Exxon wants more of oil supply chain to be located in Guyana

…it’s in company’s interest to help improve local content – EEPGL Head

Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited’s (EEPGL) strategic plan for Guyana, includes having even more of its supply chain located in country, as local content continues to be a priority for the company.
During a recent University of London Chancellor Hall-hosted seminar bringing together members of the Guyanese diaspora and officials, EEPGL President Alistair Routledge responded to a question pertaining to its strategic plan for operating in Guyana and its supply chain.

“We identified a number of strategic priorities that we said, these are areas we need to focus on in order to make a significant difference and we deliver meaningfully this business in Guyana,” Routledge said.
“One of those we’ve talked a lot about today is local content. We have one of our very clear priorities as a business, is that we need to be building that up as quickly and as effectively and as sustainably as we can.”
It has previously been reported that ExxonMobil is looking to move most of its supply chain from Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) over to Guyana. According to Routledge, having more of the company’s supply chain in country remains a priority.
“So, we said, what does that mean in five years? Well, we said in five years we want to have much more of our supply chain in country. So, if I look specifically at something like project execution, that’s what led us to say well what we need to do is support the establishment of another shore base, which is now being constructed, the Vreed-en-Hoop shore base.”
“And the reason for that shore base is it will provide the sort of facilities, not to support our current operations, but to enable more of the subsea infrastructure to be fabricated and/or assembled in country and then install. So that then provides more jobs and builds more skills in country.”
According to Routledge, this will then provide a platform for other industries in country. The EEPGL executive further noted the importance of them looking at where the industry is projected to go in the next few years, in order to guide decisions on supply chain.
Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), Exxon’s local subsidiary, is the operator and holds 45 per cent interest in the Stabroek Block, while Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd holds 30 per cent interest and CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited, holds the remaining 25 per cent interest.
In May, EEPGL had revealed that itself and its reporting contractors had spent more than $80 billion (US$400 million) with more than 1500 Guyanese businesses in 2022 alone. That is part of the more than $180 billion (US$900 million) spent with locals since the first discovery in 2015.
By the end of 2022, the company and contractors had also employed over 5000 Guyanese workers, representing more than 65 per cent of the overall workforce in the local oil and gas industry.
The company noted too that the numbers of Guyanese working offshore continued to grow. Among the 2700 personnel committed to supporting ExxonMobil Guyana’s operations, over 1300 were Guyanese, constituting approximately 48 per cent of the offshore workforce.
Back in 2021, Routledge had explained that Guyana has undergone drastic changes in its oil and gas capacity since the early days when the company made its first oil discovery in the Stabroek Block in 2015, to the point where the company wanted to transition its supply chain to Guyana.
He had said when Exxon started exploration, there was no infrastructure or expertise in place locally to support the company’s operations. This had led Exxon to source these services from Trinidad and Tobago, which has been producing oil on a commercial basis since 1908.