In a striking transformation, the small South American country of Guyana — until recently one of the continent’s poorest nations — has entered the world’s top 10 richest countries by GDP per capita. In just one decade, Guyana has moved from its first oil discovery to producing nearly 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block. This achievement has come despite an unbalanced production-sharing agreement that heavily favors the ExxonMobil-led consortium controlling the oil concession, yet it has still delivered an extraordinary economic boom. However, the speed of this growth and the scale of oil income are raising concerns that Guyana may fall victim to the so-called “oil curse.”
In a recent ranking of the world’s richest countries based on 2025 GDP per capita projections adjusted for purchasing power parity, Guyana placed tenth globally, compared with 107th just a decade ago. The former British colony now ranks behind wealthy nations such as Brunei, Switzerland, and Norway, while unexpectedly surpassing the United States, the world’s second-largest economy.
Guyana’s GDP on a purchasing power parity basis has surged since oil production began in December 2019. According to International Monetary Fund data, GDP has expanded sevenfold, rising from $10.69 billion that year to a projected $75.24 billion by 2025.
This massive expansion briefly made Guyana the fastest-growing economy in the world. Between 2022 and 2024, the country — with a population of fewer than one million — recorded annual growth rates of 63.3%, 33.8%, and 43.6% respectively, the highest globally in each of those years.
Although growth has slowed in recent months, despite rising oil output following the start-up of the Yellowtail project, Guyana’s economy is still expected to expand by 10.3% in 2025, making it the world’s third-fastest-growing economy this year.
Latest government data show Guyana currently produces around 900,000 barrels per day, making it the third-largest oil producer in South America after Brazil and Venezuela. Output is expected to continue rising as Exxon develops three additional projects in the Stabroek Block — Uaru, Whiptail, and Hammerhead — alongside a fourth proposed facility known as Longtail, which is still under regulatory review.
Once these three projects come online, between 2026 and 2029, they are expected to add 650,000 barrels per day of capacity, lifting Guyana’s total potential production to around 1.5 million barrels per day.
A fourth facility is also under development but has yet to receive final approval. The Longtail project, discovered in 2018, is the fourth discovery by the Exxon-led consortium in the Stabroek Block. Unlike earlier projects, Longtail — with an estimated cost of $12.5 billion — will focus on natural gas and condensate production. The project is currently undergoing environmental assessment, with Exxon expecting a final investment decision by the end of 2026. If approved, production would begin in 2030, adding up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and 290,000 barrels of condensate, pushing Guyana’s total hydrocarbon output above 1.7 million barrels per day.
As these offshore assets come onstream, oil production will further boost the former British colony’s GDP. The IMF expects Guyana’s GDP, on a purchasing power parity basis, to more than double between 2025 and 2030, rising from $75 billion to $156 billion. For a country with fewer than one million people, this equates to GDP per capita approaching $193,000. On this measure, Guyana would become the world’s second-richest country after Liechtenstein, ahead of Singapore. However, such extreme concentration of wealth from a single resource — oil — has intensified concerns over the risk of the oil curse.
The “oil curse” refers to the phenomenon in which resource-rich countries become excessively dependent on crude oil revenues, often leading to weak governance, corruption, mismanagement, democratic erosion, political instability, and ultimately internal conflict. Venezuela is a prominent example, where decades of over-reliance on oil undermined economic development, destabilized the country, and culminated in dictatorship and economic collapse.
Against this backdrop, the Stabroek Block — estimated to contain at least 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources — has become a focal point for Caracas. Following Exxon’s series of world-class offshore discoveries, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro escalated hostile rhetoric and threats in an effort to reclaim the long-disputed Essequibo region. Roughly the size of the US state of Georgia, Essequibo accounts for two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is rich in precious metals, diamonds, copper, iron, aluminum, bauxite, and manganese.
The prolific Stabroek Block lies within Guyana’s territorial waters in the disputed Essequibo region, which Venezuela has claimed since its independence. Over the past three years, Caracas has intensified efforts to reassert control over the area, including threats of invasion. The Essequibo border has seen repeated clashes between the Guyanese military and Venezuelan criminal groups, while Venezuelan naval vessels have entered the Stabroek Block to harass and threaten floating production, storage, and offloading vessels operating there.
Concerns are growing that Guyana — a developing country with a history of corruption — lacks the governance capacity and institutional stability needed to manage the enormous wealth generated by this unprecedented oil boom. Questions are already emerging over how Georgetown is spending the massive oil revenues flowing into state coffers. The government has launched an ambitious infrastructure program, allocating $1.2 billion for public works in 2025 to fund new roads and bridges, develop a world-class deep-water port, and expand public facilities such as hospitals. Nonetheless, there are widespread fears that many Guyanese citizens are not benefiting from the economic surge.
Despite rapid growth, a large share of the population continues to live below the poverty line. Analysts estimate that up to 58% of Guyana’s population remains in poverty, although precise figures are difficult to establish due to limited official data. The World Bank estimated in 2019 that 48% of the population lived below the poverty line. Community leaders argue that oil revenues have yet to reach the poorest communities, particularly in rural areas.
These concerns are compounded by Guyana’s growing dependence on volatile global energy markets at a time when oil price prospects appear increasingly uncertain. Benchmark Brent crude prices fell 17% over the past year, directly affecting oil revenues. Analysts at major financial institutions expect Brent prices to fall to around $30 per barrel by 2027 due to global oversupply. The rapid development of Guyana’s offshore fields is unsurprisingly one of the key contributors to the sharp rise in non-OPEC global supply growth.
This will weigh heavily on Guyana’s newfound oil wealth. As global oil prices decline amid oversupply, the country’s oil revenues will shrink — a problem exacerbated by the fact that 75% of production from the Stabroek Block is classified as cost oil, meaning it is excluded from royalty and profit-sharing calculations with the state. While this may not be enough to derail the current boom in the short term, it carries significant risks of corruption, mismanagement, unbalanced development, and long-term damage to an economy that is becoming ever more dependent on oil.
