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Guyana’s oil reserves have not changed significantly since last update – VP Jagdeo
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – Although one of the eight discoveries made by ExxonMobil in Guyana’s prolific Stabroek Block, since the last resource update, is estimated to hold some 746 million barrels of oil, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo says the country’s reserves have not changed significantly since 2022.
The last resource count, dated April 26, 2022, declared the recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block at nearly 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels. Since then, Exxon announced eight subsequent discoveries, the Seabob-1 and Kiru-Kiru-1 wells, Sailfin-1, Yarrow-1, Fangtooth SE, Lancetfish-1, and Lancetfish-2 wells, along with the recently announced Bluefin discovery.
It was revealed that the Lancetfish discovery, which was made in April 2023, averaged some 100 million tons, which is equivalent to 746 million barrels, according to the conversion formula of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Jagdeo during his Thursday press briefing remained tight-lipped on the country’s reserves, but claimed there was no significant increase since the last update.
The Vice President told reporters, “Right now, there is an assumption that the information is being withheld, that’s false. I pointed out to you that we get these reports every three months and the reports that we have state what the reserves are and that has not changed materially over the past maybe year or so, so that’s not withholding information that we have.”
According to him, “Information about the reserves have been part of that report and it’s around the same 11 billion barrels. I’ve pointed out that…a discovery doesn’t mean that you know the size of the reserve. That to get to size of reserve, long after the discovery, you have to do appraisal, see the type of rock, a complex process before you get to the reserve.”
The Chief policymaker for the oil and gas sector explained, “Already the amount of reserves we know that we have will justify a number of investments and it’s not through the knowledge of the reserves but the investment in producing the oil that matters most because when you produce that’s how you get the revenue and the other economic activities.”
The VP argued that while Suriname for example knows some of its reserves, the country has not been able to secure a Final Investment Decision (FID) from the oil companies for production activities to commence.
While the Vice President has said there is no significant change to the country’s oil reserves, the political Opposition believes the hidden reserves could be equivalent to Trinidad and Tobago’s total oil production over its 100-year stint in the industry.
Earlier this month, the Opposition’s spokesperson on oil and gas, Elson Low pointed out that data from T&T’s Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries indicate that the country’s oil production totals just over 3 billion barrels during its more than 100 years in the sector. The Economist in a subsequent interview with Kaieteur News said that by using a conservative estimate of 375M barrels of oil for each of the eight hidden discoveries, the country could easily be in the dark on the total oil produced by the twin island over its century long involvement in the industry.
The Opposition’s Oil and Gas spokesman pointed out that one of the Stabroek Block partners, CNOOC recently revealed that the one of the eight discoveries made since April 2022 is estimated to hold some 746M barrels of oil.
He argued, “We even saw one of the partners in the Stabroek Block say one of those finds was over 700 million barrels of oil. There are entire countries that don’t even have 700 million barrels of oil in its reserve and that’s one find.”
Low said that the Opposition will raise its concerns over the lack of transparency and accountability by the government with the international community and even multilateral organizations.
The Economist stressed, “The government right now could be hiding as much oil from the Guyanese people as Trinidad ever produced in their entire history. This is the scale of the mismanagement; this is the scale of the bad governance you are seeing in our country and it should disturb each and every Guyanese.”
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