Argus Guyana crude assessments and Argus AOM®

Guyana has rapidly emerged as one of the most important new crude supply sources in the Atlantic basin, making transparent and reliable price discovery for Guyanese crude essential. Argus’ Guyana crude assessments and the Argus Open Markets (AOM®) platform provide a clear, market-led reflection of value, capturing how prices for Golden Arrowhead, Payara Gold, Unity Gold and Liza evolve in real time.

Bringing Guyanese crude grades onto AOM® — with live price discovery spanning European and Americas trading hours — enables broad participation, deeper liquidity and more robust price signals that underpin benchmarks and commercial decision-making. This is particularly critical because Guyana’s crude flows increasingly shape Atlantic basin trade and refinery economics, with production due to rise above 1mn b/d by the end of 2026 and approach 2mn b/d by the end of the decade.

The Guyana crude stack builds on the successful launch of west African crudes on AOM® last year, where rising industry participation has helped move price formation away from opaque, inferred values and towards transparent, observable market activity. Together, these developments reinforce Argus’ role in bringing transparency and resilience to Atlantic basin crude markets at a time of rapid structural change.

Guyanese crude output began in 2019 at the offshore Stabroek block, led by an ExxonMobil-headed consortium. The US major owns a 45pc stake in the block, with Chevron accounting for 30pc — after acquiring US firm Hess in 2025 — and China’s state-controlled CNOOC the remaining 25pc.

The first successful project was Liza-1, followed by Liza-2, Payara and most recently Yellowtail, which was commissioned in August 2025. Three more projects — Uaru, Whiptail and Hammerhead — are already scheduled and approved. A fourth, Longtail, is pending approval with a scheduled start date before the end of 2030. Guyanese crude projects have so far run ahead of plan in terms of start-up and the quantity of oil delivered.

Four main crude grades are produced in Guyana — Liza, Payara Gold, Unity Gold and the newest, Golden Arrowhead. Importantly, the quality of these grades is medium to light — ranging from 29-37°API gravity — and they are relatively sweet, with sulphur content of 0.25-0.60pc.

This makes Guyanese crudes a key feedstock for transport fuels, including jet and diesel, which are increasingly sought after because of disruption to supply from the Mideast Gulf. It also means that they are more easily consumed in a broader range of refineries, unlike the heavier and sourer crude produced in neighbouring Venezuela.