Guyana recorded 631,000 barrels of oil per day during 2025 1st quarter

– Peak of 258,000 bpd recorded at Prosperity FPSO

Guyana’s 2025 first quarter oil production averaged 631,000 barrels of oil per day, which goes hand in hand with the more than $126 billion in total royalty and profit oil payments that were received during that time frame.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the first quarter saw oil production from the Prosperity Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel servicing the Payara fields, peak at 258,000 barrels of oil per day.
Meanwhile, the Liza Destiny and Unity FPSO vessels recorded oil production peaks of 156,000 barrels of oil and 257,000 barrels of oil per day respectively. The first quarter production figures also align with the earnings.
The Natural Resource Fund’s (NRF) financial position and performance statement had revealed that the fund received $17.5 billion in royalties for the month of January and $30.4 billion in profit oil, ending the month with a balance of $696.7 billion.
No royalties were received for February 2025, but inflows of $47 billion in profit oil were recorded for the month. As at February 28, 2025, the closing balance for the NRF was $662.5 billion, while there had been $83.4 billion in transfers from the NRF to the consolidated fund, presumably to help fund the record breaking $1.382 trillion budget that had been passed that very month.
In March, there was again no royalty payments to the NRF, nor was there any outflow. Profit oil payments amounted to $31.2 billion, with the closing balance at the end of the month recorded at $696.2 billion.
Last year, Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo had revealed that as much as 60 per cent of all of Guyana’s revenue from the oil and gas sector has been saved in the NRF, while less than half of Guyana’s oil revenue so far had been spent
Jagdeo had pointed out that as of September 2024, US$3.2 billion ($665 billion) remained in the NRF. Also last year, the NRF received inflows from six oil lifts from the Liza Unity, Destiny and Prosperity FPSO vessels… four of those lifts occurring in the third quarter.
The funds in the NRF have their origins in the oil-rich Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, where US oil major ExxonMobil and its partners – Hess Corporation and CNOOC – are producing light sweet crude using the Liza Destiny, Liza Unity, and more recently, the Prosperity FPSO vessels.
A total of 225 oil lifts were recorded from the Stabroek Block last year. Additionally, it is anticipated that the ONE GUYANA FPSO, which will be ExxonMobil’s fourth oil producing vessel in the block, will start up this year, when production is expected to reach 250,000 barrels of oil per day.
The fifth FPSO, which would be named ‘Errea Wittu’, meaning “abundance” in the Warrau Indigenous language, would meanwhile operate in the Urau project. It would have an oil storage capacity of two million barrels, an oil production design rate of 250,000 barrels per day, and be able to offload approximately one million barrels onto a tanker in approximately 24 hours.
This vessel would be delivered by MODEC, a Japanese company that has confirmed construction of this FPSO. Start-up of the US$12.7 billion Urau development is targeted for 2026.
‘Jaguar’, the sixth FPSO, is earmarked for Exxon’s Whiptail project. Government has said that by the time this FPSO comes online in 2027, Guyana is expected to be producing as much as 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. This FPSO is currently in the final stages of construction.
In 2022, for the first time, Guyana used oil funds to finance a national budget. In fact, in 2022, the Government withdrew a total of $126 billion (US$607.6 million) in three tranches from the NRF which went towards financing Guyana’s national development plans.
In 2023, US$1.002 billion was withdrawn to finance national development priorities. The last of eight withdrawals for last year was made on December 27, 2023, from the NRF to the Consolidated Fund, to the tune of US$152.1 million (equivalent to $31.6 billion).
In October 2024, the Government made a withdrawal of $62.3 billion (US$300 million) from the NRF, marking the fourth tranche of the $329.8 billion in withdrawals approved by Parliament for 2024.