Opinion
There is no sharing in Exxon’s Production Sharing Agreement
If one adds the collective losses from contracts that were mismanaged; investments that fell through, like the glass factory under Burnham and the Skeldon Factory under Jagdeo as well as the Marriott; if you also consider all that was given in bailouts and loans to agencies that had to be written off; those losses will…
The oil find in Guyana is huge
We don’t need to hear about the personal sacrifices of politicians during past political campaigns or the hardships of being a leader, especially when such inflated speech is used as a means to defend the worst contract ever agreed upon, if opportunity losses to Guyana are computed on a per capita basis in the Production…
IDB did not help draft Petroleum Bill
A recent article in the Stabroek News ‘No plans to revisit Exxon deal’ (Jan 26) suggests that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was involved in the drafting of the Petroleum Commission Bill: “…the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Monetary Fund and the Commonwealth had helped with the drafting of the proposed legislation and stakeholders consulted…
Could Guyana escape the natural resource curse? Part 2: The role of corporate governance
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…
What is being gained from ExxonMobil’s investment?
Minister Trotman is reported (18th Jan) as stoutly defending ExxonMobil’s investment here. He says that Guyana should focus on what has been gained. Like what? The 2% royalty? The Falkland Islands have negotiated 9%. This tiny territory of 4,000 people will get 4.5 times as much as Guyana on every barrel of oil. Tarron Khemraj…
Could Guyana escape the natural resource curse? Part 1
By now many Guyanese are pondering the important concept known as the natural resource curse. Government ministers, high-paid government consultants and some news outlets have been talking about it since the discovery of high-quality crude oil in Guyana’s offshore waters. As early as 1995, the concept was first observed statistically by development economists and researchers…
How was the signing bonus calculated?
In relation to the newest Ranger-1 well announced a few days ago, it was said in an SN article: “It has more than 230-ft of high-quality, oil bearing carbonate reservoir which is now being described as the single largest find in the (Stabroek) Block. Questions may well be asked as to why the Ranger site…
The signing bonus could have been around US$238 million
Late last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Brazil received US$1.88 billion in signing bonuses for six exploration blocks during a process of competitive auctioning. Chad in 2001 received US$25 million in a signing bonus for sour crude oil with lower viscosity compared with Guyana’s high quality sweet crude. Signing bonuses are also paid…
Govt’s oil negotiators sold out Guyana for trinkets
The notion of the STATE sharing the production of oil and gas with companies as part of a commercial enterprise was first developed in Bolivia in the 1950s. Today it is widely used in over 40 countries, so the Government of Guyana cannot claim that the unavailability of international experts to advise it was the…
Guyana deserves higher share of oil profit
The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that Guyana has with ExxonMobil is fraught with opportunities for abuse. In fact, these very loopholes could result in a significant dent in the revenue Guyana is supposed to get from the oil find by the operator. This was noted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a report that…