By Svetlana Marshall in New York
PRESIDENT of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Stephen Greenlee, committed to building local capacity in Guyana when he met with President David Granger on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Subsequent to his meeting with President Granger on Monday, Greenlee told journalists that ExxonMobil Exploration is aiming to have more than 90 per cent of its activities run by Guyanese when production starts in 2020.
Though he was unable to state the number of Guyanese currently in the employ of ExxonMobil, Greenlee gave the assurance that the numbers will climb once production kicks in.

“So our goal is when we are up and running in Guyana, and we have the projects, and we have the actual production activities occurring, our goal is to be like all the other places where we would have employed over 90 per cent nationals in our activities,” the ExxonMobil President said.

According to him, the development of local content is of significant importance to the oil-producing company, noting that more contracts will be made available to Guyanese contractors. “One of our top priorities is tried [sic] to build a local capacity,” he emphasised. Greenlee’s commitment comes days after Trinidadian Consultant Anthony Paul told Guyanese stakeholders that the local-content policy that the Government is currently drafting, must benefit all Guyanese. Local content can be described as the materials and workers that are used to make a product, in this case, the production of oil.

That aside, the President of ExxonMobil said that the Liza field remains one of the company’s top priorities, even as he disclosed its intention to start the drilling of additional wells soon. In June, the U.S. oil giant had disclosed that its final investment into the development of the Liza field stands at approximately $4.4B for the first phase.

The Liza Phase 1 development includes a subsea production system and a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel designed to produce 120, 000 barrels of oil per day.
With production expected to commence in 2020, less than five years after the discovery of oil in the field, Phase 1 is expected to cost just over $4.4 billion which includes a lease capitalisation cost of approximately $1.2 billion for the FPSO facility, and will develop approximately 450 million barrels of oil. The Liza field forms part of the Stabroek Block and is approximately 190 kilometres offshore in water depth of 1,500 to 1,900 metres.

An optimistic Greenlee said the company’s plans are progressing smoothly as it fulfils its obligation. “As I told the president, I looked around the organisation to see if they were any outstanding issues, and they really aren’t any. It is really out first priority and we are moving forward,” he posited.
The U.S. oil giant is currently drilling an exploration well, and according to Greenlee, the results would be available in the coming days.

“We are very close to getting down to our objectives, and the other programmes that we have in Guyana are going well too. I really gave the president a really optimistic view of how things are going at our operations in Guyana, and the work that we are doing with the regulatory agencies,” he said.

Overall, Greenlee said he is “very pleased” with the progress being made. Questioned about the company’s investment thus far in the exploration process, the ExxonMobil President said it ranges in the billions.

“It’s really hard to pull that number off from the top of my head, I will say probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars so far in the exploration campaign, and in the work that we are doing in development, all the engineering work and all that, it’s probably several hundred millions of dollars, and the development itself will be several billion dollars,” he posited.