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Halt oil operations until Exxon guarantees insurance, better deal – Civic society group
Kaieteur News – A civic society group, which has been championing Guyana’s cause in the face of grave environmental and economic dangers caused by the oil and gas operations, is demanding that there be a halt in the drilling process until international oil giant, ExxonMobil guarantees Guyana, inter alia, proper insurance and an overall better deal.
Representatives of A Fair Deal for Guyana; A Fair Deal for the Planet, the civic society group in Guyana.
In a full page advertisement carried in the Sunday edition of the Kaieteur News, the civic group – A Fair Deal for Guyana; A Fair Deal for the Planet, which consists of prominent members including environmentalist and international lawyer, Melinda Janki listed its demands.
In the ad, the group outlined the dangers of the deep-water oil/gas drilling operations being carried out by ExxonMobil. According to the group, the drilling offshore Guyana threatens Guyana and the entire Caribbean while a ‘favourable’ contract benefits ExxonMobil and its partners.
As such, the civic body noted that “for the sake of Guyana, the Caribbean and the rest of the world, there must be a moratorium/pause on oil and gas operations.”
“We demand a pause on oil and gas operations until Guyana’s fish populations recover to their pre-oil levels and ExxonMobil guarantees that their operations are not harming marine life,” the group said in the public notice.
The group also demands a halt on oil and gas operations until ExxonMobil guarantees that proper environmental safeguards are in place to protect our lands, ocean and climate.
The civic body noted that Guyana is one of the world’s few carbon sinks while ExxonMobil has found 10 billion barrels of oil off shore Guyana. “Burning that oil,” the group said, “could release over four billion tons of greenhouse gas!”
As such, the group demands that the oil and gas operations cease until ExxonMobil provides evidence that they have stopped flaring and stopped using faulty equipment.
With regard to the insurance in the event of an oil spill, A Fair Deal for Guyana; A Fair Deal for the Planet demands the oil and gas operations stops until ExxonMobil guarantees that they will pay for all environmental, social and economic damage across Guyana and the Caribbean as a result of any well-blow or oil spill from their operations.
“We demand a pause on oil and gas operations until the Government of Guyana provides independent evidence that the benefits to the Guyanese people outweigh the costs; until the Government of Guyana invests in solar energy jobs in Guyana in light of its conditional undertaking under the Paris Agreement to go 100 percent renewable by 2025,” the body stated in the ad.
Further, the civic group called for a pause in the oil operations until the Government publishes a full, independent audit of pre-contract costs and all other costs claimed by ExxonMobil and its partners in Guyana.
Added to this, the entity said that there should be no more drilling operations until ExxonMobil puts into an independently controlled escrow account, the billions of US dollars necessary to pay for the safe and permanent shut down of ExxonMobil’ s deep-water wells at the end of oil/gas production.
A Fair Deal for Guyana – Fair Deal for the Planet is a campaign by concerned citizens from Guyana and around the world.
The group has, among other things, been a part of the push back against the Government to grant a petroleum production licence to three oil companies under some unfair terms and conditions.
Previously, the group had argued that the minister of natural resources had acted unlawfully and irrationally in granting the licence and that his decision should be quashed by the court.
Added to that, the group had noted with concern that a bad deal for Guyana is a disaster for the planet. According to the body, while the government and the oil companies have talked about ‘unimaginable wealth’ for the country in oil producing countries like Nigeria, Angola, Chad and Guyana’s close neighbour, Venezuela, oil has led to rampant corruption, lost of lives, environmental disasters, and excessive dependency on one economic sector.
The group stressed that until positive changes are made oil companies and a small elite could become very rich while ordinary citizens are left out.
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