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Exxon says Guyana’s oil reserves increase only after project financing
“It doesn’t move to ‘proved’ (resources) until you fund a project” – Routledge
(Kaieteur News) – Guyana’s oil reserves have been stagnated around 11 billion barrels since 2022, despite major new discoveries. According to president of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), Alistair Routledge, this is so because “proved reserves” only increase when a project is financed.
In its 2025 Annual Report, Exxon reported that, “Additions to proved reserves include 2.1 GOEB (billion oil-equivalent barrels) from extensions and discoveries primary in the United States and Guyana and 0.1 GOEB related to United States acquisitions.”
ExxonMobil Guyana President, Alistair Routledge
Routledge was asked by Kaieteur News how much of the 2.1 billion increase in reserves were from Guyana. While he did not offer a direct response, Routledge sought to clarify the terms “resources” and “reserves.”
He said, “So this is probably the space where we get into the difference between resource versus reserves. So, every time we fund a project, we move resource to an approved category. So, resource is estimated, as ultimately recoverable, when we drill a well and we penetrate a reservoir, and we say, we think there’s this amount of resource that we could recover from that reservoir. But it is founded on a number of assumptions. It doesn’t move to prove until you fund a project that can develop that resource.”
Meanwhile, when asked whether there was an increase in proved reserves in Guyana, as highlighted in the report, Routledge said that Exxon added to its proved reserves after the Hammerhead project was approved. Be that as it may, the country’s estimated ultimate recoverable reserve still stands around 11 billion barrels according to him.
He said, “Well, in the reserves, when we approved the Hammerhead project, we added, I mean, I think our share of, you know, roughly 40 per cent of the resource that we said was proved, as we develop the Hammerhead project would then be added into that proved category for us.”
Consequently, the country manager noted, “On the estimated ultimate recovery, it’s still, you know, close to 11, is somewhere in that vicinity. But there’s a lot of, as we continue to do, appraisal work, and we produce reservoirs and we gather data. There’s, you know, puts and takes as we go through that assessment.”
In an invited comment, former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams said the company was once again attempting to confuse the country using technical terms.
The petroleum engineer argued, “Investors have nothing to do with reserves. That’s what this guy is good at-bringing up things to confuse people.”
He reminded that in the early discovery days, Exxon offered prompt reserve updates and did not wait for an investment decision.
On resources versus reserves, Dr. Adams explained, “Oil resources is (determined based on) a technical calculation…the reserves add the economic component to it. It says you may tell me there is so much oil and I can technically recover so much of it, however because of the price of oil…right now because of the price of oil this reserve should automatically go up because it varies with oil price.”
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