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First Oil likely by next year; Guyana far from ready – Energy Dept gets US$2 million to prep for US$4 billion project
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Guyana’s journey to first oil may be even shorter than anticipated.
According to Attorney-at-law, Charles Ramson, ExxonMobil is moving ahead of schedule in its preparation. However, “our government continues to pussyfoot. This reality tells Guyanese all they need to know about their future under the rule of the APNU+AFC over an oil producing country.”
Attorney-at-Law, Charles Ramson
During an interview with this newspaper, Ramson, who has a Master’s Degree in Oil and Gas Management, indicated that he has been keeping up to date with the pace of development for Liza Phase one.
Ramson said that the pace of the project development could very well see oil production commencing toward the last quarter of 2019 instead of March 2020 as originally targeted. He said, “The project development is going well and is currently running ahead of schedule.”
According to Ramson, the Floating Production Storage and Offloading unit (FPSO) being constructed in Singapore is likely to be completed by the middle of next year. It will then take about six weeks to get to Guyana. Once that is in place and functioning, it is virtually smooth sailing onwards, said Ramson.
Ramson said that it is all well and good that ExxonMobil is “on the ball”.
“No one can blame the company for that; I mean it is not called an oil giant for nothing. But, the
He continued, “I am a politician, so, most likely many will see my statements here as being political but oil is beyond politics; it will determine our future and the government ought to have been far more prepared knowing the possibilities of first oil being next year.
Ramson was keen to point out that none of the government Ministers spoke extensively about oil and gas during the recently concluded National Budget Debate.
Ramson recalled that the Ministry of the Presidency is now responsible for oil and gas as it has control of the Department of Energy. But, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, did not touch on oil and gas production preparation during his contribution to the Budget Debate.
Further, Ramson said that the government allocated only $400M for the entire 2019 for the Energy Department.
“The department was given $400M for both capital and current expenditure. That is US$2M. The Liza phase one project is US$4.4B. How are we to adequately prepare as a country, given all that is needed to be done, with that paltry sum?
“The real truth is that we cannot. And we must understand that oil is big, too big for the management to be a department within a Ministry. We need an oil ministry. This is serious money and those inflows are going to be happening sooner than we expected.”
Ramson went on to point out that there is nothing that Guyana can boast accomplishing in preparation for first oil.
Ramson pointed out that the Petroleum Commission needed to regulate the Oil and Gas sector is still to be established; there is no Local Content Legislation or policy, and there is no Sovereign Wealth Fund or relevant committees established.
Further, Ramson said there is no fully functioning cost-auditing department, no Environmental Department to deal with oil spill readiness, no Petroleum Geology Department to assess the seismic and appraisal information and no National Oil Company.
Further, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still to be strengthened and pertinent Petroleum Laws are still to be made.
Ramson even noted that reforms to the public financial management system are yet to be completed and there remains limited capacity at all levels in the Ministry of Finance “and this is something that even the IMF (International Monetary Fund) pointed it out and we are still to improve our Public Financial Management systems.”
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