Guyana selects Aramco unit ATL to market crude

State-controlled Saudi Aramco's London-based trading subsidiary ATL has been selected to market 1mn bl of Guyana's crude entitlement, the South American country's natural resources ministry said.

ATL, which was among 15 bidders in the Brent-linked tender for Guyana's light sweet Liza grade, will market a cargo scheduled for 21-22 September loading.

"ATL was identified as the lowest compliant evaluated bidder at the price of $0.025/bl," the ministry said.

Other bidders included Shell, US firms Chevron and Hess, Norway's Equinor, and traders Gunvor and Glencore. Proposed commissions ranged from $0.02/bl to $0.26/bl.

It is not clear whether ATL will handle further loadings or when Guyana will hold another tender to market growing crude volumes.

The crude comes from the ExxonMobil-operated deepwater Stabroek block that landed Guyana on the global oil map when production kicked off in late 2019. ExxonMobil is producing 120,000 b/d and is projecting output from four projects on Stabroek to reach over 800,000 b/d by 2025.

The tender was the first under a new government policy that replaced bilateral marketing arrangements with "a more open and transparent" tender process, natural resources minister Vickram Bharrat said in August.

The tender was Guyana's third effort to line up a marketer in a competitive process. The government relaunched an original tender in August 2020 after cancelling a bidding round initiated by the former administration during a period of political uncertainty that followed March 2020 parliamentary elections.

Guyana sold 1mn bl of its share of the crude in July to India's state-controlled IOC under the last of the previous bilateral arrangements.

This was the seventh loading of its entitlement since ExxonMobil started production of 32.1°API Liza in December 2019 with partners Hess and Chinese state-owned CNOOC unit Nexen.

Guyana's first three 1mn bl cargoes in 2020 went to Shell. Hess picked up three more cargoes earlier this year.

Guyana's accumulated oil earnings since the start of production have risen to $436mn, Bharrat said in August.

The country's earnings include royalties from ExxonMobil and its partners, and are being held in a new sovereign wealth fund at the Federal Reserve of New York.

But the government says it has not yet touched any of funds, as parliament must approve their use.

By Canute James