Oil production consortia led by TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil bid on separate shallow-water oil and gas blocks in Guyana's first competitive auction, a government official said in a briefing on Thursday.
The official disclosed which companies had bid on which of the 11 shallow and three deep-water territories made available this year. No further details of the bids were disclosed.
“We now have to meet with the interested parties to have a negotiation on the contracting," Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said. He did not offer a deadline for completing the contract talks.
A consortium including France's TotalEnergies, Qatar Energy, and Malaysia's Petronas cleared the first hurdle for the S4 block, which measures about 1,788 square km (690 square miles).
An Exxon-led consortium that to date has discovered more than 11 billion barrels of oil on the deepwater Stabroek block has bid on the 1,707 sq km S8 block, Jagdeo disclosed.
Alistair Routledge, Exxon's head of Guyana operations, has said the company is not happy with the country's new Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), saying terms on relinquishing territory are too short and could prove challenging.
Jagdeo said no other bidders objected to the PSA terms and Exxon's push for changes may not be met.
“We may therefore have a situation where we may not be able to finalize with everyone because as you heard Exxon said they are not prepared to sign the PSA as it is currently structured," he said. "We have said if their demands are extreme then we will simply not proceed with the signing."
Other companies named approved bidders included Sispro Inc, a local consortium led by Guyanese women, which bid on the S3 shallow water and the D2 deepwater blocks.
Nigeria's International Group Investment Inc was ruled eligible for the S5 and S10 blocks.
An American and Ghanian partnership consisting of Liberty Petroleum Corp and Cybele Energy Ltd won the bidding for the S7 block.
Delcorp Inc, a Guyanese company, bid for D1 in collaboration with Watad Energy & Communications Ltd and Arabian Drilling Co.
(Reuters - Reporting by Kiana Wilburg in Georgetown; editing by Gary McWilliams and Christian Schmollinger)