Guyana’s Infant Oil and Gas Sector: The IDB’s application of IMF’s fiscal analysis model for crude oil production

Introduction

As promised last week, today’s column begins with my presentation of a simple schedule depicting the sequencing of the five projects of ExxonMobil and its partners around which the IDB has modeled Guyana’s oil and gas sector to 2025 in its recent report, ‘Traversing a Slippery Slope: Guyana’s Oil Opportunity, 2020.’ The schedule is intended solely for readers’ convenience, as I have already provided a narrative description of the data last week.

It should be recognized that, explicitly and implicitly, the IDB’s modeling exercise does not provide for: 1) any crude oil production scheduled to come onstream beyond 2025; 2) any other oil projects coming onstream in Guyana before 2025; 3) the prevailing PSA to be substantially modified before 2025; and that 4) Exxon Mobil and its partners remain as the leading international oil company (IOC) producing contractor.