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Geological information held by oil companies should be surrendered- Ramson
Oil and Gas Consultant and Attorney-at-law, Charles Ramson
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
As Guyana moves forward and looks to register its name among the top oil producing countries, there is an utmost need for the companies operating here to share their geological findings with the Government. This will help the country to be in a position of strength.
Attorney-at-law, and Oil and Gas Consultant, Charles Ramson, made this point at his recent press conference held at Cara Lodge.
Ramson told the media that as it stands any of the seismic work being done or any of the geology work being done is not being made public. Ramson said that this sort of information is currently being held on to by the companies and is, or course, an asset to those companies.
Ramson said, “Guyana does not benefit from having that geological information only kept with the company.”
Ramson was keen to note, “It should not be the case that we should force companies to relinquish that information immediately but it should be relinquished at some point.”
He said that this information is not needed just for record sake; there is more than one benefit of securing the information.
Ramson said that very importantly, that sort of information can give the government good bargaining power.
The Consultant said, “It is very simple, Governments want investment, they want companies to take up more blocks. How they assess their investments is based on geological information.”
Ramson continued, “Information makes markets function efficiently. The more information you have about your geology and anything else, the more that other companies are able to do their assessments on whether to invest or not.
The companies can say, ‘Look, we know what their geology looks like; we know what it is capable of doing and as a result, we are saying we would like to enter into the territory.
Ramson said that it is common around the world for oil companies to give Governments a copy of the geological findings for their areas of exploration in the particular country.
He said, “It is common. It is not common to be very aggressive in new territories so I understand the sensitivity. The concern is that we shoot ourselves in the foot without having the disclosure of the information because it is a large swath of block that has been allocated already.”
Ramson continued, “In fact, it is the entire north coast of a particular section of Guyana. I have spoken about this already; this block is one of the largest in the world. So after a period of time, you must disclose your geological information.
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