A million barrels a day

Feb 25, 2026 Editorial, News

Guyana is fast approaching a magical number in the oil world. By yearend, little, once unknown, newly rich, but still poor, Guyana could be producing over a million barrels of oil daily. It is to belong to a special club, that sweet circle of oil champions, a producer of a million barrels a day. A country that produces oil at such a level has to be a paradise for all of its citizens. Can Guyana claim to be in that coveted position? Can Guyanese say with satisfaction and in all honesty, all of them, that they know what it is to be living in an oil paradise, because they are living it?

The last report that had some degree of credibility, one from the InterAmerican Development Bank, said that over half of Guyana’s population are battling with poverty, and losing. At first, the PPPC Government and its representatives received the bad news in a subdued manner. Now, the claim is that number of Guyanese staring at poverty, or already trapped in its clutches, is old news, so dated as to have little relevance. Further, the government has pushed back by stating that the report covers the period 2016-2017, when the APNU+AFC Coalition was in power. What wasn’t addressed was the report also covered 2021 when the PPPC was in power, and Guyana was more of an oil economy by then.

Since the government has published its disagreements, including that the report is old news, and it is so confident about how well Guyanese are doing, then it should release any new data that it has. Government is the compiler and keeper of official statistics, and once it has numbers that can be trusted, then its leaders and spokespersons have a duty to put them before the nation. That would be the best counterargument that any government could put forward before its citizens and opponents. Here are new statistics about poverty levels, and they are nowhere close to the old data that is being circulated. The government’s numbers would confirm how all Guyanese are reaping the benefits of already being at a three-quarter million barrel (or 900,000) a day level. Since it is so presently, then at a million-barrel daily level, all Guyanese are poised to do still better. It is only February 2026, so it’s likely that ExxonMobil’s projection of a million barrels daily by yearend is going to happen.

Oil production has crept up in the span of six short years from a quarter-million barrels to a half-million barrels to three-quarter million barrels daily. If there were to be a survey to obtain from Guyanese what increasing levels of daily oil production have meant for them, the responses would likely surprise. Rank-and-file citizens are finding it harder to manage their lives with dignity, for it is a continuing struggle to feed their children, and pay their regular bills. Their bills are for the basics of living, such as rent, utilities, transportation, and so forth. They are not living a lifestyle of reckless spending, living beyond their means. It is simply that the means that they have in their hands do not allow them to live beyond an Old Mother Hubbard standard. We at this paper find it difficult to absorb the ugliness of citizens living like this in a country that produces close to a million barrels of oil daily (a peak of 900,000 barrels), and is soon to race past a million.

When measured using a per person calculation, Guyana’s GDP stood at US$29,675, or over GY$6M. If a fraction of that was reflective of the quality of existence for ordinary citizens, then arguments about impoverished local conditions are misleading. Private sector minimum wage workers earn below three-quarter million Guyana dollars annually, and public servant counterparts earn approximately GY$1.2M annually. GDP averages have little relevance to them. When these Guyanese are considered, questions multiply about how they manage. In a country producing 750,000, and sometimes 900,000, barrels of oil daily, no citizen should be living as many Guyanese are. Now that a million barrels daily are fast approaching, Guyanese should be on top of the world. Many of them would dispute that, given how they struggle to survive.

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2016 ExxonMobil contract, APNU+AFC, ExxonMobil, Guyanese

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