Jagdeo flip-flops on his own warning against oil and gas consultancy firms

May 05, 2022 News

– selects Exxon’s clients to review US$10B project

Kaieteur News – While he was Opposition Leader, Guyana’s Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo had warned that it is wise to beware of foreign oil and gas consultancy firms and their motives especially in Guyana.

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.

His exact words during a 2018 press conference was “Not because a foreign company puts out a favorable report, a consultancy company, that we must all latch onto it, we have to question the motivation of these companies particularly consultancies for the oil and gas sector.”
He had advised that most of these consultancy firms are clients of oil companies and would always put out reports that are favourable to them and not the country.
However, two years later it appears as though Jagdeo had ignored his own warning and back peddled on his 2018 statement because when his party, the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) took office in August 2020, it hired Allison Redford, a former Canadian politician with ties to ExxonMobil, to review US$9B Payara project – the Field Development Plan (FDP) – which was completed in 42 days.
Kaieteur News had reported that ExxonMobil via its subsidiary, Imperial Oil had donated thousands of dollars to Redford’s political party. Redford’s political career was also one plagued by a corruption scandal. As Premier of the Canadian province of Alberta, she drew widespread public controversy in Canada when it was discovered that during her attendance of the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the State footed the CAD$45,000 cost of her trip, including about CAD$10,000 for a privately chartered return flight from South Africa.
Redford reportedly refused several calls to repay the money spent for the South Africa trip, but eventually bowed to pressure in 2014 and delivered the funds back to the public purse, with an apology. She later resigned in March 2014 as Alberta Premier, and as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in August of that year, a day before an Attorney General (AG) report on her spending practices was scheduled for release. Despite local media reports had shed some light on her shady career, Alison Redford ended up being hired a second time by the government to be part of the team that reviewed the Yellowtail US$10B project or FDP in 52 days. However, it should be noted that the nation only learned that she was hired again after the review process was completed. It is believed that the government waited until the process was over to reveal that she is a part of it because there were questions raised after the media reported about her controversial past.
The government had initially announced on January 21, 2022, that Bayphase, a consultancy firm that is also a client of ExxonMobil was selected to review the Yellowtail FDP for a total of US$423,360. However, when the review was finished and the government decided to announce on April 1, that it approved the Yellowtail project, Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, stated that Redford was part of the team.
Industry experts have since related that they are confused that the government chose to allow not only a client of Exxon, Bayphase but another company, Allison Redford Group headed by a controversial politician with ties to Exxon to review ExxonMobil’s US$10B Yellowtail project.
Questions have also been raised by industry experts that the Redford’s reviewal rate for both Payara and Yellowtail projects is ‘unreal’. She had reviewed the two projects in 42 and 52 days respectively. More than a dozen industry experts with experience reviewing FDP’s had said emphatically, “No proper review is done with such break-neck speed.”
Specifically, one industry expert had said, “…Other teams having performed reviews of field development plan (oil projects) in other major offshore producing areas, find it difficult to envision that a rigorous analysis of the Yellowtail FDP and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was possible within 52 days. Even with two mega groups of specialists and engineers assigned, it is not possible. The question therefore arises as to whether the Bayphase/Redford partnership skimmed the documents Exxon submitted to the government rather than probing it and requesting additional data for a proactive assessment.”

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