Guyana seeks oil marketer ahead of Liza launch

Guyana's government is preparing a tender for an agent to market its share of crude from the ExxonMobil-led Liza project, and will sign a crude lifting agreement soon, energy department director Mark Bynoe said today.

First oil from the project is expected in December, starting with around 120,000 b/d and ramping up to 750,000 b/d in 2025.

The first lifting will go to ExxonMobil in order to ensure crude quality going forward, Bynoe said, with the government's first share to be lifted in late February or March. Once the 120,000 b/d volume is reached, each batch for the four stakeholders would be about 1mn bl every eight to 10 days, he said.

The agent that Guyana plans to contract will market the crude on a fee-per-barrel basis. The energy department has already contracted commercial and crude marketing specialists, and plans to sign contracts with petroleum accounting and contract administration specialists soon, Bynoe said.

A fourth drilling rig from contractor Noble is expected to arrive on the offshore Stabroek block, which encompasses the Liza project, by 15 November, Bynoe said.

ExxonMobil recently announced a 14th discovery at Stabroek, boosting the total estimated recoverable reserves to more than 6bn bl of oil equivalent (boe).

The US major's Stabroek partners are US independent Hess and Chinese state-owned CNOOC unit Nexen.

Phase 1 will use Liza Destiny, the first floating, production, storage and offloading unit (FPSO), which ExxonMobil stationed at Stabroek in late August. Liza Phase 2, sanctioned in May 2019, will use the Liza Unity FPSO to produce up to 220,000 b/d, with first oil expected by mid-2022, Hess has said.

In today's press conference, Bynoe said associated natural gas from the offshore projects could begin to reach Guyanese soil by 2023-24 for power generation.

He added that the government hopes to have a local content policy in place by the end of 2019.