Exxon ‘Not Going Anywhere’ Amid Venezuela Threats to Guyana

Can you give us some size and scope just how big the opportunity is in this part of the world? Yeah, Jonathan, thanks for the time and good morning to everyone. Personally, I think, Jonathan, just a little bit of context, you know, this energy concept, energy demand continuing to grow as the world's population grows and we continue to focus on lifting people out of poverty and out of gas, a fundamental component of that mix. And from our perspective, you know, that will also continue to grow. Bu

t very importantly, at the same time as we continue to grow it lower and lower the emissions intensity of that oil and gas and nowhere. Jonathan, a greater example than than right here in Guyana. You know, this is this is a deepwater you know, this is technology play at the extreme out of two and a half thousand meters of water. And we've been extraordinarily successful in a very short time. You think about, you know, today we're producing over 600,000 barrels a day that's gone from 0 to 600000

barrels in four years. And the average development time from when we discover a well to actually bringing it online and putting that oil in the market is less than five years. That's about half the industry average. So, you know, this is a is a is a country that is blessed with fantastic rocks, the rocks that produce the oil, you know, a great partnership, great supportive government policies. We're doing it with lower emissions. We're spreading the benefits across the country. It is it is the k

ind of success, the kind of opportunity that comes along pretty rarely in a lifetime. Do you expect this to become the top producing country for Exxon outside of the United States pretty soon? Well, I mean, it's it's certainly it right now it's in our top three deepwater developments around the world. And, you know, at the pace that we're continuing to grow, Jonathan, you know, over the next couple of years, it'll be right up there with the Permian in terms of the actual magnitude of the product

ion. So very competitive, very exciting and importantly, doing it with leading emissions intensity. There's a real question about some of these security concerns, given the fact that there have been some serious threats from Venezuela as Maduro talking about your exploration of the region. What kind of discussions do you have with the United States to ensure that your contract really gets enforced so that you're able to produce the amount of oil that you would like? Yeah, Well, you know, we're s

till in very folk. We've been very clear. We're staying very focused on executing our operations within our defined contract area. That's what we've been do and that's what we intend to continue to do. And, you know, as we talked about, this development has many years ahead of it and we're not going anywhere. So, you know, fundamentally, we're delivering and we're developing and we're continuing to spread the benefits to Ghana within our area of operations. The matter for discussion with the bor

ders is really a government matter. Of course, you know, we take the necessary precautions from an operational perspective, you know, to the extent we can. But but fundamentally, our focus is on doing what we say we're going to do, doing that within our approved contract area and continuing to do that. And that's the reason why we're talking about this, is because Venezuela's president was talking about barring you from exploring certain waters, in particular that it was talking about near Guyan

a, right off the coast that it claims as its own. Are you planning on exploring those areas? Is this a point of contention that you're talking to the State Department, or is that not in your purview and you can continue with the production that you have planned without that? Those those were those wells that I discussed are in our in our contract area. And we do plan on proceeding with them here in the coming years. But are you concerned about Guyana's ability to defend itself? It's not just the

rhetoric from Nicolas Maduro, it's the fact that we have seen in satellite imagery him building up his own military on the border. You know, again, that's honestly a metaphor for for the governments. Clearly, you know, given the nature of operations, were informed as to as to the nature of those discussions. We've been pleased with the discussions, were very supportive of Qantas position that this should be resolved through the ICJ process. And we'll continue to stay engaged with them. Liam, on

e thing that you mentioned earlier on the conversation is the technology required to explore these deposits. Liam I think that's really interesting because if you go back to I think it was 2018 where the IMF basically came out and said the terms of the 2016 deal between Exxon and the government in Guyana was too favorable towards Exxon, that the royalty share wasn't feasible enough for the government. Do you think the current situation actually to go back in time, say for five, six years, the cu

rrent situation justifies that existing agreement? Absolutely. You know, they the this is a risk reward business. And, you know, this was a front. You said it yourself, Jonathan. This was less than 2015, nine years ago. This was a frontier. Deepest water in the world type proposition that only companies with our kind of technology capabilities, our financial capabilities could take on. And the contract was appropriate for that risk. And as we've continue to explore, you know, we are successful i

n parts of the block, we are not successful in other parts of the block. So this remains a frontier area that is still very early in its exploration and its development stage. So this type of risk reward is very appropriate for the nature of what we're doing here in Guyana. Liam, you've talked about developments like this, helping countries like Guyana get out of poverty, certain elements of the West, and you've seen this from policymaker after policymaker, government after government want to ph

ase out fossil fuels before Guyana. And countries like China have have had the opportunity to develop the opportunity in front of them. Now, Liam, I just to your thoughts on that, and clearly as an oil producer yourself, you're going to have to talk to your book a little bit. But Liam, I do wonder what the Government's been telling you about that. Do they have to do this quickly? Are they worried about how fast the timeline they've actually got to explore and develop this? Yeah, I think it's the

mixed question. Jonathan, again. You know they'd be there. Yeah. First of all, we are developing these resources with industry leading emissions intensity. Secondly, you know, we will be providing natural gas here, I think, as you probably know, to supply domestic onshore power generation here in the next in the next year or so, this will get up and running. That in itself will have the electricity costs to the people of Ghana and comes with significantly lower emissions than the alternative, w

hich is imported fuel oil. So there is a whole value chain expansion potential from low emissions offshore oil to bringing gas into the domestic market and beyond, feeding a much lower carbon future of this country and allowing the country to grow and expand and spread those benefits into society at large, using gas as a low emission source of energy and potentially other, you know, alternative energies as the economy grows. But, you know, the whole the whole ability to get started and grow sign

ificantly and take gas and fundamentally transform the economy in a lower carbon way is right in front of our eyes and is something that the government of Ghana has been very clear about in their gas development plan. We spoke to President Ali a little bit later this morning. I think we catch up with him from that conference in about 45 minutes time. Big question that we've been asking and trying to find out the ultimate answer to is when we can expect a final investment decision to proceed with

a sixth offshore oil development in Guyana. How close are we to that decision now? I will I will let you confirm this with President Ali, of course, But we're expected to see that in the first quarter of this year.