Guyana's revenue from oil exports and royalties this year is expected to climb 31% to $1.63 billion, Finance Minister Ashni Singh said on Monday, on higher output from the addition of a third production facility near year-end.
The South American nation also plans to inaugurate natural gas exports from its offshore fields, with at least 50 million cubic feet per day to be sold from the two production vessels currently in service, Singh said.
At Monday's presentation of the country's budget for this year, the finance minister called 2022 "a major year for exploration," with 11 oil exploration wells drilled and 10 new commercial discoveries.
The drilling results drove the nation's reserves to more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The country's oil production could reach some 810,000 barrels per day by 2025 with the startup of the third production vessel, he said.
A consortium led by U.S. producer Exxon Mobil Corp is responsible for all the country's oil output. The nation's oil and gas sector is estimated to have expanded by 125% last year, with a total of 101.4 million barrels of oil produced, compared with 42.7 million in 2021.
The county's Natural Resource Fund held $1.27 billion at the end of 2022 after withdrawing about $608 million to finance state development priorities, Singh said.
The government separately plans to evaluate this quarter a total of nine bids received through a competitive process for building an oil refinery in the country, he said.
(Reuters - Reporting by Neil Marks in Georgetown, Writing by Marianna Parraga/Editing by Gary McWilliams and Matthew Lewis)
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