Guyana 2021 oil take is one million barrels less than expected

Dec 01, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Guyana had earlier this year projected collecting at least six one-million barrels of oil lift entitlements under its Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL—and their Stabroek Block consortium partners.

Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat

This is not to be, however, since on Monday last, it was announced that government had completed its final lift for the year—it’s fifth.
According to Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat the most recent lift, also represents Guyana’s final lift of oil for 2021.
That lift totaled 1,043,289.542 barrels of oil now and bringing the country’s total take for the year to approximately 5.1 million barrels oil. This now brings the total oil lifts since the first oil in 2019 to nine.
In making the announcement, the Ministry of Natural Resources on Monday lauded the
“invaluable efforts of its own internal petroleum team and regulatory agencies such as the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in safeguarding Guyana’s interest in coordinating the sales of its share of crude oil throughout 2021.”
The Ministry in a statement said, Government through the Ministry of Natural Resources will continue to build technical capacity and jointly work with all relevant stakeholders to sustainably manage the petroleum sector for the benefit of all Guyanese.
This publication understands that the last lift for the year was sold by Saudi Aramco, which in September last month was handed a one-year contract to market the government’s share of the crude.
While the Ministry did not disclose the sale price, Guyana’s Natural Resources Fund held in the New York Federal Reserve, at the end of October last, held some US$534M, and with its final lift for the year, that account is now expected to stand at in excess of US$600M.
The earnings from the Stabroek Block accounts for crude sold from the Stabroek Block Liza I development, using the Liza Destiny—Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO).
The information disclosed, however, did not detail the amounts of oil uplifted by EEPGL partners, Hess Corporation Guyana and China National Offshore Oil Company.
With the arrival of Guyana’s second FPSO—the Liza Unity currently being hooked up at the Liza III development site in the Stabroek Block—and start of oil production by early 2022, at peak 220,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) will be added to the already producing Liza Phase 1 project – 120,000 bpd – taking total output to around 340,000 bpd.
As such, come next year, each company would be able to produce one million barrels of oil from the two locations every three days.
Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh in his midyear report for 2021 on the oil and gas sector did allude to the fact at the time of Budget 2021, when it was anticipated that the average production rate for the first half of the year would be approximately 114,100 barrels per day (BPD).
This did not obtain, however, as the technical challenges with the flash gas compressor continued during this period, the achieved rate of production was approximately 111,767 BPD, as efforts were made to limit the flaring of excess gas.
This development according to reports is what led, in part, to the less than anticipated production.
Guyana is now expected to collect its 10th lift of oil entitlement, since production began in December 2019, in January next year.