ExxonMobil has boosted its 2025 forecast for Guyana crude production to up to 800,000 b/d with plans for a fourth project on the deepwater Stabroek block, the company said in its latest environmental permit application.
The Yellowtail project will be able to deliver up to 250,000 b/d, making it the biggest in the South American country, following the Liza-1, Liza-2 and Payara projects on Stabroek.
ExxonMobil said earlier it was targeting output of 750,000 b/d from Guyana by 2026.
The government is even more bullish, with a projection of 1mn b/d by 2027, natural resources minister Vickram Bharrat said last month.
“Production is expected to begin at year end 2025 with an expected field life of at least 20 years,” ExxonMobil told Guyana’s environmental agency EPA.
The floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel that will work the Yellowtail and Redtail fields that make up the Yellowtail project will have storage capacity of 2mn bl.
ExxonMobil operates Stabroek with a 45pc stake. Its partners are US independent Hess with 30pc and Chinese state-owned CNOOC unit Nexen with 25pc.
Yellowtail is located about 19mi (30km) southeast of Liza-1 from where ExxonMobil started producing 32.1°API Liza crude in December 2019. Current output is 100,000-111,000 b/d from the 120,000 b/d Liza Destiny FPSO.
Liza-2 start-up remains on target for 2022, using the 220,000 b/d Liza Unity FPSO which will arrive from Singapore later this year, ExxonMobil has said.
The hull for the 220,000 b/d Liza Prosperity FPSO for Payara “is complete, and topsides construction activities have commenced in Singapore with a start-up target of 2024,” the firm said.
Six drillships contracted by ExxonMobil are working on Stabroek. The company anticipates at least six projects on line by 2027 and sees potential for up to 10 FPSOs.
ExxonMobil “plans to take significant steps” to ensure that technical glitches with gas compression that have dogged Liza-1 do not affect the three others it plans.
The company will take “significant steps to incorporate the lessons learned from the commissioning of the Liza Destiny into future projects, including Yellowtail,” it said.
