Guyana may resume talks with India to sell part of its crude
The South American nation’s vice president told Reuters the oil producer could resume talks with India for a deal to sell part of the Guyana government’s crude.
Earlier this year, Indian refiners purchased at least two test cargoes of Liza Light Sweet Crude from Guyana. But government-to-government negotiations over a term supply agreement stalled on the price and other contract terms, and Guyana later struck a one-year marketing deal with a unit of Saudi Aramco.
India’s oil secretary Tarun Kapoor said this week that the world’s third-largest oil consumer was forming a group that would bring government and private refiners together to look for better crude import deals.
Guyana produces 120,000 barrels of crude oil per day from a single floating production storage and offloading system (FPSO) through an Exxon Mobil-led consortium. The group has discovered about 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources off the coast of Guyana.
A second production facility, Liza Unity, is expected to come up by the end of the year, boosting production by 220,000 bpd, to begin operations in mid-2022. A third, Liza Prosperity, will add some 220,000 bpd by 2024.
“We have a lot of oil coming into the market because from the beginning of next year, we will have a new FPSO, which will produce twice as much as the current FPSO,” Guyana vice president Bharat Jagdev told Reuters late on Wednesday.
Guyana is ready to resume talks with India for future oil sales, but the Indian government will have to be “competitive”, Mr Jagdev said.
According to Refinitiv Eikon tracking data, Liza crude, which began to flow to the market in early 2020, has been exported by project partners mainly to Panama, where the oil is stored and later to Asia and other destinations. is dispatched.
Exxon also tests crude oil in its US refining system, while Guyana, which does not have refineries, has chosen marketing agents to allocate part of its production.
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