Guyana’s growth forecast from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been given a considerable boost. While the institution’s 2022 Article IV report had estimated Guyana’s real gross domestic product (GDP) would grow 25.2% in 2023, this has been revised to 37.2%.
Similarly, the IMF had estimated last year that Guyana’s 2024 growth would be 21.2%. This forecast has more than doubled to 45.3% in its World Economic Outlook 2023: A Rocky Recovery.
Guyana is in the early years of its oil boom, but no one else is projecting these numbers.
No other country is projected to see growth at these percentage levels. Guyana is in a league of its own, continuing from 62.3% in 2022.
Guyana’s expected crude output would be one of the main causes of such a significant revision. The IMF’s economic review was published on the same day ExxonMobil announced its third floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, Prosperity, arrived in Guyana. With Exxon already producing more than 380,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) from its Stabroek Block projects, the startup of Prosperity’s Payara project and production ramp up will take output close to 600,000 bpd. But even before the arrival of the vessel, Exxon’s Liza projects continue to exceed output expectations. Some downtime has been scheduled in the final quarter of 2023 for production optimisation at Liza Phase 2, after successful optimisation of Phase 1 last year.
Significantly, Guyana will also receive an economic boost from carbon credit payments from Hess, totaling US$150 million in 2023. The first payment of US$75 million was made in January and the second will be made later.
The government will receive revenues from signature bonuses once blocks are issued at the conclusion of the country’s first offshore auction in the first half of the year.
Guyana could also see gains in local content as the government moves to add more categories to the Local Content Act, which will mandate international oil companies (IOCs) to seek the provision of more services from Guyanese-owned businesses.
