Oil spill insurance motion will test PPP/C’s loyalty to Guyana

May 16, 2022 News

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— former EPA Head says now is the time to reverse past mistakes

By Davina Bagot

Kaieteur News – Former Head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams has said that the Speaker of the National Assembly as well as government is now in a position to reverse the mistakes made regarding oil spill insurance and moreover prove its loyalty to the country.
His comments came on the heels of the recent revelation by Shadow Oil and Gas Minister, David Patterson, that the amended Motion, seeking full insurance coverage by oil giant ExxonMobil, will be resubmitted to the House this week.

Dr. Adams in a recent interview with this publication explained, “This is the time for the Speaker and administration to show maturity and love for their country in accepting what is obviously a mistake that flies in the face of the interest of the people of Guyana and Caricom. It gives an opportunity to reverse what seems to be an ill-advised decision, by allowing for the 65 Members of Parliament who were put there to represent the people, to show whether they stand up as true representatives and guardrails against exploitation of their people, or whether they stand on the side of Exxon allowing the unfettered exploitation of the nation.”
He was referring to the weakening of the insurance motion by the House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir, who had in February removed 13 of the 20 clauses in Patterson’s Motion.
To this end, the former EPA boss reasoned, “Does it really make any sense for our poor nation to be so generous to mega rich Exxon, to first, be receiving much less monies than we deserve for our oil; second, to be paying Exxon’s billions of dollars of taxes out of our little bit; and third, to be holding the stick carrying Exxon’s humongous liabilities many, many times our national budget, in the case of a major oil spill? I think not!
The Opposition’s Motion on full coverage insurance is calling for the Government of Guyana, to include full unlimited liability coverage for oil spills and other disasters related to petroleum production, as a condition for granting approval for ExxonMobil’s fourth project, the Yellowtail development, and all other future petroleum development.
It is also seeking an independent analysis on the possible ill effects of an oil spill and for this report to be submitted to the Parliamentary Committee of Natural Resources, to be used as a reference for all other future oil development submissions.
The oil company has since gotten the necessary environmental approvals to proceed with the Yellowtail development, in the absence of full insurance coverage. Nevertheless, ExxonMobil is currently seeking approval for its fifth oil project, Uaru Plus.
The second clause, in the insurance Motion states, “And Whereas worldwide offshore oil production operations show a high likelihood of an oil spill occurring offshore Guyana, and that such likelihood of a spill increases exponentially with the rapid increase in offshore production activities” and the fourth clause read, “And Whereas the emergency response and cleanup of the British Petroleum Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have so far cost more than $70 billion USD.”
Even though these details have been widely reported on, and are moreover available for verification through quick research, these clauses were removed as the Speaker concluded they must be based on facts. The removal of these clauses means that they will not be debated in the National Assembly.
Given that these clauses which can easily be verified were removed, Dr. Adams said he believes the Speaker owes Guyana and the rest of Caricom an explanation.
According to him, “I think that in the context of a matter of such a critical nature to the health, wellbeing and livelihood of the peoples of Guyana and the Caricom nations, the honorable Speaker owes all an explanation why he thinks that each of these 15 Clauses he unilaterally removed, are not factual; and why does he believe it’s appropriate for him to usurp the rightful obligation of the 65 Members of Parliament to debate, decipher the facts from falsities, and make the decisions by a vote on these critical matters that carries dire potential consequences to Guyana and the region.”
He added, “Isn’t Guyana supposed to be a democracy and not an autocracy – the reason why we have a parliamentary forum as our highest decision-making instrument of the nation, where the members of this parliament was put there by the people to speak on their behalf? Is it just the Speaker’s high and mighty political bias? Or is it in fairness to him, just his being ill-advised of what is factual? Isn’t the parliament the ultimate authority where issues of this sort must be debated and where facts must be separated from falsities? Since when does the constitution call for the Speaker to usurp this role of the 65 Members of Parliament and by extension, all Guyanese?”
ExxonMobil has, since the startup of its oil operations in December 2019, evaded demands to provide insurance coverage, and instead tied its subsidiary to providing this guarantee. This has been the centre of debates as the fairly young company with assets worth only around US$5 billion, would not be able to effectively cover all costs associated with an oil spill in Guyana, should such an adverse event occur.

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