Latest update January 14th, 2025 1:29 AM
May 16, 2022 Editorial
Kaieteur News – It is a fact of life that when the cunning desires to pull the wool over the eyes of a partner, they come up with ways to do so. It is either how to conceal vital pieces of information from them, or how to give them misleading information, or how to give them no information whatsoever. This, as Guyanese know, comes from the lessons of hard experience, and not from some assumptions in a textbook, or the imagination of the suspicious. In this country, it is called seeking to ‘scamp’ someone else, usually somebody in a business transaction or relationship.
This is what came across in a recent gathering of concerned Guyanese, as presented under the caption, “Exxon refuses to disclose cost to transport gas to Wales at public consultations meeting -Wales Gas-to-Shore project… Project Manager says cost not part of EIA” (KN May 12). There it was that the Project Manager was religiously sticking to what were his marching orders: discuss the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) only, and not a word on anything else. Be polite, but be firm, and don’t move one millimetre from either script or programme. Project Manager, Mr. Friedrich Kristin, turned out to be the most loyal corporate soldier that Exxon could have found. He would not yield on transportation costs, he refused to utter a word on anything related to that vital component of the project. Hiding essential information from a partner is an aspect that features constantly when the intention is to take advantage of (‘scamp’).
From the studies undertaken by international experts on behalf of Guyana, there are two essential areas, among others, which must be looked at with the keenest and most critical eye. The first is the price that the Exxon, through its Guyana subsidiary, will charge us for the natural gas piped to the Wales destination point. It goes without saying that Exxon, as an entity that seeks to maximise its profits, would be dedicated to getting the “greatest return on its investment,” which means that the company will spare no effort to squeeze the last cent of price for the natural gas out of negligent or compromised political leaders. For those who think otherwise, we simply point to the horrendous deal (for Guyana) and the sweetheart results (for Exxon) in the hugely lopsided contract it extracted out of this country for itself. To put this differently, if Exxon has to kill us financially to ensure the highest profitability from the project, then the company will do so most ruthlessly, and most cleverly.
We at this paper purposely selected the word cleverly because there are many ways that Exxon can shaft (‘scamp’) us in the pricing of the piped product. We are raw newcomers to the world of oil, while Exxon has been a top leader in it for over 135 years. We could get hurt badly, if our leaders are not careful, conscientious, and committed to getting the best for us. Guyana could be from some really rough going to get what benefits us for the long-term, under most likely different conditions.
The other area of potential trouble for Guyana is transporting the natural gas to Wales. It is a key cost that Exxon can fiddle with to our disadvantage. The company has not been hesitant in looking for opportunities to dump questionable expenses on us, some of which have been detected in the US$460M bill it submitted for Liza-1. The natural gas in our offshore fields has to be transported from those fields about 220 kilometres to the Wales terminal. If Exxon doesn’t get us on the pipelines, it will get us on other component variables that go into constructing it. The company has a history of being relentless and ferocious in this respect. And when the laying of that is finished, the next area for a clever manipulation is what this resourceful oil company charges us for transporting it to Wales. This is a tricky one, and how the final transportation charge is arrived at, should tell us what we got, what it means for the viability of the project, and the bottom-line cost of electricity for Guyanese long-term. No surprise that the Project Manager preferred silence.
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