Guyana’s economy is going like a rocket. President Irfaan Ali has raised Guyana’s annual growth estimate to 42.8% from a previously projected 34.8%, amid increased investment in both the public and private sectors (note that countries like Spain are growing at just over 2% and that rate is already considered high). The country’s economy grew by 49.7% in the first half of 2024, thanks to increased oil production. The oil sector accounted for 67% of that growth, Ali explained in a live broadcast on Saturday. The key to it all is oil, which has been a boon to this small country of just 800,000 people since 2019. Guyana produced about 113.5 million barrels of oil from January to June (nearly double the same period last year), and Oil sector expected to grow 56.4% this year.
The world’s biggest oil discovery in a generation is turning little Guyana into a robbery, one of the countries that, until the discovery, had one of the lowest economic growth rates in a region (South America) with high growth rates. But in a few years the story has changed. Guyana is now the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in South America. and has the highest growth rates in the world.
Today, projections indicate that Guyana is on track to overtake Venezuela as South America’s second-largest oil producer, after Brazil, the agency said. Bloomberg. Guyana and Venezuela have been fighting this battle for months. For months, tiny Guyana has managed to export more oil than Venezuela, since a country of only 800,000 people has virtually no need for crude oil for domestic consumption, which allows it to sell more crude oil abroad than Venezuela itself. However, in terms of pure production, Venezuela produces between 700,000 and 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day, compared to 630,000 for Guyana. However, Guyana’s ceiling is expected to be around 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day when all platforms are operational.
During his appearance, Ali also explained that the economy’s non-oil growth was 12.6% in the first six months of 2024. Cane sugar production fell by 60% in the first half of the year due to a prolonged drought, according to Ali.
Oil in detail
Guyana produced 113.5 million barrels of oil in the first half of 2024 and plans to surpass the 220 million barrel mark by the end of the year. “The oil sector has grown by 67.1%, with 113.5 million barrels of oil produced in the first six months of this year,” Guyanese President Irfaan Ali said.
According to the report published this Sunday, in the corresponding period of 2023 only 68.7 million barrels were produced. This increase is largely due to the implementation of a third floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) in the Stabroek block, where daily production averaged 624,000 barrels per day (b/d) in the first half of this year.
This figure is almost double that reached during the first half of last year, when 380,000 b/d were produced. The Guyana government expects the sector to grow by 56.4% this year, compared to 44.7% forecast at the time of preparation of the 2024 budget.
In addition, Total revenue from crude oil exports amounted to $9.4 billion in the first half of the year, an increase of $4 billion compared to the same period in 2023.
ExxonMobil, through its local subsidiary Esso Exploration Production Guyana Limited, is the operator of the Stabroek block and holds a 45% interest in it. The American oil company is also carrying out the project in this block.or Yellowtail and it is estimated that when it comes into service, production will reach 810,000 b/d..
Additionally, Exxon has already received approvals for its fifth and sixth projects, Uaru and Whiptail. The latter would allow Guyana to produce about 1.2 million or 1.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2027. Guyana has been experiencing an economic revolution since the discovery of oil off its coast in 2015, with reserves of more than 11 billion barrels.
