No end to surprises from offshore Guyana and an ExxonMobil-led consortium, which have identified at least 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources, and catapulted the impoverished South America country firmly onto the global oil map.
The former British colony of Guyana, to the north of Brazil and on the Caribbean has emerged as one of the continent’s top oil producers and is poised to become a leading global energy exporter. Since 2015 an Exxon Mobil-led consortium has made a swathe of high-quality oil discoveries in offshore Guyana in the 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block, with the latest announced in July 2022. It is estimated those finds have uncovered nearly 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources in the Stabroek Block with further oil discoveries to come.
Exxon Mobil is investing heavily off the coast of Guyana expecting future production of some 1,2 million barrels per day of oil and gas by 2027. According to the company the fourth oil project production off Guyana will receive an investment of US$ 10 billion.
Liza Unity, an under-construction FPSO that will be Guyana's second offshore facility in production, remains on schedule for first oil in 2022, Hess Corp. announced. Guyana became an oil-producing nation in December 2019, when Exxon brought online the Liza Destiny FPSO.
A major group of indigenous people living in Argentine Patagonia are taking some of the world's biggest oil and gas multinationals to court for environmental contamination, Greenpeace said this week. The Mapuche are suing American giant Exxon, French company Total and the Argentina-based Pan American Energy, which is part-owned by BP.
Oil majors are set to gather in Rio de Janeiro this Friday to unveil bids for stakes in Brazil’s high potential offshore areas ahead of elections that are casting a cloud of uncertainty over the industry.
Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras aims to raise output as much as 10% to around 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 and cut net debt by US$10 billion, according to Chief Financial Officer Rafael Grisolia. The world’s most indebted oil company is on course to reduce debt to US$ 69 billion by the end of this year despite falling short of its US$ 21 billion asset sales target, Grisolia pointed out.
By Mathew Smith<br />
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After being caught up in major corruption scandals and suffering from what some have claimed was its worst economic downturn in 100-years, Brazil has pulled itself back from the brink. The economy commenced growing again in 2017 with gross domestic product (GDP) expanding by 1 percent and 2018 GDP growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be 2.3%.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its steepest decline since June 2016 on Friday, amid wider losses in United States markets. The fall came after a string of disappointing earnings reports from giants such as Apple.
For the sixth time Exxon and partners at the Stabroek block offshore Guyana are celebrating another major find in northern South American waters. In effect, Ranger-1 exploration well, the sixth find since discovering Liza in 2015, hit approximately 70m of high-quality, oil-bearing carbonate reservoirs some 60mi northwest of the Liza development.