Guyana’s hydrocarbon discoveries with considerable portions of natural gas are in the southeastern part of the Stabroek Block near the border with Suriname, according to a Ministry of Natural Resources map published in its 2023 Energy Brief.
Guyana’s Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, said in January that the country’s gas reserves are currently estimated at 17 trillion cubic feet (tcf). This amounts to a quarter of the 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels discovered by ExxonMobil Guyana in the offshore Stabroek Block.
Westwood Group estimated that Guyana’s best exploration year, 2023, added considerably to gas the resources estimate, with the Barreleye, Sailfin, Lau-Lau, Patwa and Kiru Kiru wells estimated to have more gas than oil.
ExxonMobil Guyana President Alistair Routledge said technical work is being done with updates provided to the government on the feasibility of standalone natural gas projects. He said the company is “looking very closely at the potential for gas development” offshore Guyana.
The major, Routledge said, has supplied the government with a report on a gas utilization study required under the Yellowtail production license granted in 2022.
So far, there is a pipeline of six ExxonMobil development projects focused on oil extraction. Exxon has also been including accommodations in its projects’ designs for the possibility of export of associated gas.
Guyana’s natural gas reserves are significant, even more than that of the 10 tcf of proven gas reserves held by Trinidad and Tobago, a gas exporter.
Energy Co-Director at Americas Market Intelligence, Arthur Deakin, has said that Guyana’s gas resources can form part of the solution to the gap created by Russia in Europe when the war in Ukraine caused the two sides to fall out. Deakin said Guyana’s exports could replace about 4% of all Russian gas that went to Europe in 2021.
Guyana’s lone gas project in the pipeline is the Gas-to-Energy project, which will utilise associated Liza gas for domestic use via pipeline from the FPSOs.
