The sweet old-timer and the slick new kid on the block

Jul 23, 2017 Countryman, Features / Columnists

By Dennis Nichols

Our sugar is ours – simply and intimately. From the canefield to the punt; from the factory pan to the kitchen table, it has become a poignant and powerful ingredient in our culture, history, economy, and very soul. Its strength and sweetness have diminished with age and change and its death is seen by some as imminent, but its spirit will endure for generations.
Spirit, however, isn’t enough to put bread in our mouths and cash in our coffers. So we look for a new exploit, and suddenly, as if by magic, there’s a new kid in town; well not exactly in town, but there is a new kid on the block – the Stabroek Block to be precise, where fertile siblings Liza, Payara and Snoek reside. And they’d better be careful, because I’ve heard new guy Exxon is a master of seduction.
More than 30 years ago a group of us (young journalists) listened intently as a communications consultant spoke about Guyana’s natural mining resources, and how then modern satellites were able to at least hint as to which exploitable minerals lay below our 83,000 square miles of mud, sand, rock, and water, and in what quantity.
This is complemented by expert geologic and geographic knowledge, so that when a tech-savvy and tech-superior entity approaches a poor country like ours to make an extractive deal, it does so from a position of knowledge and strength hugely disproportionate to that of the host country. (I don’t mean to sound cynical, but how many Guyanese experts are there in the field of geoscience, including analyzing satellite data, seismic and gravity surveying, and echo sounding?)I read recently that Shell is even testing the use of a new technique to ‘sniff’ hydrocarbon molecules in the atmosphere over likely, deeply-embedded, oil reservoirs.
This kind of experimental knowledge and technological capacity is now at an all-time high, but not in Guyana. Thus when a humongous company like ExxonMobil says ‘Let’s make a deal,’ our Guyanese negotiators cannot be in the best position to say where, in a possible blend of genuineness, promises, half-truths, and outright lies, the truth lies.
Or maybe like Jack Nicholson’s character in ‘A few good men’ blurted out, “You (We) can’t handle the truth.” Many Guyanese appeared unable to handle the truth of what was happening when certain foreign companies set up business here and exploited our natural resources over the last 100 years or so, or when we tried to go it on our own during and after the nineteen-seventies. How much has changed since then?
So now in 2017, the sweet old-timer, with a mixture of sadness, nostalgia, and maybe resignation, gazes from a coastal canefield towards Atlantic waters, and wonders what the slick new kid has in store for this country in which his ancestors, through a centuries-old cane-sugar lineage, toiled to help forge a nation out of mismanaged resources. He understands that sugar is much more than a sweetener and a foreign exchange earner. It has become engrafted into Guyanese culture and expression – into our national psyche.
Oil is a distant competitor for this kind of intimacy; an oilfield being as remote from a canefield as a crab is from crabwood. Even so, he knows change is bound to come, and the new kid could transform Guyana into the kind of modernised, financially ‘strapless’ beauty that he could only dream of. Resignation turns to hope, and once again, to foreign enterprise.
In fact for the average Guyanese, the operations in the Stabroek Block, for most intents and purposes, is a foreign exercise. Out in the deep blue where our country’s shoreline is invisible to the naked eye, far from our homely mud-brown wash, away from the eyes, ears, and noses or our inquisitive country men and women, the action is unfolding. There, mega-structures embedded in submarine rock will coax and suck up billions of gallons of ‘black gold’ and load it onto mega-tankers which will take their crude cargo even farther from our shores. How many Guyanese will be there to see exactly what is happening more than a hundred miles offshore – to understand the intricacies of the extractive process and rig operations; to assess, monitor, and advise on environmental concerns etc…in short to look out for Guyana’s interests?
How much of it, and in what form, will come back to this country, is something most of us can only speculate on. Mostly dollars one would think, but how many, I wouldn’t even attempt a guess. Hopefully, what last Sunday’s Kaieteur News cartoon suggests is off the mark by a long way; our government won’t prostitute our country – would it – unwittingly? Well, we’d like to think otherwise, and I for one am waiting to hear talk of the big ‘T’ – as in trillions – of dollars.
For the past few years Guyanese have been speaking disparagingly about a million bucks, (can’t even buy a decent second-hand car) and talk of billions is common in budgets, project estimates, and profits. Now it’s time to think trillions, and oil can take us into that quantum leap. Despite the caveats and cautionary tales that abound in the local media, I need to believe that.
Our oil cup is half-full, not half-empty. Yes, the warnings are plethoric and the cynics are many, but just how much can we do to ensure our just deserves, and that Exxon’s word is his bond. Even the little or the much we can do will undoubtedly tax our limited human and infrastructural resources. Sometimes, it seems, you just have to cross your fingers, pray, and give it your best shot.
We do have a few expert ‘marksmen’ in Guyana, and I’ll pray that their aim is true. And ExxonMobil’s; we can’t afford to have in this country anything close to the Exxon Valdez spill disaster that happened in Alaska 28 years ago. Are Shell Beach and the remainder of our coastline far enough from the block to be considered safe from possible pollution? Bear in mind that several countries, groups, and individuals have criticized the oil giant for not being too concerned about the environment or the impact of their operations on it.
At one time when sugar and bauxite were kings (with gold, diamonds, and timber aspiring to nobility) the beneficiaries of their bounty were to a large extent foreigners and expats. With sugar, you might say Bookers was kind of the ExxonMobil of its day. But to some extent, Bookers’ fortunes were tied to Guyana’s, and its interests in our country’s economic and social life were evident and intimate.
Will the new kid on the block have similar interests and intimacy? (That Sunday cartoon just flashed across my mind again) Exxon certainly has the capacity and the appetite for making Guyana a showcase of its largesse if it so wishes, or to ‘pimp’ our economy, of course in the nicest sense of the word.
So my dear, sweet old-timer, change happens, and although it seems we’ve been on the cusp of change forever, you’ve got to believe that one of these days it’s going to be real, and good, and practical. You’ve had a long and colourful life – many ups and downs, and going around in circles. Your back is bent and your sweetness is tinged with gall. You may still have a few years left. Keep going at it. But remember, there is a new kid on the block, and in three years we may all get to see how noble and trustworthy his intentions are, or if he was only flirting with Liza, Payara and Snoek. I hope we both live to see the day.