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Payara and Yellowtail reviews

Apr 25, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It was Abraham Lincoln who said: you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Guyana’s Vice President thinks that he fools everyone, but he fools himself in thinking he can do so perpetually.
This is what condemns him in the tricks that he customizes, the manner he craftily managed the gigantic Payara and Yellowtail oil projects reviews. Our caption, “Experts mock Guyana’s wild approval rate of Exxon’s projects” (KN April 22) exposes his farces.
In essence, these are the facts of the Payara and Yellowtail oil projects. Payara is expected to cost US$9B and Yellowtail US10B, in total US19B. For sheer cost, these are Guyana’s two biggest oil projects yet. It stands to reason, therefore, that Guyana’s oil czar, Vice President Jagdeo, would recognize the opportunity for this country, and use both projects as bargaining chips, or prized trump cards (hotly desired by Exxon) to gain benefits for citizens. More benefits that he himself spoke of (“way and means to eke out….”) those, notwithstanding “sanctity of contracts.”
Yet Jagdeo didn’t do so, he didn’t serve Guyanese interests, but those of Exxon and its shareholders. What Jagdeo did was minimize the interests of Guyanese, given how he cunningly ensured that the reviews for Payara and Yellowtail were conducted. Trusted people with the skills and track record, were needed. Jagdeo didn’t get them, he didn’t even try, given who Guyana ended up with as a reviewer, not once, but twice.
The second time was secretly, (via back doors and darkness) since Guyanese were clueless about the presence of Alison Redford in the Yellowtail review. Ms. Redford is a Canadian with a suspect reputation, a stranger to oil project reviews. But she was part of the US$10B review, which alone should instruct Guyanese on the scam that this review (and Payara’s) represented.
This scheme was compounded by the presence of another reviewing group, Bayphase, which has a long, fruitful relationship with Exxon. Guyana’s interests were secondary to these reviewers, who prioritize Exxon’s. Thus, multiple rackets were run by the PPPC Government with these costly projects to enrich Exxon’s people, and devastate Guyanese interests.
But this was not all, for there was the special issue of the time allocated by Jagdeo himself for the completion of the Payara and Yellowtail reviews. Time allowed had to be a major consideration, of the highest importance, for a clean and competent and credible review of each of the two projects.
But time didn’t concern Vice President Jagdeo, because the time he allocated for the forced completion of the two reviews was an impossibility; he locked them in a narrow corner, tied their hands, blindfolded the reviewers. Time not permitted is what now denounces him for his failures and his connivances in these hasty reviews to help Exxon prosper, and pauperize Guyanese.
To be charitable, Payara may be said to be a mistake, due to a lack of local oil knowledge and wisdom. But to repeat the mistakes of Payara with Yellowtail reeks of the deliberate, conspiratorial, and devastating for Guyana, given the results.
Mr. Jagdeo thinks that time conceals, but it also reveals. There was no way that the US$9B Payara review could have been done in 42 days, or the US$10B Yellowtail review finished in 52 days, as international oil experts insist.
Due to the complexity of technical data, thousands of pages for each, the back-and-forth for questions and clarity, the compulsory deep drilling down to get the best for Guyanese, those time spans were jokes, absolutely unworkable.
These two projects with so much meaning for Guyanese required over a year each for a proper, professional, and principled review, not the rush job that Jagdeo demanded, presided over, and got delivered to him, so that he could issue the licence he promised Exxon. This is how Guyanese are deceived, betrayed, by their own.
Our national budgets, a fraction of the complexity and cost of the two projects, demand more time. But not Payara, not Yellowtail, not US$19B, in the hands of Jagdeo’s select reviewers. With leaders like these, no wonder Guyanese keep losing, failing, hurting.

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