Vice President of Guyana, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said during a recent media conference that the government wants ExxonMobil to move faster on the matter of developing the country’s growing gas assets.
“We are not pleased with the pace at which they want to approach the development of the gas assets,” he told reporters last Thursday. “I think they are more interested in oil and so my personal assessment is that they’re not treating our desire to monetise the gas assets with the same sense of urgency as they do [with] oil.”
He added that he believes the time is appropriate to develop Guyana’s gas resources, given that there is more recognition globally of the value of gas as a transition fuel, as opposed to the sentiment prior to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“We have to move swiftly on this matter, and moving swiftly means getting ExxonMobil at the table, getting maybe another partner who will try to develop this industry or who wants to push it faster than ExxonMobil,” he stated. “… So, probably getting a partner who is willing to underwrite some of the expenses as well as the risks associated with moving this [along].”
During 2022, deemed Exxon’s best exploration year, the company added considerably to Guyana’s gas reserves, with the Barreleye, Sailfin, Lau-Lau, Patwa and Kiru Kiru wells estimated by Westwood Group to have more gas than oil. A majority of the 17 trillion cubic feet of gas discovered is in the southeast portion of the Stabroek block. The Haimara discovery near the border with Suriname also contains high volumes of natural gas. Most of the produced gas is currently being reinjected to optimise oil output.
Alistair Routledge, President of ExxonMobil Guyana, noted in an interview with S&P Global in August the need for gas sales options, especially with the discovery of “gassier” fields near the border with Suriname.
Discussing potential export solutions, he highlighted the complexities of deploying a floating LNG facility similar to ExxonMobil’s Coral field in Mozambique, explaining that the gassier fields near Suriname would prevent such straightforward deployment. He mentioned the possibility of a combined floating LNG and liquids production facility, stating, “We will have to have a production facility that just separates liquids and gas and handles probably tens of thousands of barrels a day of liquids production.”
“But do you then have a floating LNG facility next to a [liquids] production facility? Do you have that in shallow water? Do you have it onshore? We’re looking at all of those kind of concept options,” Routledge stated.
