Kudos on oil reporting and commentaries

Aug 25, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

I applaud your newspaper and courageous reporters for their undivided focus on issues pertaining to the oil industry. There has been outstanding, investigative reporting that keeps the nation informed on oil and on the environment. Your paper deserves kudos for their work.
Some of your commentaries on oil and gas and the giveaway of rainforests for petty bribes are/were compellingly written. Your reporters and the publisher are courageous. Your paper deserves honors for journalism on environmental issues and on how the oil company takes advantage of Guyana because of terrible political leadership of the preceding regime that had an opportunity in 2016 to reset the terms of the oil contract but opted to leave it. No other media house is so obsessed with righting the policy for the emerging oil and gas industry. Before the March 2nd election rigging, I myself had done substantial writings on oil and gas which I had studied decades earlier in my post-graduate studies in Economics. As reported in studies, the revenues from oil and gas contributed significantly to development of capital projects in Third World countries. Most of these countries received about 15% of royalties plus profits; one or two percent for royalty is unheard of. And oil companies pay all oil expenses related to the payment of the royalty. Countries pay no costs for oil exploration or in the receipt and sale of oil and they don’t pay the taxes of the oil company. If the preceding had sought a higher percentage when the contract was negotiated in 2016, there was a possibility of getting close to the international standard of 15% royalty plus profit sharing. Now it is more difficult, if not impossible, for the Ali led administration to break a contract and seek renegotiation.
Your recent exposes on oil and gas and the pollution created from flaring are somewhat comprehensive and very damning. They are very troubling. And the polluter needs to be held accountable – not for US $2250 that the EPA is demanding. How about US $22M fines; it is laughable that the EPA (Vincent Adams) is suing Exxon for $2250. Is he serious? Fines in the US for pollution are very hefty in the hundreds of millions of American dollars. In the US, it is almost impossible to pollute and get away. The US EPA won’t allow it and would shut down the company. The American population holds the companies (polluters) accountable through the politicians. If the politicians don’t act in the interest of the population, the people booth them out and run for office themselves or support another candidate that would champion the peoples interest. American politicians are fearful of their constituents; they don’t vote exclusively on race. Issues and community concerns play a large part in voting.
Your paper accurately reported on the dangerous levels of toxins that are released in the environment that would make their way into the mainland of South America or the Caribbean islands. In the US, the companies would be forced to take measures to reduce the pollution. They would have severe effect on people, damaging the health of children. Every effort must be made to reduce flaring. The gas should be captured and returned back to the field or brought on land for power generation and or making various products or starting new industries – ammonia, nitrate, methanol, ethanol plants, gas bottling, etc.
Separately, while I applaud the paper for its fantastic work focusing on the problems associated with oil and gas industry, this should not prevent paper from giving space to exposing corruption and racketeering of the preceding regime
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram

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