Road Map: Why Guyana’s 13 to 15 billion barrels of oil reserves are on the cards

Introduction

Today’s column presents my justification for the “bullish estimate of 13 to 15 billion barrels of high quality oil as Guyana’s reserves potential.” Based on this estimated potential, I have gone further to predict Guyana’s daily rate of production (DROP) at full ramp-up (or operating at maximum/peak output) is likely to be as high as 1.5 to 2.5 million barrels of high quality crude oil per day.

These estimates are central to projecting Guyana’s expected petroleum revenues. The indirect method I employed to estimate Guyana’s DROP was indicated last week.

I mention “high quality crude oil” because of indications that, on average across all reservoirs, Guyana’s crude is “light sweet.” The referenced supporting statistics are an API >35 and low sulphur content — less than 0.5. These data are shown in Table 1.