ExxonMobil only needs 5 oil vessels

If ExxonMobil is allowed to continue with its current pace of development, it will only need five Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels to meet production capacity of a million barrels of oil per day in the Stabroek block.
This would significantly surpass the company’s current Stabroek block production rate target. In its September 30 statement announcing it would proceed with the Payara development, ExxonMobil said last year, “The 18 discoveries on the block to date have established the potential for at least five FPSO vessels producing more than 750,000 barrels of oil per day by 2026.”
So far, ExxonMobil has operationalised one approved development, Liza Phase One. The nameplate capacity for the FPSO operating there, the Liza Destiny, is 120,000 barrels of oil per day. Its production level has been below that amount for a significant portion of time between first oil in December, 2019 and today, due to issues with the gas compressor system for the oil ship. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had last year slashed ExxonMobil’s production to keep flaring levels low, while ExxonMobil worked on repairing the defective equipment.
After it reported fixing the equipment in December, 2020, flaring was reduced to pilot levels – the minimum level of flaring required to maintain a safe operation – and the company’s production ramped up.