David Bamford, Director at IMMER Ltd

Context

Les Antony has published a remarkable analysis, based entirely on public data, of the Stabroek Block, offshore Guyana, for the current 4 FPSOs - oil production profiles, recycled and flared gas, voidage replacement, early decline onset for Liza 1, and so on.

The graphic below is his pie chart for the nearly 1 Tcf of gas produced from 12/2019 to 09/2025:

Assuming the ‘unspecified 6 Bcf’ is emitted, either by venting or leakage, then we can say that of 960 Bcf:

Flared Methane is 38 Bcf and Methane Emissions 6 Bcf for an overall ‘wasted methane’ volume of 44 Bcf, an intensity of 4.59%.

Both flaring and emissions are readily observable by satellites.

The two Sentinel-2 thermal images below show 2025 flaring from the Liza 1 and Yellowtail FPSOs (to the left are radar images of each FPSO):

And I note that Carbon Mapper obtained a methane ‘plume’ image from Yellowtail on 29th September 2025 and estimated the emission rate to be 2,700 kg/hour.

So what?!

When an operator decides to not have a gas export system but to recycle the produced gas into the reservoir, the decision as to the maximum throughput of the recycling system creates a ‘hostage to fortune’.

Model-based predictions of gas production rates from high GOR oil reservoirs come with significant error bars – if actual gas production rates are higher than the achievable throughput, the operators only recourse is to flare the gas.

To the disadvantage of the host government and the operator’s investors?

Industry Expert Q&A - David Bamford