We explored the idea of the resource curse in six previous columns before analysing the cost aspects of the oil and gas contract. We took a break from this topic in the previous three successive essays. Last week’s essay looked at how recurring costs could have an interesting effect on the long-term average cost oil…
By now many Guyanese would have heard about the 14.25% effective royalty, which combines the 2% actual royalty enshrined in the contract, the 50-50% profit share and the 75% cost-recovery cap. According to Article 11 of the Petroleum Agreement between the Guyana government and ExxonMobil subsidiaries, the cap on cost recovery is monthly. This…
The previous column critically analysed the cost components of the production sharing agreement with ExxonMobil. We noted that the legal aspects did not cover all the possible cost scenarios, which is crucial for PSA-type contracts. In keeping with the theme of this series of essays, I argue the legal protection against cost uncertainty does not…
Economist Tarron Khemraj says that from all of the analyses he has seen of the oil deal for the Stabroek Block, Guyana will end up getting just around 37% of the gross revenues while ExxonMobil and its partners will cream off the rest. See more here
The previous six columns asked the question whether Guyana could escape the natural resource curse. We have looked at the issue from various dimensions. In particular, we have observed that initial conditions prevailing in Guyana must be taken into account when making such a prediction. The present structure of the production economy and limited economic…
The previous column explored how the lack of economic research capacity might have contributed to the lopsided contract in favour of ExxonMobil. One misconception that is often expressed in various Guyanese quarters is observers like yours truly never worked in the oil industry, therefore, we do not know about negotiating a PSA-type oil contract. Indeed,…
Making prediction in a complex and nonlinear world often involves identifying initial conditions and then sequentially reasoning (or solving) forward. One way of knowing how well Guyana will do with its newfound oil and gas resources is to consider the initial conditions that exist in the country today. In this column and future ones, I…
In the previous column we explored the possibility of Guyana becoming a petro state overnight. A petro state is one in which most government revenue comes from oil royalties and profit share. The government is then tasked with spending and distributing these funds among competing interests. The last column was sceptical about the Guyanese state’s…
The second part in this series addressed the question of how much money Guyana will likely receive. It is generally known today that the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) is quite favourable toward ExxonMobil. We tried to understand this within the context of the Anglo-American corporate governance framework, which sees a corporation as having the sole…
The previous essay established the developmental context under which we address the essential question of this series: could Guyana escape the natural resource curse? The best measure we have of development is perhaps the Human Development Index (HDI) and its iterations such as the Gender Development Index and inequality-adjusted HDI. At a minimum, escaping the…
