Dear Editor,
ExxonMobil Guyana Limited’s 2025 financial results, recently disclosed by Vice President John Colling, deserve closer public attention. The company reported revenue of roughly GY$1.7 trillion and profit before tax of approximately GY$1.214 trillion for 2025 — only modestly down from GY$1.255 trillion the previous year, despite a sharp drop in oil prices, from an average of US$82 per barrel in 2024 to US$68 in 2025.
The company’s own explanation for this resilience centres on production, not hedging: the startup of the One Guyana FPSO pushed sales volumes up from 88 million to 102 million barrels year-on-year, offsetting roughly a 17 percent decline in price per barrel. Operating expenditure also rose, to about GY$498.4 billion, reflecting the cost of bringing a fourth FPSO online.
I would venture a further hypothesis: that forward contracts may also have played a part in stabilizing revenue against this price swing. This is speculation on my part; I have seen no public statement from ExxonMobil Guyana confirming the use of hedging instruments in 2025. But it is worth explaining why the question matters so much for an industry like this one.
Oil is among the most volatile commodities in global trade, subject to swings driven by geopolitics, OPEC+ supply decisions, and shifts in global demand that no single producer controls. A company that sells purely at the prevailing spot price is, in effect, betting its entire revenue on forces outside its influence. Forward contracts exist to manage that exposure: by agreeing today to sell a defined volume of oil at a set price for future delivery, a producer can lock in revenue certainty months or even years in advance, regardless of where the spot market ultimately lands. This is why hedging is standard practice across the industry, from national oil companies to independent producers, and why airlines, refiners, and oil-exporting governments alike use similar instruments to smooth out the budget volatility that comes with commodity dependence. For a company managing capital-intensive, multi-decade offshore projects like Stabroek, predictable cash flow is not a luxury; it is what allows multi-billion-dollar investment decisions on platforms like Yellowtail, Uaru, and Whiptail to proceed on schedule even when prices wobble.
Given how exposed Guyana’s national oil revenue is to this same volatility, it is a fair question for citizens and regulators to put to the company directly: does it hedge any portion of its Stabroek output, and if so, how much insulation did that provide in 2025? Whether the answer turns out to be production growth alone or production growth plus hedging, the broader lesson for Guyana is the same. As the Stabroek Block matures towards its targeted 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030, the country should be asking what tools the operator and its partners are using, or could use, to protect both company and national revenue from the next downturn.
Sincerely,
Keith Bernard
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