Guyana’s Petroleum Road Map – Guidepost 6: Indicators of unit (boe) cost from the U of T&T model of the Liza Field

Introduction

Today’s column evaluates the University of Trinidad & Tobago’s (U of T&T) modelling of the Liza Field Development. Next to Hess Corporation’s cost metrics that I introduced last week, this Conference Presentation has had the second most impactful influence on my choice of an indicative unit cost range for assessing Guyana’s expected petroleum revenues. The Hess Corporation’s Conference Paper (considered last week), is the most influential because ultimately it has wider coverage and is sourced from a senior partner of ExxonMobil and partners.

The U of T&T Paper was presented to the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Trinidad and Tobago Section, Energy Resources Conference, 2018. This Conference was themed Forging Ahead: Changes, Challenges & Opportunities. The Authors are K. Alleyne, L. Layne and M. Sourosh, all affiliated to the U of T&T.

Model: Key Features

As the Authors declare their “representative model was created using the following software: Petrel, Wellplot Digitizer, PROSPER, CMG and Microsoft Excel” (my emphasis). Petrel is a Windows PC software that “aggregates oil reservoir data from multiple sources”. Wellplot Digitizer is a web-based tool designed “to extract data from plots, images and maps”. PROSPER is used to model well bores.