President and Chief Operating Officer of Hess Corporation, Greg Hill, said the hull for the Yellowtail oil production vessel is complete, and sitting in Indonesian waters, waiting to travel to Singapore one the Prosperity, another Guyana-bound vessel, is complete.
Prosperity is the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit which will be used for the Payara project, which ExxonMobil recently announced is likely to start ahead of schedule, early 2023. It is under construction by SBM Offshore, at the Keppel Shipyard in Singapore.
The hull for Yellowtail will be outfitted for the One Guyana FPSO, a vessel that will be producing 250,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) as early as 2025. Government approved the project in April.
Hill said Yellowtail, with a US$29 breakeven, is world class. The project will cost US$10 billion to develop, as opposed to US$9 billion for the Payara project. The COO explained that this is because it is targeting 925 million barrels, more than the 600 million at Payara.
Prior to Yellowtail, three projects were approved and sanctioned for the Stabroek block – Liza Phases 1 and 2, which are already producing, and Payara.
At the introduction and ramp-up of Yellowtail, production offshore Guyana would peak at 830,000 bpd, barring further optimisation work by ExxonMobil.
Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo expects that by 2025, the year Yellowtail comes online, revenues to Guyana would be around US$2 billion at a US$50 per barrel oil price, or double that if the current high oil price situation repeats itself then.
ExxonMobil plans to place six FPSOs offshore Guyana by 2027, producing more than 1.2 million bpd. The Stabroek Block resources has the potential, the partners believe, for 10 FPSOs.
