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ExxonMobil’s partner, Hess never filed a financial statement in Guyana – Ram
Chartered Accountant, Chris Ram
All companies, whether incorporated locally, or incorporated abroad but registered locally, are required to file an annual report together with financial statements.
Such financial statements should provide reliable information for users, including regulators.
ExxonMobil is represented by three companies as the contractor for the Stabroek Block: Esso, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and Hess.
Chartered accountant and Attorney-at-law, Christopher Ram, said that at a minimum, before accepting the pre-contract costs of US$460,237,918, Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman should have verified it with the December 2015 audited financial statements of the three companies. He said that these documents should have been filed with the public authorities.
Ram said that he had already gone down the road in checking for these statements. However, his attempts were impeded when he could not have found a single financial statement for Hess. Ram said that he is now assured that the government made no attempts at cross checking the pre-contract costs submitted by the contractor.
“It is difficult to see how this could have been done since the public records show that only Esso and CNOOC had complied with the requirement for the filing of records. What Trotman would have realised was that the other Contractor – Hess Corporation – has never filed a single financial statement or annual report with the Commercial Registry! Surely, this is elementary stuff, which requires basic knowledge and common sense,” said Ram.
Ram said too, that, “The 2016 financial statements of Esso reported that in 2014 it had entered into farm-out arrangements with Hess and CNOOC/Nexen and that Government approval was still pending, i.e. two years later. CNOOC reported the relationship differently, describing it as Joint Arrangement.”
“To complicate matters further, Hess which did not make any local filings, reported to its international stockholders that it had acquired a ‘working interest’, which is another term for farm-out. To add further to the complexity, in 2008, Esso had entered into an Assignment Agreement and Farm-out Agreements, which would have also had financial implications.”
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