Oil giant ExxonMobil will soon be submitting a local content plan as a part of its developmental strategy to the Guyana Government as its operations in the Stabroek Block expands and continues to yield promising results.
After tempering the hopes of Guyanese on job creation opportunities in August,
ExxonMobil Country Manager Jeff Simons
Country Manager Jeff Simons clarified that there will in fact be employment for locals.
He was at the time delivering the feature address at the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA) annual dinner and awards ceremony on Thursday evening at the Pegasus Hotel.
“One common misperception is that we don’t want to have local content, we want to bring a bunch of people in to do this and that’s definitely what we don’t want to do,” he stated.
Simons explained that during the third quarter of 2016, 325 of the 670 persons who were working for ExxonMobil are Guyanese.
He added too that the oil company has been utilising an abundance of services from local entities such as hotel, aviation out of the Eugene Correia International Airport, food supplies, transportation, medical facilities, waste management, among others.
The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has been emphasising the need for local content legislation, especially in light of the fact that Guyana is on the verge of becoming an oil producing nation.
Chairman of PSC, Edward Boyer, noted that it is crucial that Guyanese businesses and the citizenry educate themselves in preparation for the changes which will occur in the economy when the country begins to receive significant revenues from oil.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil’s Country Manager, in response to a question by an attendee, ruled out the idea of establishing an oil refinery in Guyana because the amount of oil found here is too small to support such a venture.
“Building a big refinery means you are going to be exporting a lot of product too and so getting to the economies of scale in this Hemisphere that will allow for an economic development of a refinery, you need more oil, you need a really big refinery to be competitive and right now that doesn’t look like an attractive (venture),” he stated.
ExxonMobil in October made its third significant discovery in its drilling explorations offshore Guyana at the Liza 3, with a net present value amounting to US$6.2 billion based on calculations from the Bank of Montreal (BMO) Capital Markets.
In late June, ExxonMobil’s drilling results at Liza 2 revealed more than 58 metres of oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs in Upper Cretaceous formations.
The well was drilled to 5475 metres at 1692 metres water depth. Drilling results confirmed recoverable resources to be between 800 million and 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Data from the Liza 2 well test is being assessed.
In May 2015, ExxonMobil confirmed its significant oil discovery at its Liza 1 exploration well, where more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs was encountered.
The Liza wells are being drilled with the Stena Carron harsh environment drillship.
On September 8, ExxonMobil announced that its third exploratory well, Skipjack, was unsuccessful since it did not yield commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.
ExxonMobil spud Liza 3 after Skipjack turned up unfavourable. Skipjack was a separate prospect 25 miles northwest of the Liza wells.
The Liza 3 well, like Liza 2, will be focused on testing the flank of the Liza structure to determine the aerial extent of the reservoir.
The US super major is likely to start production in 2020 with up to 100,000 barrels per day. (Devina Samroo)
