Environmentalists seeking CARICOM’s intervention on ‘reckless’ pace of oil activities in Guyana

Apr 12, 2022 News

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Kaieteur News – The “limited capacity” of Guyanese regulatory bodies to exercise oversight of the offshore oil operations, coupled with the “breakneck” pace of seismic surveys taking place in the Guyana basin stands the chance to imperil the entire Caribbean region.

This is according to a group of environmentalists in a recent letter to the Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley.
In the letter seen by Kaieteur News, the group, including Alfred Bhulai, Janette Bulkan, Dennis Henry, Jerry Jaillal, Darshanand Khusial, Mike Persaud, Joe Persaud, Ganga Ramdas and Charles Sugrim told the Prime Minister that her relationship with the current political administration in Guyana has given them hope, thus their writing.
Importantly, they highlighted that even a small oil spill that occurs in Guyana can ruin the Caribbean Sea and threaten the livelihoods of fishers as well as the tourism industries, in addition the damage to marine life and ecosystems.
To this end, they told Prime Minister Mottley, “We draw to your attention the limited capacity in the Guyanese regulatory bodies to exercise oversight of the offshore oil industry, which imperils the entire Caribbean…the accompanying breakneck pace of 4D seismic surveys and the velocity of the current and projected oil drilling and pumping are greater than any other exploration and/or extraction that have occurred, hitherto, globally for offshore oil extraction.”
The environmentalists reasoned that scientific studies have established the harms to marine life from the frequent and intense noises caused by deep sea oil production and from the discharge of wastes. It also pointed out that ExxonMobil intends to continue seismic surveys throughout the expected 20-years lifespan of the oil fields.
In this regard, the group asked that Mottley takes the lead in convening CARICOM leaders and experts to assess the scale, intensity and risks posed to the Caribbean region by what they described as the reckless pace of oil exploration and production taking place in Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
They said, “We hope that you will urge the governments of CARICOM to evaluate the scale, intensity and risks posed to the entire Caribbean by the ongoing high velocity oil exploration and production in Guyana’s EEZ. We hope you will assess the deeply inequitable and neo-colonial arrangements between the government of Guyana and petroleum companies, in which the public wealth of Guyana is privatised and negative environmental harms to both Guyana and the Caribbean are socialised.”
Even as specialists worry about the impacts of the offshore oil activities and cite the dangers that may affect marine species, here in Guyana, fishermen have been complaining of facing the brunt of such effects as their fish catch have declined significantly.
Late November last year, this publication spoke with a few fish vendors in the Stabroek Market, Georgetown, who said they believe their fish catches have declined as a result of ExxonMobil’s operations.
They even shared fears that if the worrying trend continues, they may very well be out of jobs soon. “Ever since them man start drill we seabed out deh, we catch gone very low. I in this business like since I was a child. In the earlies, from like 2007 when I start catch fish to like 2016. We used to get an exciting catch. But you see from like 2016 to now; presently, we catch is like going and strain water cause when we go out there, we would just catch back lil gas money and something to feed the family. You can’t presently do nothing for yourself with this fish,” said Stayon Frank.
Even though the Environmental Impact Assessments and other studies conducted by Exxon have specifically stated that the marine sectors are likely to be impacted, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that there was no evidence to support that the oil company’s operations were driving the fish away.
Jagdeo said, “Now there is no scientific view, for example, that the oil and gas industry cause the fish to swim away from Guyana and he (KN Publisher, Glenn Lall) is telling the fishermen that the fish swim away. Now if we can prove that, that’s great but there’s no scientific view of that.”
The VP implied that it would be irresponsible to attribute the decline in fish catch across the country to ExxonMobil’s operations.
However, when the first six months of 2019, 2020 and 2021 were compared, it was revealed that for the past two years, fish and shrimp production has been declining. This was evident in the recent Bank of Guyana (BoG) Half-Year Report.
According to that report, the fishing industry recorded mixed output performance and this resulted in a smaller reduction of 6.6 percent compared to the 12.1 percent recorded in June 2020. It was also stated that there was a decline in catch of both fish and shrimp by 22.1 percent and 11.8 percent, respectively, due to a reduction in the number of fishing vessels operating.
A table in the report illustrated the fish and shrimp production as follows: fish (tonnes): 2019 – 10,378, 2020 – 9,509 and 2021 – 7,406, and for shrimp (tonnes): 2019 – 10,046, 2020 – 9,259 and 2021 – 8,171.

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