A 20% increase in production in Guyana and the United States (US) Permian Basin helped ExxonMobil earn US$7.9 billion in the second quarter of this year.
The company’s second quarter earnings were announced on Friday.
The US$7.9 billion sum was lower than the first quarter earnings of US$11.4 billion. Further, the company said the earnings this year decreased by US$6.8 billion when compared to the second quarter of 2022.
Last year, oil companies benefited from significantly high oil prices. This year, those prices have dropped.
Nevertheless, ExxonMobil noted that production in Guyana and the Permian increased by a combined total of 20% compared to the second quarter of 2022. This, the company said, demonstrates “excellent operation performance”.
ExxonMobil’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, during earnings call on Friday, offered more details on increased production in Guyana.
According to him, the company has been able to optimise production in the Liza Phase I and Phase II developments in the prolific Stabroek Block offshore Guyana due to, at least in part, the design and build out of the project.
Those features, he said, allows the company to optimise production without compromising on safety. Already, Woods said the two Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) vessels that are producing oil in the Stabroek Block should produce 400,000 barrels of oil per day this year.
It was earlier projected that those two vessels would produce about 360,000 barrels per day at the Liza Phase I and Phase II developments.
This optimisation, the CEO noted, should continue at future projects.
“… the expectation that we have for ourselves… is that we are going to find ways to optimise,” he said.
Later this year, production at the Payara development in the Stabroek Block should start. The fourth project, Yellowtail, should come onstream in 2025 and the fifth, Uaru, should start producing in 2026.
