–foreign analysts say country has appealing investment basin

–references openness to investors, government’s efforts to monetise resources to give back to citizens

GUYANA’S rapid development continues to attract the attention of persons on the world stage, and experts are convinced that the country will continue to grow as the oil and gas sector expands.

In a Platts Oil Markets podcast by S&P Global Commodity Insights, three analysts discussed the oil boom in Guyana, what the development means to the Caribbean region as well as the rest of the world, and the pricing trends and flows for Guyana’s top crude grades, Liza and Unity Gold.

Laura Huchzermeyer, manager of the Americas crude pricing team at Platts, which is part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, during the podcast, said if ten years ago someone had said Guyana would have been in the big league, one might have called it impossible, but now the country has defied the odds and has become one of the world’s largest oil producers.

“It has been fascinating in the recent years, to watch as Guyana has really taken off as a prolific oil-producing country,” she underscored, adding that Guyana’s newly-attained status took many by shock, especially since the nation is known for its agricultural products, bountiful rain forests and breath-taking waterfalls.

With all those advancements, Huchzermeyer said positively that development is definitely on Guyana’s horizons.
Starr Spencer, a member of the S&P Global Commodity Insights news team, said that Guyana has numerous remarkable traits, which make it an appealing investment basin.

These include the government welcoming foreign investors and their eagerness to monetise its oil basin in order to give back to the citizens and create other “cottage” industries as well.
“We’ve got two field developments currently producing. A third is going to come on later this year, Payara, and a fourth will follow in I think it’s 2025, Yellowtail. Uaru is the 5th in 2026, and Whiptail, which is sixth, it’s on the drawing board right now,” he said, adding that the development plan is expected to be submitted to the government of Guyana later this year.

“In fact, with the finds so far that they’ve evaluated, the resource potential of the basin is 11 billion barrels of oil, and that’s not including some recent finds that have been made, some of which are kind of big.

“So there is a lot, a lot of oil in that basin. And that’s even before they’ve started to redevelop some of the funds…” he further remarked.
Meanwhile, Patrick Harrington, touched on the fact that the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels are currently working above their nameplate capacity.

“It’s a country where, in 2019, there was roughly zero barrels per day being produced. All of a sudden, it’s up to 400,000 barrels per day, and the projection is that by 2027, we’re going to be at 1.2 million barrels per day of production. So, it’s really kind of exploded onto the oil scene,” he said while speaking on the oil boom in Guyana.

He also said that when the next crude, Payara, comes online, which is during the fourth quarter, production will be over 600,000 barrels per day.
Harrington added: “So, one interesting thing to note is that as Guyana’s production really explodes, that crude is coming into the market in the time of flux especially in crude flows into North America.”