Rystad: Guyana’s upstream sector set for busy year after 'stellar 2022'
Offshore staff
HOUSTON — Rystad Energy reported that Guyana had a "stellar 2022" with the announcement of 10 new finds, which included a record nine new discoveries in a calendar year within the Exxon Mobil-operated Stabroek Block and one in CGX’s Corentyne tract.
This success yielded estimated new cumulative recoverable resources of about 1.8 Bboe, securing Guyana pole position among countries with the highest conventional discovered volumes last year. The "outstanding success" in the country, particularly on the prolific Stabroek Block, has led E&P players to allocate a sizeable portion of upstream spending toward further exploration as well as maturation of discoveries toward development, meaning Guyana will continue to be at the forefront of global upstream activity in 2023, Rystad said.
Guyana added about 1.8 Bboe of additional resources last year, according to Rystad Energy’s conservative approach, surpassing all other countries in terms of cumulative recoverable resources unearthed in the year. The fresh resources came from 10 new finds, nine of which were on Stabroek and the remaining one, Kawa, on CGX’s Corentyne Block and which added 99 MMboe.
The nine discoveries on Stabroek comprised Yarrow (74 MMboe), Sailfin (334 MMboe), Lau Lau (338 MMboe), Fangtooth (175 MMboe), Barreleye (246 MMboe), Lukanani (122 MMboe), Patwa (115 MMboe), Seabob (139 MMboe) and Kiru Kiru (105 MMboe).
Rystad said these 10 new finds have helped strengthen the already established discovery trend line and have seen the resurgence of a secondary parallel zone. They have expanded the play fairway with fields that are viable for commercial development, strengthening the ambition of Exxon Mobil and its partners CNOOC International and Hess of eventually deploying 10 FPSO vessels on Stabroek.
The Kawa discovery is also significant in that it was made away from Stabroek, outside of which exploration results to date have been disappointing, Rystad reported. Kawa de-risks future exploration on Corentyne, where operator CGX and its partner Frontera Energy have in recent days spud their second well, Wei-1.
Moreover, Guyana is in talks with Qatar, Britain, the United Arab Emirates and India on the possibility of allocating offshore blocks for oil and gas exploration under a bidding round this year, President Irfaan Ali said on Jan. 23. With more than 11 Bbbl of oil and gas discovered, the country has scheduled an auction of offshore exploration areas and said it would consider government-to-government talks with national oil companies.
Prior to that news, it was announced that Guyana's revenue from oil exports and royalties this year is expected to climb 31% to $1.63 billion, Finance Minister Ashni Singh said on Jan. 16, on higher output from the addition of a third production facility near year-end.
02.01.2023
