Guyana -- August 20, 2024

Locator: 48473GUYANA.

In the oil sector has there been any more exciting story than Guyana in the past five years? 

Seriously, has there been?

It's amazing: I found it interesting enough as far back as 2021 to post a very long blog on Guyana. Link here. 

Quick: where is Guyana located? Okay, a bit too tough. Let's start here, in which hemisphere is Guyana located?

• north or south?
• west or east?

Today (posted yesterday) RBN Energy has an update on Guyana. Link here. Full article is archived.

RBN Energy: Guyana's growing crude output increasingly finding homes among west coast refiners.

Guyana’s crude oil production is surging, a trend that is expected to continue through the rest of the decade, and with no domestic refining industry its exports are booming. Shipments of Guyana’s medium-density, sweet-ish crude to the U.S. have ramped up and are increasingly making their way to the West Coast, which relies on imports given its lack of easy access to domestic shale crudes and limited regional output. In today's RBN blog, the second in a series, we‘ll examine where Guyana’s barrels are ending up and how they stack up against competing grades.

So, where is all that Guyana oil ending up? West Coast, United States. Who wudda thought? How's it getting there?

There are three key routes: (1) the Panama Canal; (2) the Petroterminal de Panama Trans-Isthmian Pipeline (PTP) and associated terminals; and (3) a longer and somewhat riskier route around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.

Type of oil coming out of Guyana? Heavy.

This is where I track "kinds" of oil.

From RBN Energy:

Guyana’s crude supply with a gravity ranging from 28-33.5 API might complement the current pool of heavier crudes that are available from other imports or the Gulf of Mexico. Denser crudes like these have been in relatively tight supply for some time, largely because of OPEC+ curtailments, and volumes could shrink even more with Mexico seeking to eventually halt crude exports.

Based on location and weight of Guyana oil, who might be most at risk with regard to US imports? Saudi Arabia.