Exxon has spent more than US$500M on local companies since 2015 – Country Manager

…in excess of 800 local businesses involved in supply chain

Since it first found oil in Guyana in 2015, oil giant ExxonMobil has spent over US$500 million on local companies, and has added close to 1000 local businesses to the supply chain that provides goods and services to its operations offshore Guyana.

During a recent video interview, Exxon Country Manager Alastair Routledge was asked about local content. The Executive spoke of the importance the company places on ensuring that Guyanese benefit from its oil projects.
On ExxonMobil’s part, Routledge explained that 800 local businesses were part of the supply chain. He further explained that Exxon has spent more than US$500 million with local companies since 2015.
“You look back and you say, we’ve made remarkable progress since 2015, since that first discovery. More than US$500 million has been spent with local companies and businesses. More than 800 local businesses are involved in the supply chain. These are significant progress milestones in a short space in time,” Routledge said.
In the video interview, Routledge also encouraged businesses to get involved in the sector early and to take advantage of the available opportunities. He pointed out that the sector is growing –a growth that ExxonMobil is playing a direct role in, with a number of projects in the Stabroek Block planned.
“The fact that we can have a line of sight to a number of projects that are sequential enables not just ourselves to build up a very successful execution model that builds one project after project, we’re able to roll people over from one project to the next; we can also build more and more of a local supply chain.
“And that’s really the benefit to the people. It’s that us as a company, our primary suppliers but also local businessmen can see there are more projects coming, it’s worthwhile to make the investments and prepare for those, and, therefore, be able to gain more and more from the opportunity,” Routledge said.
The Stabroek Block is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometres). Exxon, through its subsidiary Esso Exploration Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), is the operator and holds 45 per cent interest in the Block. 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.
ExxonMobil has said it anticipates at least six projects offshore Guyana would be online by 2027, with developmental drilling recently starting on the second one, the Liza Phase Two project. Back in May 2019, EEPGL was granted approval by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to go ahead with its Liza Phase Two development offshore Guyana.
The oil company had said that the project would have the capacity to produce 220,000 barrels of oil per day. Exxon had also revealed that the Liza Phase Two development was funded at the cost of some US$6 billion, including a lease capitalisation cost of approximately $1.6 billion, for the Liza Unity Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. For the Phase Two development, six drill centres were planned, along with approximately 30 wells – 15 production, nine water injection and six gas injection wells.
The US$9 billion Payara development, the third development, will meanwhile target an estimated resource base of about 600 million oil-equivalent barrels and is considered to be the largest single investment in the history of Guyana.
A fourth project, Yellowtail, has been identified within the Block with anticipated start-up in late 2025 pending Government approvals and project sanctioning. This project will develop the Yellowtail and Redtail fields, which are located about 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of the Liza developments.