Ghanaian firm still to pay US$17M signing bonus for oil block – Minister Vickram Bharrat

Jun 22, 2026 News

(Kaieteur News) – More than six months since the Government of Guyana (GoG) signed a petroleum agreement with Ghanaian offshore explorer Cybele Energy Limited for the shallow-water Block S7, the company has still not paid the required US$17 million signing bonus into the Natural Resources Fund (NRF), placing the offshore concession at risk of cancellation.

Within 30-days of the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) being signed on December 9, 2025, Cybele was required to make the payment into the NRF. However, with the deadline long expired, the company has racked up an approximately US$4 million in interest, that it is required to pay in addition to the US$17 million signing bonus. It should be noted that while the required bonus for shallow-water blocks is US$10 million, Cybele offered US$7 million above the minimum when it submitted its bid during Guyana’s inaugural bid round.

Ghanaian firm Cybele still to pay US$17M signing bonus for oil block

(from left) Senior Petroleum Coordinator at the Natural Resources Ministry, Bobby Gosai; Cybele Energy Guyana Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Beatrice Jones-Mensah Tayui and Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat contract signing on in Georgetown (December 2025).

Earlier this month, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat disclosed that Cybele was at risk of losing the approximately 2,000-square-kilometre block because of the non-payment. At that time, the minister had revealed that during talks with the ministry, the company committed to paying part of the signing bonus into the NRF by the end of the first week in June and the remainder shortly thereafter. However, to date, no payment has been made.

During a recent sideline interview with Kaieteur News, Bharrat said the matter is now before the ministry’s legal team. “Because if they don’t pay, obviously we will have to move to canceling suspension and canceling, so our legal team is dealing with the issue, because we don’t want any legal battle in the future,” he said.

Despite the prolonged delay, the minister said he remains hopeful the issue can be resolved. Bharrat said, “Hopefully, we can get a positive (result). I’m still hopeful, and I’ll put that on record too, because they’ve recruited a lot of Guyanese already to work with them…so we are hopeful still, but if there is no sign of payment or anything in near future, we’ll have to cancel.”

The S7 is located 50 kilometres from ExxonMobil Guyana Limited’s Liza One and Two fields in the Stabroek Block, which is estimated at 11.6 billion barrels. The block’s oil fairway runs through S7 toward Suriname. Cybele had planned to drill its first well within 12 months. The African woman-led firm has conservatively estimated that S7 holds 400 million barrels of oil.

The fiscal regime for the S7 operations will be governed by the new PSA which requires the payment of a 10 per cent royalty and a 10 per cent corporate tax. The cost recovery ceiling will be capped at 65 per cent in a given year, while profits will be shared 50/50 between the company and the state.

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Cybele, Cybele Energy Limited, Natural Resources Fund, oil block, shallow-water block

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