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This comes as the super-major seeks to cut Latin America: Busy in Guyana
spending amid this year’s industry downturn, The US super-major ExxonMobil and its part-
despite only joining the consortium last year. ners in the Stabroek block offshore Guyana have
“ExxonMobil is evaluating all appropriate had a busy week.
steps to significantly reduce capital and operat- First, the group has raised its reserve estimate
ing expenses in the near term as a result of mar- for the block. US-based Hess, a non-operating
ket conditions and commodity price decreases,” investor in the project, revealed last week that
an ExxonMobil spokesperson told Pakistani the reserve estimate for Stabroek had been raised
financial daily Business Recorder. from 8bn barrels of oil equivalent to 9bn boe fol-
The company continues to pursue LNG lowing the new finds made at Uaru, Redtail and
import plans elsewhere in Asia, having signed Yellowtail-2 this year.
a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last John Hess, the CEO of Hess, said during a
week to develop an integrated LNG-to-power quarterly conference call that the partners might
project in the Vietnamese city of Hai Phong. eventually deploy some 10 floating production,
According to a joint press release with Japan’s storage and off-loading (FPSO) vessels at the
JERA, ExxonMobil has submitted a master plan block.
application with a project concept for consid- Hess went on to say that the break-even price ExxonMobil and
eration and potential inclusion in Vietnam’s for the three sections of Stabroek that have been its partners may
National Power Development Plan (PDP). Hai green-lighted for development – Liza-1, Liza-2
Phong City, for its part, has submitted a letter and Payara – was $25-35 per barrel of Brent eventually deploy
of recommendation to include power demand crude. These fields are “world-class by any meas-
with potential locations of power plants and ure,” he remarked. 10 FPSOs at the
LNG import infrastructure. The submissions Second, Guyana’s government is in negotia-
are awaiting government approvals. tions with ExxonMobil and its partners for the Stabroek block
Separately, the second train at Chevron’s Gor- supply of associated gas to the domestic market. offshore Guyana
gon LNG project remains offline, but the com- According to Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo,
pany said in its third-quarter earnings call that Georgetown is seeking fuel for a gas-to-power
weld repairs and testing on the train had been project and hopes to use associated gas from
completed. Chevron is now preparing to restart Stabroek to fire a new 300-MW thermal power
LNG production from the train in the second plant (TPP).
half of November. The super-major anticipates The plant is due to begin operations in 2023
taking Train 1 offline to inspect its propane and will receive gas via a pipeline originating at
heat exchangers for similar weld quality issues the Liza field. The government wants to select a
shortly after Train 2 is back in service. A similar landing site for this pipe before the end of the
approach will be taken with Train 3 after Train year and will begin construction at the site in
1 is back online following inspections and – if 2021, said Natural Resources Minister Vickram
necessary – repairs. Bharrat.

If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
the global LNG sector then please click here for the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click
NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor. here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor.

Week 44 04•November•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P9