Guyanese picket energy conference

Feb 15, 2023 News

…cite breaches of environmental permits, other laws

Kaieteur News – As both local and international delegates on Tuesday made their way into the

Environmentalist, Danuta Radzik

Marriot Hotel for the 2023 International Energy Conference and Expo, they were greeted by protestors who stood in front of the Umana Yana with placards insisting that “oil companies can’t make profits while Guyana loses.”

Some held placards demanding “full liability coverage on any spills from parent companies” while others called for full compliance with Guyana’s law when it comes to environmental permits. One of the protestors, Danuta Radzik, an environmentalist told Kaieteur News, “It is not right for Exxon to make profits and other people to make profits off our oil while residents and citizens of Guyana are potentially being affected by the waste from oil and gas”.

She said that oil companies operating here in Guyana have not been adhering to country’s laws especially the Environmental Protection Act. “We have this international conference going on oil and gas so we thought it really important for the delegates coming here and for the Guyanese people also to know some of the truth about what is happening with oil and gas and the lack of rule of law, compliance and adherence to the rule of law”, Radzik told Kaieteur News.

Protestors in front of the Umana Yana on Tuesday

One example, according the environmentalist, is that companies are handling radioactive and hazardous waste for the oil and gas sector are being allowed to operate in residential communities without environmental permits. “…We know that there is one (company) that is Schlumberger Company, we went to court and the judge ruled that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) failed to give reasons as to why they were waiving the Environmental Impact Assessments and ruled against them. There is an injunction against them operating and their environmental was cancelled”, Radzik said while adding that there are five other similar companies operating in Guyana and the public does not know if the EIAs were waived for them too.

Attorney-at- Law Elizabeth Deane-Hughes protesting.

“We do not know how they got the environmental permits and we cannot see the environmental permits that they received because they are not available to the Guyanese people” Radzik explained. She said too that the Environmental Act mandates that the EPA must each year report “of all the waste and pollution that is being engendered in Guyana”. However, according to Radzik, since ExxonMobil started pumping oil in 2019, the government agency is yet to comply with the law and is in clear violation of the Environmental Protection Act.

Meanwhile, Attorney-at-law, Elizabeth Deane-Hughes who also participated in the picketing exercise said that the law is also being broken when it comes to the Gas-to-Energy Project. “They never consulted the people living in the right away (close to the project) and that is a breach of the environmental act also”, Deane-Hughes said while pointing out, “We have permits being granted without people getting to review them.”

She explained too that Guyana does not even have a gas dispersion plan in the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) for the gas shore project leaving Guyanese clueless of where the “noxious gas” from the plant will be dispersed. “First of all the EIA they claim to rely on (for the gas-to –shore project) is not even legal” claimed Deane –Hughes as she signaled challenging it in the “court of law”.

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Energy Conference, Guyana, oil companies, profits, protest

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