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Not loopholes but train tunnels

Oct 03, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I refer to the article titled, “License gives Exxon wiggle room for Payara flaring” (SN October 2). I recognize and have regard for SN’s delivery of the tempered. But I must differ and present this shocking licensing reality in sharp and unsparing terms.
“Wiggle room” is an understatement when Exxon has just been granted approval “for its Payara project” that “allows for flaring for 60 days upon the startup of operations.” And allowing Exxon to “submit its own research studies on the effects of the release of reservoir water.” That is a recipe for disaster and giving a drunk the keys to the distillery. If he doesn’t kill himself, he will kill somebody. That somebody is Guyana. These clauses are so open-ended that they are more than “wiggle room”; they represent a whole wrestling zone in which to roll around, jump about, and play dangerous games with Guyana’s oil and its safety record. Sixty days grace for free flaring at the beginning is the equivalent of ‘go ahead and experiment with our dreams through trial and error, the cheapest risk management, and leave the rest to us.’ Is somebody kidding me or take Guyanese to be damn fools?
Editor, surely this has to be the height of unequalled stupidity and the most comprehensive ignorance imaginable. Sixty days is an eternity, and could blow up in our faces, and make deep inroads in the “trillions” of which the president spoke so glowingly. I wonder if he has any idea of that which he speaks. An Exxon misstep – and I am not confining myself to that 60-day interval alone – has the potential to erase many of those zeros found in a trillion. All it takes is a Black Swan event, which I must educate the president about one of these days.
Then, according to the same SN article, there is “ambiguity in the language used pertaining to insurance liability for oil spills and other disasters” and “distances parent company ExxonMobil from liability commitments…” I thank SN for this sobering and well-written coverage, but I had to stop reading. I wanted to puke, and a migraine threatened despite never having one before. For what I read was not about “wiggle room” or loopholes but a whole damn train tunnel through which ExxonMobil can drive any concoction, charge any price, and make its own rules as it goes along. The bottom line is this: Guyana is on the hook and up to its neck. And this is what His Excellency, President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, takes to the microphones to cheer himself. As he does so, we need to cheer up ourselves. For if this is of excellence and the presidential and what it means to be of doctorate caliber, then all of us Guyanese are, at best, grave diggers and bottom feeders. I would hang my head in shame and take a 600-day interval (not Exxon’s 60-day sorcery) to hide from the world.
Who are the Guyanese political stewards that stood watch over this monstrosity without ceiling? How dumber and more of a seller of our protections can the PPP leadership be, while leaving us bare and vulnerable in the process? Guyana’s trillionaire speaking leader gave away the house and then seeks to fool the nation by pointing to the colour of the paint. Trillions, he called it. I would go easy and cautiously on that trillions business, since any balance sheet black (pluses) could quickly transform into the red (negatives). Since red is the PPP’s colour, it may be foolishly and blindly embraced as a blessing. I have been near a place where big money numbers (in US dollars, mind you) were routine, changed hands abruptly, and left a trail of tears in its wake. But this is the first time, I have come so close to trillions evaporating, without the people most involved having any input, any weight, any contribution. May God help Guyana down the road when Exxon sends it up the creek.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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