Page 4 - AsianOil Week 43 2021

AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil

Guyana could resume crude

talks with India, VP says

POLICY GUYANA is prepared to resume talks with a result of differences of opinion over contract
India on future crude oil deliveries, the country’s terms, including pricing. Subsequently, the Guy-
Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo has said. anese government signed a year-long marketing
Since the country is on track to see crude out- contract with a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the
put rise next year, it is willing to negotiate a new national oil company (NOC) of Saudi Arabia.
supply agreement with India, Jagdeo told Reu- According to Jagdeo, Guyana is now ready to
ters last week. “We have much more oil coming return to the negotiating table with India, despite
on the market [in 2022] because [as of] early the failure of earlier talks. He stressed, though,
next year, we will have the new FPSO, which will that Georgetown would expect the Indian gov-
be producing double the amount [of] the current ernment to make a “competitive” offer.
FPSO,” he said. India is the world’s third-largest oil con-
He was referring to plans for the launch of a sumer. The South Asian country’s government
new floating production, storage and off-load- is looking to bring state-run and private refinery
ing (FPSO) vessel at the offshore Stabroek block. operators together into a newly created group to
ExxonMobil, the operator of the project, has negotiate better crude import deals, Oil Secre-
already installed one FPSO, the Liza Destiny, tary Tarun Kapoor said recently.
at the Liza-1 section of the block and is sched- Under the terms of its agreement with Exx-
uled to bring a second unit online for the Liza-2 onMobil and its partners, the Guyanese govern-
development project in early 2022. ment is entitled to a share of the oil extracted
Guyana has sold several cargoes of oil from from the Stabroek block. Georgetown exported
the Liza-1 field to India since the beginning of its first cargo of Liza-1 crude in early 2020, just a
this year, and officials from both countries have few months after the Liza-1 field began produc-
expressed interest in a longer-term deal that tion in December 2019.
would allow for regular deliveries. However, As noted above, ExxonMobil is slated to
talks between the parties stalled in August as begin commercial development at Liza-2 early
next year. It will then launch its third develop-
ment project at Payara in 2024, followed by Yel-
lowtail in 2025.
Stabroek is thought to contain around 10bn
barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable
reserves. Liza-1 is already yielding about 120,000
barrels per day of crude, and Liza-2 and Payara
will produce up to 220,000 bpd each. Yellowtail,
meanwhile, is set to yield up to 250,000 bpd.™

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Indonesian deepwater gas

field hit by production issues

PROJECTS & ITALIAN major Eni’s deepwater Merakes natu- “There’s a subsurface issue with one of the
COMPANIES ral gas field offshore Indonesia may not produce wells in Merakes, we are working to fix it,” Wirato
at full capacity for up to six months follow- told Reuters. While production is expected to
ing technical difficulties at one of its five wells, return to 50% of previous levels within the next
upstream regulator SKK Migas warned this few days, the official added that it might take six
week. months before output fully bounces back.
SKK Migas’ deputy head of operations, Julius Eni started production from Merakes, which
Wirato, said on October 28 that production was lies in the East Sepinggan block offshore Indo-
expected to restart in the next couple of days fol- nesia, in April. East Sepinggan is located in East
lowing work to remove a sand blockage at one Kalimantan’s Kutei Basin in around 1,500 metres
of the wells. of water. Eni operates the block with a 65% stake,

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 43 28•October•2021