US$582M deposited into Guyana’s oil account for third quarter – Govt.
Kaieteur News – US$582M was recently deposited into the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) from profit oil and royalty for the third quarter of this year.
Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance and the Public Sector, Dr. Ashni Singh
According to a Government Notice, the payments were made between the period July 1, 2024 and September 30, 2024. A total of seven payments were made, including two profit oil payments for Liza Unity, one profit oil payment for Liza Destiny and three for Prosperity. The Fund also received a single royalty payment- relating the second quarter production. This took the total profits and royalty paid in the third quarter to US$582,818,101.
It was reported that in the first quarter of 2024, the NRF was paid US$604M. This was followed by a US$778M payment in the second quarter. It therefore means that so far, for 2024, Guyana has received just over US$1.9B in revenue generated from the oil and gas sector.
In November last year the Prosperity Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel came on stream, adding over 200,0000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) to ExxonMobil Guyana Limited’s (EMGL’s) capacity. The oil giant has two other projects also in operation, the Liza One and Liza Two developments.
This year, a total of IS$1.5B in oil revenue has been approved for withdrawal. Up to October 4, 2024, US$1.150B was drawn down by the government. Notably, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh is required to publish receipts of all petroleum revenues paid into the NRF, in accordance with the NRF Act.
Government in its Mid-Year Report recently indicated that the petroleum sector grew by 67.1% in the first half of 2024, with total production reaching 113.5 million barrels during the period.
During the period under review, government reported that all three of the FPSOs underwent optimization and topsides debottlenecking, a process that allows for increased oil production. To this end, production at the Liza Destiny, Liza Unity and Prosperity vessels were recorded at an average of 157,000 bpd, 245,000 bpd, and 222,000 bpd, respectively, while reaching the highest collective rate of 644,000 bpd in June 2024.
It should be noted that the total earnings from the export of crude oil amounted to US$9.4B in the first six months of 2024, a US$4B increase compared with the same period last year. It should be noted that 75% of that amount was deducted by the Stabroek Block partners to recover their investments. To this end, the report states that US$7.5B in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) outflows was recorded, reflecting cost recovery from the oil and gas sector.
In addition to revenue deducted for cost, Exxon also received 50% of the profits from the Stabroek Block, in accordance with the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). As such, Exxon and partners bagged at least US$8.5B from Guyana’s oil and gas operations in only six months. This is a massive increase in cost recovery compared with the same period last year.
