Invest Guyana schematic based on U.S. Energy Information Administration geography, May 2024. Location only; not to scale.
The Jaguar vessel being built for Guyana’s Whiptail oil development has passed the 75% completion mark, according to SBM Offshore’s 12 November trading update. The builder says it has completed the campaign to lift the topside modules onto the vessel and is continuing integration and commissioning work. It still lists 2027 for vessel delivery and expects first oil that year. Those are separate milestones; the update does not give a month for either.
The change since August is the reported completion band. In its half-year results, SBM put Jaguar above 50% and below 75% and said all process modules had already been lifted aboard. The November update puts the vessel above 75% and below 100%. It does not disclose an exact percentage or say that the vessel has been handed over, installed offshore or put into production.
The topsides house the equipment that processes oil and gas above the hull. Lifting the modules into place is a construction milestone. Connecting and testing the systems that run through them is a separate part of getting a production vessel ready.
What the vessel adds
Jaguar is the floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, for Whiptail, the sixth development in the ExxonMobil-operated Stabroek Block. ExxonMobil’s 2024 investment decision described Whiptail as a US$12.7 billion development with up to 10 drill centres and 48 production and injection wells. It expects the project to add approximately 250,000 barrels a day of oil production capacity. That figure describes the project’s designed scale, not the volume it will produce when operations begin.
SBM’s contract announcement says the vessel is also designed to treat up to 540 million cubic feet of associated gas per day. That is equipment capacity, not a commitment to deliver that gas ashore. SBM’s agreement covers construction and installation, with ownership of the vessel to transfer to ExxonMobil Guyana before installation. The company separately announced US$1.5 billion in construction-phase financing for Jaguar in November 2024. That financing relates to the vessel; it is not the cost of the full Whiptail development.
What to watch next
A completion band tells suppliers and investors where the build stands, but it does not tell them when Jaguar will be installed offshore. The better signals are vessel handover, arrival offshore and installation, followed by confirmation of first oil and then the pace of production ramp-up. A marine-services company planning crews or equipment, for example, needs a confirmed work order and mobilisation window. The percentage in SBM’s report does not establish either.
Whiptail should also be kept separate from Longtail, another Stabroek development in SBM’s update. The company says Longtail’s front-end engineering and design work is progressing. That is a different stage from Jaguar’s construction and commissioning and does not amount to a new development approval or final investment decision. For a broader view of how the projects fit together, see Invest Guyana’s major projects tracker.
