That’s according to Guyana’s vice president, who said this week that the government will offer 14 offshore blocks in its next auction, including three deep and 11 shallow. “We have decided that to make the bidding more competitive, we will allow local and international companies to bid so that there are minimum technical and financial qualifications for the bids,” said vice president Bharrat Jagdeo. Under the new rules, production-sharing deals with winning companies will see profits split on a 50:50 basis, plus a 10 percent royalty rate and 10 percent corporate tax, Reuters reported, citing an executive by Jagdeo. Guyana currently receives only 15 percent of oil revenue plus a 2 percent royalty rate, which has been criticized as being too unfavorable for the country – one of the poorest in South America. There will also be limits on how many blocks can be awarded to a company, under the government’s new plans for the oil industry. Although a company could bid for as many blocks as it wanted, it would only be awarded a maximum of three. Signing bonuses for deepwater blocks were set at $20 million and bonuses for shallow water blocks were set at $10 million. Guyana has become the new global oil hot spot after Exxon and its partners Hess and CNOOC made a series of discoveries off its coast. The streak continues, by the way, with Exxon announcing two more discoveries in late October. This has brought the total since 2015 to more than 30 discoveries, with reserves in the billions of barrels. Production to date is 360,000 bpd, which is above design capacity, Exxon said in October. Plans are to increase it to over 1 million bpd by the end of the decade. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More top reads from Oilprice.com:
