South American neighbours Guyana and Suriname are emerging as key regional players in the oil and gas industry with growing discoveries off their coasts and multiple projects on the horizon. Three are already in production on the Guyana side of the basin.
ExxonMobil is the operator of the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana where over 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources have been found since 2015. Oil production currently exceeds 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) across the Liza 1, 2 and Payara developments and is set to cross the one million bpd mark by 2027 as more projects are added.
Over in Suriname, TotalEnergies recently announced its final investment decision for the Block 58 Gran Morgu oil development. The US$10.5 billion project is targeting the production of 750 million barrels of crude oil and will be Suriname’s first offshore development. Analysts at Rystad Energy and Wood Mackenzie have said two additional projects can potentially follow.
Block 58 FID confirms Guyana-Suriname basin’s status as top exploration zone – Rystad Energy
The discoveries in the basin, many of which are in close proximity to the Guyana-Suriname maritime boundary, have given rise to the prospect of cross-border collaboration and sharing of infrastructure.
According to Guyana’s Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, government officials from the two countries have already met and had discussions about the resources in the basin, particularly gas fields.
“So, they shared the information with an estimate as to how much gas they believe each field would have,” Jagdeo told reporters on Thursday. “We explained to them the process through which we are now engaged in, which is the tripartite discussion between Fulcrum, the Government of Guyana, and Exxon.”
He said there may be a possibility, as part of this, for collaboration with Suriname. “…or maybe in the future, should this not succeed, that we may be able to do a project involving just Haimara and Pluma with the Suriname fields, but that’s all that was discussed.” The Vice President said no commitment was made to any specific project at the time of the discussions, but the two sides are expected to remain engaged.
Future oil growth likely centered in Guyana-Suriname, GlobalData finds
The Pluma-1 discovery was announced in December 2018, marking Exxon’s 10th find at the time off the Guyana coast. The well encountered approximately 121 feet (37 meters) of high-quality, hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone. Haimara-1, Exxon’s 12th Stabroek Block discovery, was announced in February 2019. It encountered approximately 207 feet (63 meters) of high-quality, gas-condensate-bearing sandstone reservoir.
Guyana has identified Fulcrum LNG to potentially partner with ExxonMobil on a natural gas development. A separate Gas-to-Energy project is already underway which will deliver natural gas from the Liza field to onshore facilities at Wales, West Bank Demerara. ExxonMobil recently announced that the pipeline is complete. The project, set to come online next year, is expected to cut the cost of electricity in Guyana by around 50 percent.
