Guyana: More lessons gathered from global experiences with Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF)

Today’s column continues the presentation of lessons Guyana can learn from global experiences with oil and gas-based SWFs. Two further lessons (4 and 5) are added to the three which were presented last week. Lessons 4 and 5 focus respectively, on national objectives and design rules. Lesson 4 (Schedule 4) Schedule 4 lists seven national…

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Guyana’s oil & gas: Drawing lessons for its intended Sovereign Wealth Fund

Today’s column attempts to draw lessons from global experiences with Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), operating in the oil and natural gas sector. This effort is intended to aid my ongoing examination of Guyana’s impending development of a robust oil and natural gas sector. Today, such SWFs constitute an important  subset of SWFs found in the…

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Aspects of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Guyana-type economies

Following last week’s discussion of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) as a mechanism for avoiding and/or controlling the triad of crises typically associated with booms in oil and gas export revenues, I describe below the Government of Guyana’s declared intention with regards to its own SWF. Recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources has declared Guyana’s SWF…

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Guyana’s Sovereign Wealth Fund: Safeguarding against the triad of oil & gas export-led crises

Introduction In last week’s column I had advanced the opinion that there were three policy priorities seemingly driving government’s approach to the development of the oil and gas sector. If taken in their widest meaning, these priorities can be said to represent the overwhelming bulk of government’s policy concerns, as publicly indicated to date. To…

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From Guyana’s oil and gas discovery to production: Delays, stranded assets and all that

Introduction There has been a veritable spate of commercial oil and gas discoveries since the 2000s. In its 2016 Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank had indicated that over recent years there have been signs of this flagging among developing countries. This circumstance has raised concerns, as delays in oil projects are always problematic…

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The dark side of Guyana’s oil discovery: Venezuela’s territorial aggression

Introduction Under Section 31 of the Petroleum Act, official notification was given last month, by ExxonMobil and its partners (Nexen Energy and Hess Corporation), to the Government of Guyana confirming the find (discovery) of commercial quantities of oil and gas in the Stabroek Block. A few weeks later, in today’s column I conclude my commentary…

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The dark side of Guyana’s oil discovery: Venezuela’s territorial aggression

Introduction Under Section 31 of the Petroleum Act, official notification was given last month, by ExxonMobil and its partners (Nexen Energy and Hess Corporation), to the Government of Guyana confirming the find (discovery) of commercial quantities of oil and gas in the Stabroek Block. A few weeks later, in today’s column I conclude my commentary…

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Conclusion: Limits and potential benefits of fiscal break-even analysis

Introduction Today’s column concludes the discussion on fiscal break-even prices for crude oil, introduced three weeks ago on November 13. To recall, that topic was introduced under the rubric of a broader one: on the cost-price relation, which might emerge in Guyana’s coming time of oil and gas production and export (possibly around 2025). Readers…

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Guyana: Further explorations of the fiscal break-even price for crude oil

Introduction      Today’s column furthers the discussion of the fiscal break-even price for crude oil. As previously indicated, this is a normative price, which is dependent on what governments figure that price ought to be, if they are to obtain the level of revenue that they need from oil to meet their expected spending requirements, while…

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