By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com
The oil reserves of the two countries has captured the international oil industry’s attention. This is not only because of the sheer volume of discoveries, but also due to the extremely low breakeven prices, estimated to be US$35 per barrel and falling, associated with offshore drilling there.
The tiny South American countries of Guyana and Suriname are the focus of Latin America’s latest oil boom. A slew of oil discoveries by ExxonMobil since 2015 in its offshore-Guyana Stabroek block which now sees the global energy super major estimating that the block contains over eight billion barrels of recoverable oil resources, has captured the international oil industry’s attention.
By some estimates, breakeven prices in the Stabroek block have already fallen below US$35 per barrel. The Liza phase two development, which comes online next year, lifting production capacity of the Liza oilfield to 340,000 barrels daily, is expected to pump crude oil at a breakeven price of an extremely low US$25 a barrel. The quality of the discovered crude oil is also another factor explaining the considerable interest in the Guyana-Suriname Basin.