OPEC invites Guyana to join meetings, upcoming seminar, ministerial panel

…as interest in country on world stage grows

As interest in Guyana grows, it turns out that the country has been invited to take part in the upcoming Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) international seminar in Vienna, Austria.
Reports out of the Wall Street Journal had indicated that Guyana was invited to become a member of OPEC itself, by Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Abdulaziz bin Salman and OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais.
When contacted by this publication, however, Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat could not confirm whether this was indeed the case.
Additionally, a Reuters article quoted Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo denying that Guyana had been formally invited to join OPEC, an intergovernmental organisation of oil-exporting developing nations that includes such countries as Algeria, Angola, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela.
Rather, Jagdeo said that Guyana has been invited to participate in OPEC meetings. This is understood to include the upcoming seminar in Vienna, Austria, that will last from July 5-6, 2023, at the Hofburg Palace, as well as participate in a Ministerial Panel that will deal with the diversification of energy.
VP Jagdeo has been vocal about the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government’s intentions of maximising oil production for Guyana in the limited window oil currently has on the world stage. This would be counter to OPEC, which has in the past had its members curb production as a price control measure for oil on the global market. In fact, such a decision was made in April 2023.
Guyana, with United States (US) oil giant ExxonMobil as the operator, began producing oil on December 20, 2019, in the Stabroek Block. Guyana’s oil revenues are being held in the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where it is earning interest.
The oil-rich Stabroek Block, which is producing the oil, is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometres). Exxon, through its local subsidiary Esso Exploration and 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.
Since last year, Guyana has been recording weekly lifts in the Stabroek Block, with oil production now at 340,000 barrels per day from the Liza Destiny and Liza Unity FPSO vessels. With EEPGL making weekly lifts, Guyana’s crude entitlement of one million barrels occurs monthly from the two FPSOs.
ExxonMobil has said it anticipates at least six projects offshore Guyana will be online by 2027. Production has already started in the second phase, with the Liza Unity FPSO vessel in operation.
The third project – the Payara development – will target an estimated resource base of about 600 million oil-equivalent barrels, and was at one point considered to be the largest single planned investment in the history of Guyana.
Meanwhile, the Yellowtail development, which will be oil giant ExxonMobil’s fourth development in Guyana’s waters, will turn out to be the single largest development so far in terms of barrels per day of oil, with a mammoth 250,000 bpd targeted.
The Uaru oil development, which will be the fifth one for the company offshore Guyana, is targeting between 38 and 63 development wells, including production, water injection, and gas re-injection wells. Exxon had previously also made known that they anticipate first oil from the Uaru development by late 2026 or early 2027.
Meanwhile, production of oil offshore Guyana will soon be almost doubled as the Prosperity floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel that will service Guyana’s third oil development, Payara, has arrived in the country’s waters.
The arrival of the Prosperity FPSO was announced by EEPGL in April 2023. The vessel will be used in the Payara development, which is slated to begin production later this year.