of 220,000 b/d, which is expected to be achieved in third-quarter 2022.
