ExxonMobil Tuesday evening sought to trump up benefits to Guyanese and local suppliers when it held a ceremony to mark the start of development drilling.
“We celebrate this significant milestone in our partnership with Guyana,” said Rod Henson, country manager of ExxonMobil.
“It has been a very and production year since the production agreement was signed.
“In just a short time, has grown local business capacity and investment money into the local economy,” Henson said at a ceremony held at Cara Lodge in Georgetown.
He added: “We and our prime contractors continue to build our Guyanese workforce which presently has created 585 new jobs.”
According to Henson, there are 60 Guyanese are currently working on the Noble Bog Douglas. In fact, he said, when the ship sailed into Guyana to begin work in March, four Guyanese were already onboard.
“Together with our contractors, we have utilised 227 Guyanese-owned companies, some small, some large, but all very important,” Henson added.
The company and its co-venturers have so far discovered estimated recoverable resources of more than 3.2 billion oil-equivalent barrels on the Stabroek Block.
The Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin was among those welcoming the new phases of development.
“A lot has been said, not always in a nice way, about what oil will contribute or not contribute to the future of our country,” Gaskin stated.
“I think there is a high expectation among our people, our Guyanese people, that oil will bring us benefits to us as a country and will improve lives in Guyana,” Gaskin said, adding that he believes that is “exactly” what is going to happen.
Gaskin said that the partnership with Exxon is a valuable one.
“So far, I believe it has been working well,” he declared while noting that three years from discovery to development is very short by industry standards.
Minister Raphael Trotman said Guyana has waited 50 plus years to remove the negative labels such as “third world” “backward” under-developed” and “developing” but oil will change that, he said, and Guyana will be a modern, peaceful and cohesive state.
Once production begins, Guyana will be producing as much as 120, 000 barrels of oil per day and that would be ramped up as other phases get underway, moving to as much as 500, 00 barrels per day.
Trotman said the arrival of the Noble Bob Douglas in March of this year to carry out the drilling of the 17 production wells, was the veritable starter’s signal that “the march towards the unveiling of our destiny had entered a new, unprecedented and exciting phase.”
Trotman added: “We have now come to a plateau before we make the final ascent to the summit – we have come also closer to that destiny that our founding fathers and mothers heralded at our independence.”
Liza Phase 1 is expected to generate over $7 billion in royalty and profit oil revenues for Guyana over the life of the project.
According to ExxonMobil, additional benefits will accrue from other development projects now being planned. Liza Phase 1 involves the conversion of an oil tanker into a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel named Liza Destiny, along with four undersea drill centers with 17 production wells. Construction of the FPSO and subsea equipment is underway in more than a dozen countries.
Liza Destiny will have a production capacity of 120,000 barrels of oil per day. A second FPSO with a capacity of 220,000 barrels per day is being planned as part of the Liza Phase 2 development, and a third is under consideration for the Payara development.
Together, these three developments are what will produce more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day, Exxon stated.
The Stabroek Block is 6.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers). Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited is the operator and holds 45 percent interest. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds 30 percent interest and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited holds 25 percent interest.
