The issue of upfront payments from ExxonMobil was not discussed when a team of executives from the US oil company met a government team yesterday, according to Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman.
“Insofar as upfront payments requests, that was not done by his Excellency the President. It never came up,” Trotman said in response to a question from Stabroek News at a press conference yesterday. Last November, Trotman had said that government plans to seek pre-commercial production payments from ExxonMobil to fund a number of projects but while the discussion is not happening at this time, it must happen. He subsequently denied that he had said so but a recording of his comments proved otherwise.
In May, ExxonMobil reported a “significant oil discovery” at its Liza-1 well offshore Guyana.
Yesterday, President David Granger, Trotman and other officials met with President of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Stephen Greenlee and his team.
Trotman told reporters that ExxonMobil has been doing seismic surveys since July and will wrap these up in February and there is likely to be further exploratory drilling later this year.
“We are still some ways off from production. The company continues to assess the scope of the Stabroek block and it is believed by experts in the industry that if you find one well of significant quantities, there are likely to be similar wells nearby,” Trotman said.
He related that at yesterday’s meeting, Greenlee briefed Granger on new developments taking place, plans for Exxon with regards to the Liza-1 well and the Stabroek block, and the exploratory work that will continue later this year. According to Trotman, Granger reaffirmed Guyana’s support for Exxon’s work and expressed hope that everything will go well.
The minister also disclosed that his ministry will be formalizing the foundations necessary for the establishment of a petroleum agency and will be paying keen attention to the lessons learnt in the region and further afield in this regard.
Meantime, in a statement, the Ministry of the Presidency said at yesterday’s meeting with the ExxonMobil team, Granger expressed government’s full support for the United States oil and gas giant, after the company reported that it will continue exploratory work in Guyana early in February.
“Exxon continues to be optimistic and positive. It is too soon to make predictions. They are still in exploratory stages, but what I can say is, so far, the results have been very favourable,” the President was quoted as saying.
The statement reported that Greenlee said with the expansion of the company’s operations in Guyana, it is necessary to provide an update to Granger. He added that the company is likely to have a growing presence in Guyana in the coming months and indicated that he is confident in their ability to bring value to the country.
“I wanted to talk to the President about our progress on the [Stabroek] Block as we have gone out and acquired seismic data and are preparing for a second drilling campaign. We wanted to share with the President, our commitment to the project. We also wanted to update him on our future activities both on the discovery that we made and future exploration. Finally, I wanted to talk to him about some of the work that is getting underway on our community programmes and socio-economic development opportunities,” Greenlee was quoted as saying.
According to him, the company was especially happy with the discovery made in Guyana and as such it remains committed to advancing exploratory work here.
“Last year, we made a discovery offshore Guyana and it is very promising… so we want to follow up with data collection, to understand the size and the commerciality of the discovery. We want to acquire new data so that we can fully assess the potential of the Block offshore Guyana for the value that it will bring to Guyana and ExxonMobil in the future,” Greenlee said.
ExxonMobil began oil and gas exploration in Guyana on March 5, 2015, drilling offshore in the Liza-1 well in the Stabroek Block. On May 20, the company announced that its exploration drill ship, the Deepwater Champion had made a significant oil find in the Block, about 120 nautical miles offshore Guyana.
