Chevron's purchase of Hess in July 2025 gave it a stake in ExxonMobil Holdings Corp.'s offshore ventures in Guyana. Soon after, Chevron opted not to proceed with additional studies on the deep water port, according to Bechtel's Guyana manager, Harry Pastuszek. He said Hess had paid for the early-stage front end engineering and design and had a notional plan to continue funding alongside the government, but Chevron declined to move forward. Chevron declined to comment.
Bechtel wrapped its preliminary front end engineering and design in 2023 with Hess support. Pastuszek said Bechtel is presently doing a feasibility review for the government to evaluate how an Atlantic port in Guyana could open access to northern Brazil by sea, updating analysis first done a decade ago by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Bruce Ellsworth, the US embassy in Guyana's senior commercial officer, said the US Export-Import Bank presented a letter of interest to finance a three phase engineering design program "hopefully very quickly after the feasibility study is done." President Irfaan Ali recently noted that Qatar has signaled interest in helping fund construction of the deepwater port.
CrossBoundary Group, an investment adviser, is carrying out the feasibility study. Deputy regional head Jamie McInerney said that shipping cargo from Manaus or other parts of northern Brazil along the under-construction road from the Brazil border to the new port "could be a shorter, more reliable route for manufactured goods" than southeastern Brazilian ports. He is compiling data to size demand, throughput, and potential revenue and cash flow, adding, "We will look to put some hard numbers on the demand and potential throughput for such a facility and then, of course, also look at what sort of revenue and cash flow that type of facility could possibly generate," while noting it remains to be seen if "what is a very expensive piece of infrastructure is bankable."
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A Berbice site would need a roughly 100 kilometer dedicated "superhighway" to move cargo to Georgetown, said Guyanese shipping executive Chandradat Chintamani. The site is intended to backstop ExxonMobil's offshore oil and gas operations with logistics support. Pending government approval, ExxonMobil's Longtail project is designed for daily capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas plus 290,000 barrels of condensate; current production offshore Guyana stands at roughly 900,000 barrels of oil each day.
According to shipping executive David Fernandes, the port should provide 10 to 12 meters of natural draft - more than the 9 meters at Port Georgetown - so Panamax ships of up to 30,000 tons can call. He said the study will outline what is feasible in Guyana and show that the country can act as a transshipment point for northern Brazil.
If the study proves out traffic and cash generation - in plain English, steady revenue that can support financing - the port could become a trade shortcut for northern Brazil and a services base for Guyana's expanding offshore sector.
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