Opinion
Big Oil, Big Problems
Details, including the full terms of reference or scope, remain unpublished regarding the 2018-2020 ExxonMobil Guyana US$7.3B cost recovery audit report, leaving Guyanese to speculate on the political, economic, and military influences on Guyanese-led RVHE Consulting and international firms: Martindale Consultants Inc. and SGS. Kaieteur News released an article on November 12th, titled, ‘How ExxonMobil…
Natural Resource Fund faces institutional, Capacity, investment and accounting challenges.
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Part 117 – December 22, 2023 Introduction The International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Bank have both expressed concerns about the structure and operations of the Natural Resource Fund, one of the PPP/C’s flagship projects directly associated with the oil and gas economy. This…
News-clippings diplomacy
“Maduro had in his possession, several volumes of documents, containing information on the 2016 ExxonMobil PSA and the various reports by citizens claiming that ExxonMobil is robbing Guyana of its oil and gas resources”, says AG Nandlall (SN Letters, Dec 17th). I don’t understand how Maduro can use these mostly [news-clippings] to pressure ExxonMobil to…
Understanding, or not understanding Ringfencing
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Part 116 – December 15, 2023 Introduction Today’s column returns to the very popular topic of ringfencing in petroleum operations. Column 115 appearing in the Stabroek News of November 24 addressed how Belize, a mini-petroleum state, used the industry’s regulator, the legislation and the…
Small-scale fishers in Guyana – ‘small fry’ in Guyana’s marine space
During their first few months of life, young fish are called ‘fry’; most do not survive to adulthood. The idiom, ‘small fry’, has been used to refer to children and people of low status since the 14th century in England and is perhaps derived from the ‘fry’ of fish. Artisanal fishers in Guyana are treated…
One has to wonder what other anomalies a forensic audit of oil production capital costs might not uncover
The pace of discovery in the Stabroek Block has been astounding. There have been 32 major discoveries to date. There are currently 3 projects in production: Liza Phase 1, Liza Phase 2 and Payara. The current daily output is 620,000 barrels of oil. There are 2 additional projects approved for production: Yellowtail and Uaru. Plus,…
Claim by National Toshaos Council is erroneous
The claim by the National Toshaos Council (NTC ) that it is the ‘sole, legal and legitimate’ body that represents the interests of Amerindians in Guyana (Department of Public Affairs, ‘NTC affirms its position as legitimate representative body of Amerindians’, 24 November 2023) has no legal basis. This claim is an unreasonable/erroneous extrapolation of the…
These findings justify a full-scale forensic audit of the 2018-2020 accounts of ExxonMobil Guyana
Recently, an audit that encompassed 260,000 transactions, totaling US$7.3 billion, for the Stabroek Block for the period 2018 to 2020 was completed in 4 months. The size of the audit team appeared to be about 12 people; a few members were Guyanese. We assume the Guyanese members had no prior experience in auditing oil &…
Belize imposes ringfencing on petroleum companies through its tax legislation.
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Part 115 – November 24, 2023 Introduction Let me confess to being as surprised as many of the readers of this column, on learning that Belize is in fact an oil producing state! Not a major one – it produces a mere 5,000 barrels…
Decommissioning and restoration costs for oil
Reference is made to your article captioned ‘Exxon must now put decommissioning fund in place for all Guyana projects – Minister Bharrat’ (KN 11-16-2023). In that article, it is reported that ‘…the company (EMGL) would have to submit for the minister’s approval, a proposed decommissioning plan and budget no later than two years before the…