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VP says Guyana may use unassigned

offshore blocks to establish NOC

GUYANA’S government may establish a clear [that] we support accelerated exploration,
national oil company (NOC) on the basis of and our incentive regimes will reflect that sup-
unassigned offshore blocks, according to Vice port for accelerated exploration.”
President Bharrat Jagdeo. The vice-president did not describe the exact
In a speech marking the opening of the nature of these incentive regimes, but he did
International Energy Conference and Exhi- indicate that Georgetown was prepared to make
bition (IECE) in Georgetown on February 16, changes as necessary in order to keep explora-
Jagdeo indicated that the Guyanese government tion work moving forward at a rapid pace. This
had not yet decided exactly how to dispose of flexibility in policy will apply to matters such
the offshore sites that have not been licensed to as production-sharing agreements (PSAs), he
any specific investor. The government is ready added.
to consider other options, such as the bidding “[We] have to try to keep the regimes evolv-
round it has proposed to stage in the third quar- ing and our regulatory approvals at a pace so that
ter of this year, and has already received a num- we don’t become a humbug on the development
ber of proposals, he stated. of the industry and slow down the pace ... That’s
Nevertheless, he said, Georgetown wants to important for us from an investment perspec-
plan ahead of time rather than enter into nego- tive. So the physical regimes, the new PSA, all of
tiations with whichever international oil com- these issues evolve in the direction not to remove
pany (IOC) happens to show up first. the incentives for fast-paced exploration nor a
“At some point in time, the remaining blocks decent return on capital,” he commented. ™
which we have, many people are asking: ‘When
can we access these blocks or some concession
offshore?’ In the past, it was [on a] first-come,
first-served basis. Since we have found oil, we
have made it clear that we will either go to an
auction sometime in the third quarter of this
year, with or without seismic [surveys] done on
our part. That decision still has to be made in
government or alternatively, use those blocks to
form a national oil company,” he was quoted as
saying by OilNOW.gy.
Jagdeo did not say when Georgetown might
decide whether to proceed with the bidding
contest or change course and form a state-
run oil company. He did go on to say, though,
that one of Guyana’s biggest priorities in the
upstream sector was to speed up work on explo-
ration projects designed to determine the size of
the country’s hydrocarbon reserves.
“[In] Guyana’s case, we support accelerated
exploration,” he declared. “We are making it The next bidding round will include two sites (Image: Kaieteur News)

CGX, Frontera put Demerara drilling on hold

CGX Energy and Frontera Energy have dropped their intentions in a joint press release on Feb-
plans to drill an exploration well at the Deme- ruary 14, saying they had decided against going
rara block offshore Guyana this year in order to ahead with exploration drilling at Demerara this
focus on another prospect in the same basin – year. The partners had said in February of last
Corentyne, where the partners recently discov- year that they hoped to drill the Makarapan-1
ered oil in the Kawa-1 well. well at that block, which lies to the north-west of
The two Canadian companies announced Corentyne, in 2022.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 07 17•February•2022