Opinion
Oil, Government Take & Spending: Navigating Guyana’s Development Challenges – 24
Introduction Today’s column starts consideration of the final topic (number 10) on my list of the top 10 development challenges, which I anticipate that spending Government’s Take from its coming petroleum sector, scheduled to be on-stream in early 2020, will have to confront in the coming years. That topic is Integrating the Production Sharing Agreement…
Mapping the Gas Bubble: Patterson’s Folly
Every Man, Woman and Child Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 65) Introduction Today’s column carries out a commitment I made in a letter earlier this week responding to a statement by Mr. David Patterson, Minister of Public Infrastructure appearing in the last Sunday Stabroek. Patterson reports that a Dutch company will be undertaking an ocean floor…
Mr. G.K. Lall is telling us to be happily enslaved by this contract
What’s the difference between a traitor and an educated writer, with the writer using his pen to weaken and impoverish his people, under the guise of security and national interest, to justify an oil contract so stupid and filled with incomprehensible nonsense and incomparable exploiting terms? We have quislings among us, whose touchstone is not…
Mangal says advised against Crab Island oil facility over lack of transparency
Dr Jan Mangal, former petroleum advisor to President David Granger, has said he advised government against investing in the development of the now shelved onshore oil and gas supply facility at Crab Island, in Region Six, as the proposal did not go through the due diligence needed for the investment, which would have required billions…
The oil company does benefit by inflating costs, Guyana must be vigilant
I write in relation to a letter included in the Stabroek News on 28-Nov-2018 with the title `Why would Exxon inflate these costs when it wouldn’t be the one benefitting?’ authored by a Mr Clement Smith. The letter in question makes a number of inaccurate points and I attempt to address these below. In summary,…
Oil, Government Take & Spending: Navigating Guyana’s Development Challenges – 22
Introduction Last week’s column dealt with a few of the more theoretical aspects of the role that “public expectations” play in general economic growth theory and the modelling of natural resources policy management. Today’s column focuses on the specifics of managing these expectations as a development challenge facing Guyana, as it seeks to spend its…
Oil, Government Take & Spending: Navigating Guyana’s Development Challenges – 21
Introduction A number of readers have indicated to me I should have placed much more emphasis on the great extent to which the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) fiscal rule for natural resources revenue management,no longer finds favour, even among its most ardent initial supporters. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a good example of this….
Unveiling the Financial Puzzle: Dissecting Pre-Production Costs and Revenue Projections in Guyana’s Oil Sector
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 64) Introduction Figures contained in the 2017 financial statements of Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited indicate that the three-party set up of Esso, Hess and CNOOC Nexen will spend well over five hundred billion dollars ($500,000,000,000) up to December 2019. The three companies…
Double Standards in Contracts: The Bridge Debacle vs. ExxonMobil’s Petroleum Agreement
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 63) Introduction It has been nearly a month since the last column appeared on October 19 under the title Complex for the White Man, Disdain for Locals. Recent developments have lent an aura of prescience about that column as we witnessed and contrasted the…
Uninformed international oil experts bamboozling Guyanese
In Stabroek News dated November 4, 2018; Minister Winston Jordan exposed the oil experts, who were invited to Guyana via funding unknown, to pronounce on the Green Paper, Sovereign Wealth Fund/ National Resources Fund and suchlike. Except for the disgraceful 2% royalty, the comments by Minister Jordan, conflated with remarks I made as an invitee;…