Guyana set to pass one million barrels a day as fifth oil vessel arrives

GEORGETOWN, Guyana. Guyana will soon export more than a million barrels of oil a day once its fifth offshore field is commissioned, officials said this week.

The Errea Wittu, the floating production, storage and offloading vessel for the Uaru field, is expected to arrive this week from a shipyard in Singapore. It will handle an additional 250,000 barrels a day, adding to the 900,000 barrels produced by the four fields operating since late 2019.

Guyana would become the first Caricom member to join the million-barrel club when production begins in the last quarter of 2026. Other regional producers include Trinidad, Suriname, Barbados and Belize.

Suriname, which shares the offshore basin with Guyana, is expected to begin production in 2028.

Bigger share for Guyana

President Irfaan Ali said the vessel’s arrival would “push national output above one million barrels a day for the first time”, with first oil targeted for the fourth quarter.

He said Guyana’s share of oil would increase because operator ExxonMobil and partners Hess-Chevron and CNOOC had recovered their investment of more than $50 billion. Higher global oil prices, linked to problems in the Strait of Hormuz and the war between the US and Iran, sped up cost recovery.

“Guyana’s share of oil has increased from 12.5% to 39.8%,” Ali said. “This has occurred because the cost bank has been recovered two years earlier than originally expected.”

He said 75 of every 100 barrels produced had previously gone to cost recovery, compared with about 20 today, with the remaining profit oil split evenly between Guyana and the companies.

The consortium is preparing to commission two more fields by 2028, officials said.