THE Government of Guyana and global oil giants, ExxonMobil will on Friday sign an agreement, paving the way for the company to move ahead with its Payara project.

This was according to Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat in an invited comment on Tuesday.
The Payara Project, located in the eastern half of the Stabroek Block, is expected to see the drilling of up to 45 development wells, which could take up to five years, with drilling initially pegged to begin in 2020, and initial production by early 2023.

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 review of the Payara Development Project was previously conducted by the Bayphase Oil and Gas Consultants contracted by the Department of Energy (DoE) under the previous administration.

The new People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration, however, decided to review the work already undertaken by the DoE to ensure that the interests of all Guyanese are protected, and are in keeping with international transparency and accountability standards. The current review is being done by a team of international experts headed by Canadian Queen’s Counsel, Alison Redford.

President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, in sharing his views on those discussions, had said: “We have made tremendous progress… We are strong on a few issues, especially related to the environmental impact; fine for gas flaring; issue of reinjection of water… Those are things we are strong on, but they (stakeholders) are making steady progress, and very shortly, we can have a full assessment.”

Minister Bharrat had told this publication that when the process is completed, the review will be made public, so that a comparison can be done between the review conducted by the international experts and that of Bayphase.

The completion of the process should allow for ExxonMobil to meet its development timelines, inclusive of a Final Investment Decision (FID).
ExxonMobil is now firmly established in Guyana, operating an office in Georgetown, with numerous ongoing exploration and development operations offshore. ExxonMobil Guyana has made 18 discoveries since May 2015, and began production in December 2019 from the Liza Phase One development project.

The company is the operator of the Stabroek, Canje and Kaieteur Blocks offshore Guyana. Since 2015, ExxonMobil has increased its estimated recoverable resource base in Guyana to more than eight billion oil-equivalent barrels.