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ExxonMobil Head says local content drive “makes good business sense”
– but details on spending $$$ still shrouded in secrecy
Kaieteur News – Even as it continues to hide from public scrutiny, evidence of the billions of dollars it claims to have expended in the last five years on Guyanese hires and support services, the President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, continues to sell the message that the American oil giant and its prime contractors have been making “significant efforts” to bolster local content.
President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge
In fact, Routledge said these efforts at local content occur since it “just makes good business sense” to do so. He reminded via a missive from ExxonMobil Guyana yesterday that this particular comment was made during his recent visit to the Offshore Construction Facility of its Italian contractor, Saipem, where the first subsea jumpers were fabricated in-country by a majority Guyanese workforce. The work was subcontracted to the Guyanese joint venture, Guyana Oil & Gas Support Services Incorporated (GOGSSI).
He further noted that all of the major international companies contracted by ExxonMobil Guyana have a presence in-country, and have been steadily moving activities from Trinidad and Tobago, and other locations around the globe to Guyana. Routledge noted, for example, that ExxonMobil’s three prime drilling service companies— Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes— have all built major support facilities in Guyana.
“In the early days, when we started exploration, there was no infrastructure, no expertise, no history to leverage so we had to utilise the existing capability, the existing facilities in Trinidad…I’m really excited to say that by sometime in 2022, virtually all of that supply chain, all of that work will have been moved to Guyana from Trinidad. That will be a major milestone for Guyana, for local content, for the people of Guyana.”
It is crucial to note, however, that for almost six years, ExxonMobil has ignored calls to provide a disaggregation of the money it claims was spent on an annual basis for training Guyanese, procuring goods and services here, and ensuring technology transfer occurs.
In fact, ExxonMobil has not provided for independent verification, the names of the Guyanese businesses it has used from 2015 to now. Further, it has never produced a breakdown of salaries paid to Guyanese by ExxonMobil Guyana and its joint venture partners.
The only time ExxonMobil has ever released the list of companies it claimed to have used for its local content efforts was back in June 2018. The company had claimed that it did use over 300 Guyanese registered companies to supply services.
In response to calls for evidence of same, a list was provided. Upon examination, however, it was found that ExxonMobil padded its list with the names of places like Bourda Market, Haags Bosch Dumpsite, Royal Castle, Bounty Supermarket, Metro Office and Computer Supplies, Star Party Rentals, and Shanta’s Roti Shop. It listed one utility company, the Guyana Power and Light, and a State agency, Guyana Revenue Authority, as part of its local content efforts, too. Persons were also listed as registered companies, including Sonia Noel, Chontelle Sewett, Andron Alphonso and Mokesh Daby.
As part of one of its statements last year, ExxonMobil had claimed that the Centre for Local Business Development, which is located on South Road, has remained supportive of local businesses with a transition to virtual courses.
However, no evidence or report of any kind was provided to confirm this. Additionally, ExxonMobil had said that the centre continued mentorship of 10 Guyanese companies in the process to be compliant in the ISO 9001 quality management system. Those names were never released.
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