Guyana’s Ministry of Finance in a report on February 17 stated that petroleum production for December 2019 amounted to 427,282 barrels or 35,607 barrels per day and that there were no operational losses for the period.
The Report on Petroleum Production and Revenues – December 2019, published by the Ministry of Finance, February 2019 gives a breakdown of the production numbers from December 20 to 31, 2019 and details of sales and entitlement for the volumes produced.
The report said that before the commencement of production on December 20, 2019 there was an onboard inventory of 21,592 barrels of Marine Gas Oil (MGO) and Intermediate Fuel Oil (IFO).
“This was the remaining fuel that was loaded to power the FPSO facility for the journey from Singapore and for the commissioning of subsea risers and flowlines,” the report said.
It said that of the 427,282 barrels produced, a total of 3,202 barrels were used for facility fill, which includes the oil that remains in the various piping before the cargo tanks.
“It is estimated that an additional 1,020 barrels will remain in the hose and piping between cargo tanks and the offloading hose point at the completion of the first lift. A further 282,000 barrels of oil produced in December 2019 was used for ballast in the cargo tanks. These operational volumes will remain on the FPSO facility and in the piping until production from Liza Destiny has ceased. There were no operational losses reported for this period,” the report said.
Reporting on Sales and Entitlement, the report said that during December 2019, no oil was lifted from Liza Destiny since the volume available for lifting, i.e. 163,673 barrels, was less than the standard cargo size of 1,000,000 barrels.
“Of the 163,673 barrels that were available to be lifted in December 2019, government’s entitlement was half of the production net of losses and operations (PALO) in that month plus the onboard inventory, which amounts to 92,633 barrels i.e. 1/2*(142,081) + 21,592,” the report said.
The report said it should be noted that since government has elected to receive its 2 percent royalty in cash, “this amount will be paid from the Contractor’s share of profit oil. As per Article 15.6 of the Petroleum Agreement for the Stabroek Block, the royalty cash payment for a calendar quarter will be made to government 30 days after the end of that quarter.”
It said too that since no petroleum was lifted in December 2019, government earned no petroleum revenues for this month; there were no deposits made to the Natural Resources Fund (NRF).
The first lift of Guyana’s crude, allocated to ExxonMobil, occurred on January 20, 2020. There has been a second ExxonMobil lift since then and a third lift, allocated to Guyana, taking place this week. Each lift amounts to 1 million barrels of oil.
ExxonMobil has indicated that it will take a few months for the daily production rate to reach the full capacity of 120,000 barrels per day.
