ExxonMobil says Guyana has become one of the world’s most incredible economic and geopolitical success stories “practically overnight.”
According to recent commentary by Hunter Farris, Senior Vice President for Deepwater at ExxonMobil Upstream Company, the timeline from discovery to first oil was unusually short. The remarks were made to commemorate the 10th anniversary of ExxonMobil’s Liza discovery in the Stabroek Block
“We went from the 2015 discovery to producing first oil in December 2019,” he said. “That short timeframe – less than five years – is nearly unheard of in our industry.”
“On most deepwater developments, it typically takes twice as long to safely extract the first commercial barrels,” Farris explained. “We did it in half the normal time.”
He said Guyana’s oil production ramp-up has been equally rapid.
“Like a race car that blazes from zero to 60 in just a few seconds, Guyana’s oil industry has ramped up – and ramped up safely, I’ll add – from zero barrels to 650,000 per day in the five-and-a-half years since we started.”
Exxon and the Liza legacy: A decade of oil development in Guyana | OilNOW
Production is expected to climb even higher. “By 2027 we’ll hit production capacity of 1.3 million barrels per day, or close to 500 million barrels per year,” said Farris. “That daily figure should climb to 1.7 million barrels by 2030.”
He noted that this makes Guyana “one of the largest oil producers per capita in the world.”
Liam Mallon, former President of ExxonMobil Upstream Company, had ranked Guyana among its top three deepwater developments globally. And that ranking may improve.
“At the pace that we are continuing to grow, over the next couple of years, it would be right up there with the Permian in terms of the actual magnitude of the production,” he said.
Exxon’s deepwater portfolio includes assets in Angola and Canada, according to its website. It had abandoned drilling efforts in Brazil’s deepwater acreage, after a third dud early last year.
