There is a mystery unfolding in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Officials there seem to have removed the United States from a singularly successful anti-corruption effort. This has happened largely in secret, aside from a few public statements in legalese that are nearly impossible to parse. At times, bureaucrats in the department have behaved in…
Petroleum Advisor to Guyana’s President, Dr. Jan Mangal, says the South American country’s government needs to take firm steps towards “opening the doors” to professionals as part of a policy to attract skills which are badly needed in the emerging oil and gas industry. “The Government really needs to bite the bullet and pay for…
On 7 October at 3pm EST, the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE) and the Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (REDESCA) are hosting an extraordinary panel of speakers who will come together to discuss the Escazú Agreement, challenges associated with its implementation and the…
Recent discussions surrounding the cost recovery provision in the oil contract and the possible renegotiation served as motivation for this column. I intend to clarify and reemphasise several points I made on these topics in previous columns. Over the years, I have examined various topics which are still relevant to present deliberations. These include the…
Dear Editor, Reference is made to Mr. Joel Bhagwandin’s letter entitled `The sale of carbon credits to offset carbon emissions does not breach the Amerindian Act’ (see Stabroek News, July 4, 2023). The author is colossally missing a key point of the carbon credit trade business and he is falling short of understanding the arguments…
Dear Re:wild We noted with surprise a congratulatory message attributed to Re:wild on the issuance of Winrock-ART’s TREES jurisdictional forest-based carbon credits to Guyana on 5 December 2022 (Department of Public Information (2022) ‘Sale of carbon credits: $157B for investments in low-carbon development across Guyana’, Department of Public Information, 21 December. Available at: https://dpi.gov.gy/sale-of-carbon-credits-157b-for-investments-in-low-carbon-development-across-guyana/) . Re:wild allegedly stated…
In our last article, we dealt with the miscalculation of the licence area in the contract with Exxon. Prior to that we discussed some history which suggests that the claim that Venezuelan belligerence was the justification for the resort to illegality in the invention of wholesaling of license blocks when no such concept was available,…
Regardless of which political party is in power, the obnoxious and detestable 2% contract between the Government of Guyana and Exxon’s subsidiary and their partners is deemed to be unnegotiable by the government. Irrational and sad! As it is clear to anyone who is intent on negotiating a fair agreement for Guyana, basic common sense…
A SN daily blogger pesters me on this subject: Oil Companies’ financial risk assessment for exploration in Guyana. “Most politically unstable place in Caribbean”, he says. Five biggest Risks – Political risk, Geological risk, Price risk, Supply & Demand risk, Cost Risk. Seems clear the blogger is talking about political risk – gov’t overthrow, nationalization?…
