Jagdeo heads out to India this weekend to seal oil deals

Feb 17, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said he will be leaving for India this weekend where he is expected to tie up agreements with the Government of India for cooperation in the blossoming local oil and gas industry.

President Irfaan Ali along with a high-level team were in India for a seven-day trip recently and entered into several new agreements with the Indian state for collaboration in other sectors, inclusive of manufacturing and power generation among others. It is the VP however, who manages the petroleum sector that will visit India to tie up related arrangements.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

Speaking to Indigenous leaders on Wednesday, Jagdeo confirmed that he will be traveling to India at the end of this week. It is unclear which day the vice president will be leaving. Jagdeo in announcing the auction of 14 of Guyana’s oil blocks back in November last year had said the process, “is consistent with the promise we made while in Opposition that future blocks will be given out only through auction. We are not going to do this directly, except if it’s a state-to-state engagement with the government participating.”

President Ali had met with India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri Hardeep S Puri in Delhi, India, where the leaders discussed “direct Government-to-Government cooperation across the oil and gas spectrum, including increased long-term offtake, participation in exploration and production activities in Guyana, technical cooperation in the midstream and downstream sectors and capacity building, as well as the synergies which exist between the two countries,” a release from the Head of State detailed.

It was also noted that the two countries have agreed to set up technical teams to advance these discussions. Reuters reported that Ali when asked if Guyana would offer blocks to Indian companies through direct negotiations said, “Apart from the auction, we are discussing Government-to-Government partnership in a number of areas including exploration.”

India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs reported that the discussions between Guyana’s President and the subject Minister there, were fruitful. According to the Indian Government, “The contours of future cooperation would be finalized during the visit of Vice President of Guyana, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo to India in February 2023.”

For several years, this newspaper has been at the forefront of calls for there to be a thorough, independent investigation into the award of two blocks – Kaieteur and Canje – since several industry stakeholders who examined the matter, concluded that they were awarded under suspicious circumstances. The Canje Block for instance was awarded by the Donald Ramotar administration on March 4, 2015, days before that year’s General and Regional Elections, to a local company, Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas. Similarly, the Kaieteur Block was awarded on April 28, 2015, just two weeks before the elections, and like the Canje Block, it was done based on the advice of former Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud.

Successive Governments of Guyana have come under heavy criticisms for their management of the country’s nascent oil and gas sector. From the giving away of oil blocks to the signing of a lopsided contract with ExxonMobil, citizens do not feel they will ever benefit fully from the resources. One significant area that has come under scrutiny is the awarding of oil blocks – something which industry experts said should have been put on a public auction in the first place. It took the country more than seven years after it discovered oil, to move towards its first auction.

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Bharrat Jagdeo, India, oil deals, Vice President, weekend

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