Oil can be a blessing or curse; Govt. must ensure environmental sustainability - Ralph Gonsalves

Oil can be a blessing or curse; Govt. must ensure environmental sustainability – Ralph Gonsalves

Feb 16, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – As Guyana continues to make rapid progress on the development of its newfound oil and gas resources, the country has been warned that these God-given supplies can be a blessing or curse.

This warning was sounded by the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves during the opening of the country’s second annual International Energy Conference and Expo yesterday. The event is being hosted at the Guyana Marriott, under the theme ‘Harnessing Energy for Development’.

The Prime Minister told hundreds of delegates at the event that while the energy market is vital, it has proven to be disconnected to environmental sustainability.

“The market is important for the production of goods and services but the market has shown itself historically and in the contemporary sense, inadequate to address critical issues like redistributive justice and environmental sustainability,” Gonsalves said.

It is against this backdrop that he explained, “Oil in some countries have been a blessing and in some a curse, and the avoidance of it being a curse, the market has to recognize the legitimate role of the state in addressing redistributive justice and regulating matters for environmental sustainability.”

The Prime Minister also shared that the region is very important to Guyana’s development. He pointed out that Guyana is like the country, Trinidad and Tobago in the sense that they look inwards. Key to sustainable development however is the need for these nations to also look outwards to resolve issues that may involve the Caribbean Region.

He said, “The Region is vital for Guyana. Guyana though it has large continental land mass, it is in profound ways, a seaboard civilization. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, we are part of what you may call island civilization and the seaboard civilization, like the island civilization, they are peculiar civilizations and given the nature of a seaboard or an island civilization, when we are in them, we tend to look inwards, but at the same time, accompanying that inward look there must be necessarily an outward gaze and dialecting between the inward look and the outward gaze is important to resolve and it can only be resolved if you go to your neighbours in the Region, whether it is in the Caribbean that is an important connection or Latin America.”

Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves

The Government of Guyana has made it clear that the intent is to accelerate the production its oil and gas, but these activities have the potential to impact Caribbean islands in the event of an oil spill. Be that as it may, the country is still to acquire a parent company guarantee from ExxonMobil, the largest shareholder of the Stabroek Block.

Currently, an approximate 360,000 barrels of oil per day is being produced at the Liza One and Two fields. A third project, Payara is also expected to start up this year.

The third project, Payara is expected to startup this year. The oil company has already received approval for the fourth development – Yellowtail. In the meantime, the fifth and sixth projects are pending approval at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ExxonMobil has said in its EIAs that an oil spill at one of its Stabroek Block projects can impact Caribbean islands, especially Trinidad and Tobago. In the meantime, the EPA is in talks with ExxonMobil for a US$2B coverage. Industry stakeholders have said that this is tantamount to a drop in the bucket, considering that oil spill cleanup costs in some territories have been in the range of US$65B.

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Caribbean Region, Guyana Marriott, International Energy Conference and Expo, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves

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