Introduction
The primary concern of last week’s column was to get a handle on the extent to which lagging output in Guyana’s infant oil and gas sector, combined with expected price declines for Guyana’s crude exports provide a proxy indication of the shortfalls in Guyana’s export earnings, Government revenues and ultimately its GDP.
In that column, I lamented the dearth of up-to-date official data on Guyana’s oil and gas sector. I indicated that, in a globally competitive industry like oil and gas, information deficits impede efficiency, effective decision making and surveillance of the sector. In this regard, the recent release of data on Guyana’s third petroleum lift (1 million barrels) in early August, allows me to draw attention to the fact that, although the average price obtained from Guyana’s crude sale to date is somewhat below the price of US$64 per barrel, used in the IMF/Authorities Q4, 2019 modelling of Guyana’s economy through the coming decade; nonetheless, it is above the recent Energy Information Administration (EIA) market price for Brent crude. As readers are aware, this is the indicative price (dated Brent) from which Guyana’s Liza Crude is calculated.