GUYANA’s elections impasse has slowed the possible approval of the Payara Field Development Project (FDP) but the Department of Energy (DE) is using the time to ensure that needed FDP corrections are made.

On Friday, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Exxon Mobil Corporation, Darren Woods told investors on the company’s Q1 earnings call: “Unfortunately, the ongoing elections process and uncertainty around the next administration have slowed Government approvals of the Payara Development Plan.”

In a meeting with the media on Monday, DE Director, Dr. Mark Bynoe, said that the political situation has indeed caused some amount of delay but the DE is using the down time to allow Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd. (EEPGL) to correct preliminary issues arising in its FDP.

“Approving or discussing Field Development Plans do require the signature of the Minister. I could not expose my Minister, at this point in time, to a process that is incomplete. However, what I have said and what I am doing is that we are providing EEPGL with line of sight in terms of what are some of the issues emerging, because most issues will need to be addressed before one can discuss an approval or what we will do concerning the FDP process,” Dr. Bynoe said.

It is the hope that by the time Guyana resolves its electoral impasse, the process can move full speed ahead towards completion.

EEPGL, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is the operator of Stabroek Block and holds 45% interest. Meanwhile, the Payara Development project, located in the eastern half of the Stabroek Block, will see the drilling of up to 45 development wells which could take up to five years, with initial production previously set for early 2023.

Back in September 2019, EEPGL also submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the Payara Development Project to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The project marks EEPGL’s third field development in the Stabroek block and targets 180,000 to 220,000 barrels of oil per day, with anticipation to produce approximately 5,700,000 to 6,600,000 barrels of crude oil per month.

A third Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) vessel will be used during production which would be named ‘Prosperity’.

At the end of 2019, a four-month contract for consultancy services to support the oil and gas Project Development Evaluation for the Payara Field was awarded to United Kingdom (UK) based company, Bayphase Geologists, Engineers and Investment Analysts Limited (Bayphase Ltd.)

It covers areas such as an in-depth review of the Payara field development plan, environmental impact assessment and supporting documents.

Dr. Bynoe said that the review of the Payara FDP is fairly advanced, and, given the arising issues, the DE continues to engage with the operator in a collaborative manner before finalization of the comments to be shared.

The DE Head did not state what the issues are, indicating that they are still being addressed, and, once completed, the DE will disclose the changes made.

“It’s not fair for me to start discussing these in the public arena, because they are now being handed to the operator for them to address,” he said, adding:

“It is not unusual, it happened with Liza 1, it happened with Liza 2, where the consortium was forced to do an addendum to the submitted FDP and we are going the same route as we speak.”