Guyana receives US$377.1M in oil payments for 2023 1st quarter

…NRF now has over US$1.4B

In the first quarter of 2023, Guyana received in excess of US$300 million in payments for profit oil and royalty, increasing the balance of its Natural Resource Fund (NRF) to well over US$1.4 billion by the end of March 2023.
Based on the gazetted inflows of money for the first quarter, the Natural Resource Fund received US$377.1 million in oil and gas payments. This includes a payment of US$157.6 million made in January for two profit oil lifts that occurred last year from the Liza Unity and Liza Destiny floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels.

Meanwhile, payments dating from last year’s transactions also include a royalty payment of US$57.5 million for the 2022 fourth quarter oil production. Meanwhile, Guyana received payments for two lifts that occurred this year from both FPSOs.
There was a payment of US$82.2 billion for a lift of profit oil that occurred on January 17, 2023 from the Liza Destiny FPSO. There is also a payment of US$79.6 million for a lift from the Liza Unity that occurred on February 3, 2023. Considering that the NRF had approximately US$1.3 billion at the end of February, this means that the fund now has US$1.4 billion.
Guyana is, in 2023, expected to earn a total of US$1.6 billion in profit oil and royalties combined, buoyed by the startup of ExxonMobil’s third development in the Stabroek block – the Payara development – before the end of the year.
This disclosure was made by Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh during his reading of Budget 2023 in January. According to the Finance Minister, there will be 136 lifts of profit oil from the Stabroek block in 2023. Of those, Guyana will be entitled to 17 lifts of profit oil, the revenue from which will go into the NRF.
“Within this, Government is projected to have 17 lifts of profit oil from the producing FPSOs, earning an estimated (US$1.4 billion) in profit oil and US$225.2 million in royalties in 2023,” the Minister had said.
“As highlighted previously, based on 2022 deposits, an estimated US$1,002.1 million, equivalent to Gy$208.9 billion, can be withdrawn from the NRF and transferred to the Consolidated Fund to support national development priorities this year.”
Guyana, with 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. (G3)