Guyana is ideally positioned to be one of the preferred sources of oil over the next 30 years

May 01, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing my letter “US$150B, maybe more” on April 23, 2022. I have received several questions and I would like to respond to two of them.

The first was: “Who will be using oil 30 years from now?” And the second was: “What happens to the US$150B?” The International Energy Agency in its “World Energy Outlook” of October 2021 projected that the world will be using 70 million barrels of oil per day in 2050. That number is about 30 million barrels per day less than what is currently used. The US Energy Information Agency states that because of population growth and economic growth, mainly in Asia, oil will still be the largest energy source worldwide in 2050 at 28% followed closely by surging renewables at 27%. I realize that these projections are not in keeping with the requirements of the Paris Accord but my question then is, how many of the major carbon emitters and polluters are even close to their Paris Accord targets currently?

So, in answer to the questioner, the experts predict that the world will need around 70 million barrels of oil per day in 2050 to fuel its energy demand, in addition to all the renewable energy sources, mainly wind, solar and mega-batteries, coming on stream between now and then. Guyana is ideally positioned to be one of the preferred sources of oil over the next 30 years because: its production is among the lowest cost; it is of top quality; close to major markets; already has it production infrastructure in place; built cheaply during a low-cost cycle; relatively new with built-in efficiencies; buttressed by a strong, experienced, deep pocketed, major oil corporation with extensive market integration and lobbying penetration; tucked away offshore where oversight can be conveniently minimized; and heavily mitigated by Guyana’s status as a carbon sink, thanks to its vast rainforests. I believe that Guyana has a secure market for its oil production over the next thirty years.

The second question: “What happens to the US$150B?” That obviously is best answered by those elected to govern Guyana and those who live there. But as a Guyanese-born American citizen whose navel string was buried near the punt trench in Palmyra and one whose attachment to Guyana demonstrably preceded the oil discovery, I can tell you what I would like to see. Live, build, save and give. Those are the four categories on which I have modeled my personal finances and I would recommend the same rough parceling to the government of Guyana.

In my Moray House talk in July 2019, I suggested the oil income be divided into four roughly equal baskets, yet allowing for changes in cash flow, situational demands, fiscal emergencies and other timing factors that might alter immediate priorities. That said, the four baskets are: (1) Live: Immediate improvements in security, public safety, education starting with free tertiary education, health services, sanitation, environmental improvements, arts, sports and recreation; (2) Build: for longer term infrastructure projects such as highly equipped technical colleges, power generation, impoldering the coastal lands for large scale agriculture and aquaculture, establishing a half mile wide transportation corridor from the Brazilian border to the coast, a trans-shipment and free port, roads parallel to the coast about ten miles inland to redirect population growth and housing, offices and factories further inland; (3) Save: the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund to save and grow the fund for when the oil revenues decline; and (4) Give: to distribute funds annually to Guyanese citizens living in Guyana in order to create an immediate linkage to and an appreciation of the direct personal benefits of this oil windfall and to reduce misgivings about inequities among beneficiaries.

Editor, please allow me make a correction to a comment made by a critic. He stated that I ran an oil company in Texas. Close but not quite correct. I was chairman of the board of directors of a gas company for 17 years. Also, I was never in the same league as Exxon’s executives though a few were my patients when they were coming up the corporate ladder while doing a stint in the Permian Basin and I was a practising physician.

Yours faithfully,
Tulsi Dyal Singh, MD.

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Guyana is ideally positioned to be one of the preferred sources of oil over the next 30 years

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