The independent Norway-based energy research and business intelligence company, Rystad Energy, has tagged Guyana as being among two other named countries and a region that will attract most of the growth in investment in the global oil & gas industry in 2022. The report also names Brazil, Australia and West Africa, as the other locations where much of the remaining investment in the sector for this year is expected to be focussed.
Rystad projects that this year, investment in oil & gas research will grow by 20% to around US$344.4 billion, up by 20% from last year. The disclosure also sets aside the earlier 8% projected increase in funding in the sector. The company also informs that the level of this year’ projected investment in the global oil & gas sector is the highest forecasted growth since 2008.
Apart from attributing the “higher activity” in the sector mainly to “high commodity prices,” describing the phenomenon as “the main driver” of the current “record-high investment growth,” a report in the British on-line newspaper, The Independent, pays specific attention to Guyana which it says “has experienced rapid growth in its oil and gas activity in recent years,” alluding to ExxonMobil’s disclosure of “three new discoveries for a total of eighteen (18) new discoveries since 2015.”
The report in The Independent also points to what it says is an ExxonMobil projection that “Guyana’s total production capacity is set to reach 340,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of this year, with further production set to come online within the next few years.”
Since the staging of the Glasgow Climate Summit in October-November last year, the oil & gas industry has come under increasing scrutiny for what the powerful global climate change lobby says is its continuing significant contribution to worsening anomalies in climate behaviour. The conundrum has become even more complex in recent months with countries in the west seeking to fill their anticipated energy shortage on account of moves to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas in response to Moscow’s hostilities in Ukraine.
Guyana, regarded as the precocious ‘new kid’ in the global oil & gas ‘block, reportedly anticipates “US$957,874,800 revenues in 2022, US$1,165,443,900 in 2023, US$1,335,315,100 in 2024, and US$1,781,842,700 in 2025,” according to figures reflected in the country’s 2022 budget.
