Exxon is playing with fire to Guyana’s peril

Aug 22, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Alarmed Guyanese have often spoken of the potential for a massive Guyanese oil environmental disaster, thanks to Exxon’s recklessness, and the indifference of Guyana’s Government. Today, we let readers learn from someone else, recognised and non-Guyanese, on what Exxon plays with, and the grave dangers to Guyana.
The caption frightens, “Exxon’s oil drilling gamble off Guyana coast ‘poses major environmental risk’” (The Guardian, August 17). ‘Gamble’ and ‘major’ and ‘environmental risk’ should make all Guyanese lose sleep. An expert claims, “The Company has failed to adequately prepare for possible disaster.” Guyana’s Government, especially its oil Vice President likes to attack messengers as ignorant, partisan, and having ulterior motives. Today, we present Robert Bea.
The Guardian says Robert Bea is “among the world’s foremost forensic engineers and a leading expert on the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico” who “worked for Shell Oil before becoming one of the world’s premier safety and disaster investigators.” In addition, “he served as a principal investigator on the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Piper Alpha offshore oil disaster that killed 167 men in the North Sea, the Exxon Valdez grounding and the crash of the Nasa Columbia space shuttle.” This is someone that could be easily categorised as a foremost global expert, and he said this about what Exxon is doing in Guyana.
He fears “an event like the Macondo” (the 2010 BP well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico). He reviewed more than 1,000 pages of Exxon submissions and government permits for Liza 1, (including the 500-page environmental impact statement on Liza 1 to Guyana’s EPA) as part of an exclusive analysis for the Guardian article. We quote extensively.
“We could have a problem similar to what we had with BP before and after the Macondo disaster.” We mean Guyana. His review noted no evidence of the necessary planning and operations needed to “assess and manage the risks associated with high-risk offshore exploration, production, and transportation operations.” There are “loose ends, assumptions, and premises that are not substantiated” in Exxon’s plans, Bea said. “And the more of these threads that you tug at, the more concerned you become that what’s being done here is superficial.”
This is damning and could devastate Guyana’s oil future, its safety and that of neighbours. Yet President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo could not be more unconcerned in the face of reviews and reports like these, since they undermine the rosy oil pictures they paint. Regardless of their secrecies and surrender to Exxon’s will and rush, we could be sitting on an environmental and economic time bomb.
Robert Bea found numerous problems with Exxon’s written submissions. He fears about a loss of well control, or blowout – which could cause a catastrophic oil spill, because Exxon has not kept the risks of such events as low as “reasonably practicable.” Also, Exxon’s estimate of blowout containment is too “optimistic, unsubstantiated, and improbable.” Exxon doesn’t have the necessary tools, namely, “a capping stack and relief well.”
Further, Exxon’s plans and response methods were heavily criticised when deployed elsewhere. AND Exxon’s planned use of Corexit 9500, is a chemical dispersant banned in the UK and faulted for severe human and environmental harms (Exxon Valdez and BP spills). AND Exxon also intends to burn oil on the ocean surface even though it is drilling in the Amazon-Orinoco Influence Zone, an area rich in marine biodiversity, on which local Indigenous and other fishers depend.
When concerns like these were raised by Bea with the Australian Government it tightened requirements, which led to BP withdrawing from the Australian Bight. Surely, Guyana’s President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo would do well to listen to this, if they really have Guyanese interests at heart. But this exposes their oil programme, and undermines their cozy, conspiratorial relationship with Exxon, which matters most.
Last, the investor advocacy group, As You Sow, criticised Exxon’s Guyana plans: “Exxon’s activities in Guyana pose grave material risks to the company from an economic, legal, and human rights standpoint.” Vice President Jagdeo has concealed significant details and condemned those objecting to how he goes about handling our oil. We encourage him to take note. This he can’t suppress. It could break Guyana.

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