Analysts attempted to reconcile the 2020-2022 Guyana Natural Resource Fund royalties’ balance. To their dismay, there is a significant shortage of royalty payments in the years 2020 and 2022, 23% and 13% respectively. The Natural Resource Fund appears to be missing an approximate GY$5.6B (US$27M) in royalties, payments that Exxon and its affiliates should have…
Equity ownership in a business implies that an investor becomes a shareholder; and therefore, has access to complete information; has decision-making authority that is based on the relative size of the funds invested; and receives a share of the total profits, calculated on the shareholder’s ownership of the total invested funds. In the case of…
The Laws of Guyana Corporation Tax Act imposes a 40% corporation tax on chargeable profits for commercial companies and 25% for non-commercial companies. The law defines commercial activity as “an activity carried out by a company trading in goods not manufactured by it” and non-commercial activity would be anything not covered in this definition. One…
Mr. Anil Nandlall S.C. Attorney General and principal legal adviser to the Government has written rather disparagingly about comments I made in my last Friday‘s Stabroek News oil and gas column. Without naming me or addressing any of the extensive data, sources and arguments I used in arriving at my findings, he claims that my…
On October 23, 2023, Chevron announced that it had purchased Hess shares in the ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) for US$53.0 Billion. Recalling that Hess owned 30 percent of the company, this ownership implied that the total equity in the company is now estimated to be US$176.7B, with the remainder distributed as US$79.5B for ExxonMobil, and…
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…
Parliament’s decision to create—what amounts to—a zero tax clause in the petroleum production agreement keeps power and wealth in the hands of its foreign counterparties and contributes to Guyana’s economic inequality. Additionally, it stagnates the potential for sustainable economic growth here in the local land. While the Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) should be…
Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Part 109 – October 13, 2023 Introduction It has been several months since column 108. Yet, when I told a friend that I intended to publish approximately eight columns over the next few weeks, his immediate reaction was the question: what will you say…
Maya Angelou, American literary giant and civil rights activist once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time”. Unfortunately, when Esso showed us who they were from the first decade of this century, we not only did not believe them, but successive governments spinelessly conspired with them to deprive current…
It would be perfectly understandable if the public is totally confused over the issue of the audit of the expenses claimed by Esso, Hess and CNOOC for the period 1999 – 2017. Various reports in the media suggest that the UK entity contracted to audit the costs reported by the consortium were overstated by US$214…
