VP Jagdeo defends ExxonM hiding new discovery figures

Feb 09, 2024 News

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday defended ExxonMobil Guyana Limited’s decision to no longer focus on updating the nation about the barrels of oil found at new discoveries. The chief policymaker for the sector said he agrees with the company’s decision to channel its energies towards monetizing those resources already unlocked in the Stabroek Block.

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo

During a press conference at Office of the President, the Vice President said the question of Exxon’s update of the resources is not as serious an issue as it is being made out to be by some industry stakeholders. He said Exxon’s announcement, or lack thereof, will not change the fact that there is a discovery already there for the benefit for the country.

“It’s just a (matter of) timing when we increase our reserves or not…In fact, they (Exxon) have a greater kind of need to do that because globally… they look at your reserve and that helps to move stock prices for Exxon but they’ve decided that they want to focus more on appraisals as to how many barrels are in these discoveries, etc,” said the Vice President.

Overall, he said Exxon’s move to focus on monetizing the discovered resources is a logical step.

Head of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, Alistair Routledge had said on Tuesday that his company is no longer focused on providing updates on the number of barrels added to its resource base following a rash of discoveries in 2022 and 2023.

This newspaper previously reported that the company’s last resource count, dated April 26, 2022, declared the recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block at nearly 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels, following discoveries at the Barreleye-1, Patwa-1, and Lukanani-1 wells. However, since then, Exxon has announced seven more significant discoveries.

In 2022, Exxon announced four more discoveries at the Stabroek Block – at the Seabob-1 and Kiru-Kiru-1 wells in July of that year, followed by discoveries at the Sailfin-1 and Yarrow-1 wells in October. Moving into 2023, Exxon continued its successful exploration streak with discoveries at the Fangtooth SE, Lancetfish-1, and Lancetfish-2 wells. The Fangtooth SE well, particularly notable as an appraisal well of the Fangtooth-1 discovery, is part of consideration for ExxonMobil’s seventh Stabroek Block development.

Despite these advancements, ExxonMobil has maintained the same resource estimate.

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Alistair, ExxonMobil, gas, Guyana, oil, Routledge, Stabroek Block

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