Two of Guyana’s Three Oil Partners Have Put In No Cash for Two Years

Energy

Key Facts

—The filings. Hess and CNOOC reported no head-office capital contributions to the block for 2024 and 2025.

—The stakes. Hess holds 30 percent and CNOOC 25 percent, together a majority of the consortium.

—The operator. ExxonMobil, the 45 percent operator, put in GY$46.4bn ($222m) in 2025 and GY$105bn ($502m) in 2024.

—The reason. The block is self-funding, with oil sales covering the build through a cost-recovery clause.

—The mechanism. Up to three-quarters of the oil produced can be taken each month to repay costs.

—The critique. Analysts say Guyana effectively bankrolls the development yet is not treated as an investor.

Two of the three companies that own Guyana’s giant Stabroek Block have put in no fresh money for two years. Their own financial statements say so, and the reason reveals how unusual this oil deal really is.

The block off Guyana’s coast is one of the most valuable oil finds this century. Yet the partners that hold most of it are, on paper, spending nothing to develop it.

For a reader abroad, that sounds impossible. The explanation lies in a single clause that lets the oil pay for itself, and it has become the most contested feature of the whole arrangement.

What the Stabroek Block filings show

According to statements filed by the companies, Hess reported no contributions from its head office for the years 2024 and 2025. CNOOC, the Chinese state oil firm, likewise recorded no capital provided over the same two years.

Between them, the two hold fifty-five percent of the block. Hess owns thirty percent and CNOOC twenty-five, so a majority of the venture was funded, on paper, by neither of them.

Only the operator kept writing cheques. ExxonMobil, which holds forty-five percent and runs the operation, recorded head-office contributions of about forty-six billion Guyanese dollars, roughly two hundred and twenty million United States dollars, in 2025 and a far larger one hundred and five billion, about five hundred million, in 2024.

The gap between the operator and its partners is the tell. It points to how the money for this vast project actually moves, and where it comes from.

Why the partners pay nothing

The answer is a feature the industry calls cost recovery. Under the production-sharing deal, up to seventy-five percent of the oil produced each month can be taken by the companies to repay what they have spent building the projects.

In practice, this means the oil already flowing pays for the oil yet to come. Once production is running, the revenue it throws off covers the next wave of development, so the owners rarely need to send in new cash of their own.

Hess has said as much in public. Its chief financial officer, John Riley, told an interviewer that Guyana was self-funding, with each new production vessel delivering a step change in cash flow.

From the companies’ side, this is simply efficient finance. A project that pays for itself is the reward for taking the early risk, and the Stabroek partners took plenty of it a decade ago.

The argument over who really invests

Critics in Guyana see something less benign in the same numbers. If the oil pays for the build, they argue, then it is the nation’s share of that oil that is funding it.

The chartered accountant Christopher Ram put it bluntly on a governance programme. He said the profit Guyana gives up to cost recovery is, in effect, the country investing in the development, while getting nothing extra in return.

His point turns on a missing safeguard called ring-fencing. Without it, the revenue from producing fields can be used to pay for brand-new projects, keeping the cost meter full and delaying the day Guyana collects its larger share.

Ram argued the country has become an unacknowledged joint-venture partner, bankrolling the work without the recognition or the benefits that status would bring. He called it a sign of amateurish oversight of a contract of enormous complexity.

Why it matters beyond Guyana

This is not a quarrel confined to one small country. The Stabroek partners are among the world’s largest energy names, and Chevron has just absorbed Hess, putting it squarely inside this arrangement.

The read-through for investors is that Guyana’s contract remains generous to the operators, which supports their returns but keeps political pressure high. The forward signal is whether a confident new government revisits ring-fencing, the single change that would shift billions toward the state.

Why did Hess and CNOOC put no money into the Stabroek Block?

Because the block is self-funding. Under a cost-recovery clause, up to three-quarters of the oil produced each month repays development costs, so the partners rarely need to inject fresh capital of their own.

How much did ExxonMobil contribute to the Stabroek Block?

The operator reported head-office contributions of about forty-six billion Guyanese dollars, near two hundred and twenty million United States dollars, in 2025 and one hundred and five billion, about five hundred million, in 2024, while its partners Hess and CNOOC recorded none.

What is the concern about the arrangement?

Analysts argue that because oil revenue funds the build, Guyana effectively finances the development through the profit it forgoes, yet is not recognised as an investor. The absence of ring-fencing deepens the concern.

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