Guyana Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday he is doubtful Guyana’s next auction of offshore acreage will happen before the 2025 General Election.
Government says voters will head to the polls in November 2025.
The second auction is expected to benefit from new seismic data. “We received bids from several companies that have made proposals to do seismic studies… at no cost to the government, and then we share the benefits of the purchase of that data,” Jagdeo said.
The four bidders are PSS-GEO from Norway, CGG Veritas Services UK Ltd. from the United Kingdom, a joint venture between Latitude Energy Inc. from Guyana and Shearwater Geoservices Ltd. from the United Kingdom, and the fourth bidder is TGS Magseis. The tenders were opened on October 3, 2024.
Jagdeo acknowledged that if the government pursued seismic data prior to the first auction, it would have yielded better results. “But that would allow us in the future to go to auctions with a bank of data that would be available to the companies to make more informed decisions as to the potential offshore,” he said.
The first auction faced postponements after the government decided it needed to update the legislation governing the oil sector, replacing the 1986 Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act with the 2023 Petroleum Activities Act.
Government also took time to finalize its new model petroleum agreement before kicking off the auction. However, following selections of several bidders last year, including high-profile groups led by ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, no block has been officially awarded yet.
TotalEnergies, PETRONAS and QatarEnergy have gone furthest in talks with the government, with their joint bid being the only one approved by Guyana’s cabinet. There is no definite timeline for the award of any blocks.
The auction was an effort to diversify the sector, as all commercial discoveries and oil production is due to a group including ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC.
