GUYANA WAS NEVER A XENOPHOBIC NATION

Jun 03, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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In recent weeks, the spotlight was placed on some of our larger investing companies by the local media citing them for several lapses linked mostly to allegations of shying away from engaging local companies as sub contractors. The term local content is the new catch phrase.
Among those taking a beating in recent weeks are ExxonMobil, the current leader in our fledgling oil and gas sector, and a Canadian mining major, Guyana Goldfields Ltd., the biggest player in the minerals mining sector. Guyana Goldfields is tipped as Guyana’s largest foreign direct investor (FDI).
A surprising few to date have come to the defence of the two companies, even though by their very presence, they have made Guyana recognizable on the world stage. They have brought superior technologies with their US billion-dollar investments, and the jobs in the offing have begun to teach us about operations in first-world industries that demand unrelenting precision and uncompromising safety.
We must not also forget the massive opportunities coming our way for conglomerate downstreaming that comes with the Oil & Gas industry. Guyana is in a good place.
Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman, speaking about the presence of ExxonMobil and its partners Hess Oil and Nexen of China, stated that having companies such as these as investors represents and signifies much more than money and statistics.
For example, Exxon was deliberately given a larger than usual area to explore for oil and gas offshore, and many in our population did not figure out the reasons. Our loudest critics argue that Exxon is being treated like a favoured child.
But Minister Trotman has explained, emphasized rather, the far-reaching effects of us hosting a corporate behemoth like ExxonMobil, and their working in our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that has long been claimed by Venezuela as its own. Other companies of a smaller size and international importance, with fewer resources than the oil consortium, would have feared the might and power, the sabre-rattling and bullyism by Venezuela, but not Exxon. They did not flinch under Venezuela’s threats, and they continue to explore offshore while preparing for production in about two years.
The naysayers and complainers should hark back to 2013 when heavily-armed Venezuelan gunboats forcibly expelled the Texas-based RV Teknik Perdana survey boat ‘Anadarko’ from the same zone. Its crew was detained for nearly a week while diplomats scrambled around the region to resolve the situation and have the crew that Venezuela had arrested released. Anadarko threw in the towel and left immediately after Venezuela released them.
Additionally, no one should forget that in the immediate aftermath of Exxon’s May 2015 declaration that it had found large deposits of oil and gas off coastal Guyana, Caracas immediately reinstituted its claim to the area, redrew its maps to include Guyana’s entire EEZ (and neighbouring countries’ too) and issued Exxon with an order to evacuate.
But as the local saying goes, “monkey know which limb to jump on”. After a short period, Venezuela meekly backed off Exxon and its partners, and turned their attention to the then new Government of Guyana that was not going to tolerate their bullyism anymore.
We are fighting back and now the matter is before the International Court of Justice for final, once-and-for-all adjudication. Enough is enough. As small as Guyana is, we are entitled to benefit from our natural wealth. Venezuela has prevented us from so doing for far too long.
According to Minister Trotman in a recent presentation, “It was important to us that we secure and anchor the company in Guyana; and it is important to us that we move production in the fastest possible time without, of course, sacrificing some of the environmental practices at the altar of expediency. We wanted economic benefits and rents but more importantly, because of the re-drawing of the lines by Venezuela, it was important for Guyana to move to production as quickly as possible, so that (we could) assert when (we) got to court that production was taking place within the territorial waters of Guyana. That would become an indisputable fact before a court of law”.
He also pointed out the wider scope of benefits Guyana stands to accrue from having a company like Exxon exploring and about to mine our hydrocarbons.
Meanwhile, we note the sustained attacks that Guyana Goldfields has been subjected to recently. We read the media reports and have to question their fairness and balance.
The firm, it appears, has offended operators in the aviation sector by acquiring its own 19-seater Twin Otter aircraft. Information reaching us points out that this firm has already spent hundreds of millions on local air charters to their interior mines.
Local aviators have complained that they are booking fewer charters since the Twin Otter arrived here.
The AFC would be first in line to support and promote adherence to local content stipulations in investment agreements. By the same token, we espouse operating efficiency, safety and quality standards, and would support any reasonable effort to ensure this.
But we do remember the aircraft belonging to now defunct Home Oil of Canada that crashed while exploring for onshore oil and gas in the Karanambo, Rupununi area in the 1980s. The pilot was Canadian. Another aircraft used here extensively by a company exploring for uranium crashed in 2013. Then there was the Cessna that landed on the home of an elderly woman in Sparendaam shortly after takeoff from Ogle in 2013, killing all on board.
There were very few objections to these foreigner-operated aircraft.
Guyana was never a xenophobic nation, but we do have the right to expect to be included in any industry operating on our soil. The era that saw the Guyana Marriott and the beginnings of the CJIA Expansion being built with no Guyanese labour or services, is surely over.

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