Years later... Guyana still awaits oil depletion Policy

Years later… Guyana still awaits oil depletion Policy

Jan 23, 2020 News

It was in early 2016 that talks emerged about the need for Guyana to have a depletion policy which allows the leaders of the day to determine how fast or slow the oil and gas resources must be developed.

Map showing placement for three of Exxon Mobil’s FPSOs in the Stabroek Block

But even after the assumption of its petro-state status years later, the country is still to have this document for the efficient management of the sector.
This newspaper understands that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) would have approved in December 2018, a loan of US$11.6M to help Guyana develop its capacity for the industry.
Part of this money was dedicated to the creation of this policy. To date, the citizenry remains in the dark about the stage of completion for this document.
Trinidadian Energy Expert, Anthony Paul, would have cautioned in a previous interview that if Guyana wants to lengthen the life of its oil industry, then it urgently needs to put this policy in place.
In the absence of this crucial document, ExxonMobil and its partners, Hess Corporation and CNOOC/NEXEN, are steaming ahead with plans to extract Guyana’s oil as quickly as possible from the Stabroek Block.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that ExxonMobil would be introducing five Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) into the Stabroek Block, by 2025.
The first FPSO, Liza Destiny, was in operation since December 2019. The second FPSO, Liza Unity, is projected for hook up by 2022. The FPSO for Payara has a 2023 deadline.
The IMF noted that a fourth FPSO would be in Guyana’s waters in 2024 with the fifth vessel hooked up in 2025.
In a special report prepared for Guyana’s authorities, the IMF said that bringing on stream, five oil production projects in five years is “unprecedented”. It said that if this were to be realised, Guyana would reach one of the highest ratios of oil daily production per capita in the world. (KIANA WILBURG)