Yellowtail development aiming to start up in 2025 3rd quarter – S&P Analysts

The Yellowtail development, which will mark ExxonMobil Guyana’s fourth oil development locally and will use the recently arrived ‘One Guyana’ Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, is expected to have a start-up date in the third quarter of 2025.
This was shared by energy and commodity market analyst S&P Global Platts, which published a report in which it cited the Yellowtail project as having a start-up date of between July to September 2025.
According to the report, not only will the development start up in the third quarter, but it will also have an American Petroleum Institute (API) rating of 36.5 and a sulphur content of 0.25 per cent.
This, according to S&P, which cited a preliminary assay recently seen by the market analyst, indicates that Yellowtail is likely to be closer in quality to United States (US) West Texas Intermediate (WTI), known for its light and sweet, high-quality crude.
The Yellowtail Development is the fourth oil and gas development in the Stabroek Block, following on the heels of the Liza Phase One and Two and the Payara developments. The ‘One Guyana’ FPSO that SBM Offshore was contracted to build in 2022, will be the vessel producing oil from this development.
The vessel arrived in Guyana’s waters only last month, with installation activities for the US$10 billion FPSO already underway. The Yellowtail development is located in the eastern portion of the Stabroek Block, and involves the development of the Yellowtail and Redtail fields.
The development is expected to generate approximately 1,300 jobs across four phases. It has previously been reported that the development plan for Yellowtail includes six drill centres and the drilling of up to 67 development wells.
The Yellowtail project is expected to begin with a production rate of 250,000 barrels of oil per day. It is estimated that when the Yellowtail development project comes on stream, total production will climb to 900,000 barrels per day by 2027.
Additionally, ExxonMobil has already received approvals for and is advancing preparatory works on its fifth and sixth projects, Uaru and Whiptail.
There are currently three FPSOs operating in Guyana’s offshore waters: The Liza destiny, the Liza Unity and the Prosperity. They are respectively working on the Liza One, Liza Phase Two, and Payara projects
Six FPSOs are expected to be operating offshore Guyana by 2027. The fifth FPSO, which would be named Errea- Wittu, meaning “abundance” in the Warrau Indigenous language, would operate in the Urau project.
It would have 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 a period of approximately 24 hours.
The Stabroek Block is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometres). Exxon, through its local subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), holds 45 per cent interest in the block. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd had had 30 per cent interest, which it recently sold to Chevron. CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited, holds the remaining 25 per cent interest.