If halting oil operations is what must be, let it be

Nov 05, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Sometimes matters peak to a point where there is only one choice left. This is where we are with oil operations in the offshore Stabroek Block. If ExxonMobil refuses to respond satisfactorily to what Guyana seeks to have and must have, then operations in the Stabroek Block must come to a grinding halt, until something gives. There is a time for talking, and there is a time for acting. This is regardless of how much this puts a wrench in ExxonMobil’s operations and its visions, or how much we also would experience. Some things just have to be, and this is where we are, with ordering a stoppage of all oil operations.

We are impatient with talking forever, and all that the Guyanese people are getting from both ExxonMobil and our own leaders are hollow words. This going around in circles and always coming up next to empty handed for our immense oil wealth, can’t continue, as before. Something must give, and Guyana must be given a better deal.

Guyana needs and must have, and must get, comprehensive coverage in the event of a catastrophic oil spill. We need the evidence of such coverage in black and white, going all the way up to the parent company of Exxon Guyana (EEPGL). It is what would give a degree of comfort to us, for as zealous Guyanese Attorney, Melinda Janki noted, the oil money would not matter so much, should there be an environmental disaster from an oil spill, and this country is lacking the whole package of coverage that is vital (KN October 4). There are reports of a small oil spill, the mere matter of one barrel (42 US gallons), and weeks later, the citizens of this country are still waiting for some information on what happened, how much was spilled, what failed, and who was responsible. If this is for one barrel of oil spilled, and this is the disrespect that Guyanese are subject to, then it doesn’t take much to appreciate what we would get and when if a bigger oil spill were to occur.

Full liability coverage is on the liability side, of what we could end up owing to others, while having to deal with the specter of national bankruptcy hanging over our heads. On the income side, the absence of ring-fencing, and the silence around that changing at the soonest, contributes to how we are being gamed and robbed, through one practiced company skullduggery or another, and being none the wiser for what is actually happening. When we allow ourselves to be delighted at the trickles of cash going into the nation’s overseas oil fund, ExxonMobil is busy drumming up, and implementing new tricks to cheat us out of our fair share of this oil wealth. To paraphrase a now ancient American political power, Donald Rumsfeld, ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ and ExxonMobil wants to keep us in that state of thick darkness.

To delve deeper in what Attorney Janki said, there must be an ‘independent international, credible investigation of what ExxonMobil is doing offshore, and that it should then serve as the basis for new discussions. The first condition is that ExxonMobil is only allowed to resume operations if it yields to the reasonable priorities that Guyana tables. We should not be begging ExxonMobil to come to the table, that’s the company choice. What we do know is that the oil would stay under the seabed, and oil don’t spoil.

We also know that the whole world knows how we have been robbed (by ExxonMobil), and that the whole world wants to come here and invest to profit richly. Demanding our fair share from ExxonMobil is what any of the businesses desiring to come here would want for themselves. Guyana wants and must collect the full amount of taxes due from ExxonMobil, like all others. Monitoring expenses and reviewing bills are must haves as well.

These are in addition to the ring-fencing and full liability coverage identified earlier.

This country either gets a new deal, and a better, fairer deal. Or, there is no deal at all, and operations cease immediately. Let ExxonMobil take matters from there, the ball would be in its court.

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If halting oil operations is what must be, let it be

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