ExxonMobil will not walk away

Jun 27, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil was never going to walk away from Guyana. Not with a 1-year extension in hand for 20% of the fabulous Stabroek that had to be given up. Nobody has to go to Harvard or Oxford to figure that out. Bharrat Jagdeo tried to roil Guyanese with “investors spook easily” but he forgot to consult with ExxonMobil to make his story match the company’s. For there was that contrasting message from the company itself.

Mr. John Ardil, ExxonMobil’s Vice President of Global Operations, spoke about the extraordinary speed at this oil exploration is occurring in Guyana: It’s “incredibly fast, four and a half years from discovery to first oil is pretty much an industry record. So that oil development, by any measurable standard, in a new country with no hydrocarbons industry, using floating production, storage, and offloading vessels, all of that is world-class pace and skill, and to be running three rigs drilling pure development wells, that’s not happening anywhere else in the world.”

It could be said that ExxonMobil is throwing all caution to the winds (“industry record”) with the lighting speed of its operations. “That’s not happening anywhere else in the world”, so is ExxonMobil dangerously experimenting with its unchecked rate of production in Guyana, with new speed records established in Guyana? We think that it is.

ExxonMobil cannot do this so freely anywhere else in the world, so it is not going anywhere. Go where to do what and be allowed by which government to do how much without proper controls and that all-important, non-negotiable blanket protection? Since Guyana is now the guinea pig that it experimented upon by the mad operators in ExxonMobil laboratory, other countries take note, learn what precautions they must put in place, so as to safeguard their people, environment, and potential. With all this carefully weighed, it is beyond debate, pushback, that ExxonMobil is here to stay for the long run. It is not going anywhere, it is not going to go easily into the night, as ExxonMobil’s Alistair Routledge went out of his way to confirm. What and leave the sweet riches of Guyana that are so cheap to obtain!

But this is what Guyana’s own Vice President Bharat Jagdeo seeks to unsettle citizens with through one of the more recent contrivances of his overworked brain: “investors spook easily.” Since ExxonMobil is not leaving the sweetness of Guyana behind, then it would be interesting to learn which of the other downstream supporting companies, so vital to the ExxonMobil supply chain, will pack their bags because, per Jagdeo, they see ‘jumbie’ that scares them away from Guyana.

What Guyanese should focus on are the revelations coming from ExxonMobil, each time one of its power players open their mouths. In selling their company and the beauties of the Guyana investment, they giveaway plenty food for thought. The same Vice President John Ardil, who spoke so brilliantly about pace of operations here, also had this to say to his S&P Global Insights audience: “all come together” in Guyana, viz., attractive geology, stable political conditions, and carbon footprint minimization. He has it right in every instance.

The Guyana oil basin holds more oil than Guyanese know, for ExxonMobil is likely not sharing all the happy details with the Guyana Government. Some trump cards are better held in reserve, and to cover other self-enriching company-oriented plans and activities. When Mr. Ardil noted ‘stable political conditions’ that is a codeword for captive government, and cooperative opposition. And when ‘carbon footprint minimization’ is the warming issue, no Guyanese has the clearest idea of how much ExxonMobil is engaged in offshore, relative to actual production, and the real gas flaring numbers into the atmosphere. Whatever the Government of Guyana accepts and becomes the basis for its knowledge depends on what it receives from ExxonMobil. No wonder Vice President Ardil was almost beside himself with ecstasy.

So when Jagdeo delivers that white rabbit called “investors spook easily,” he is up to his usual concoctions, exaggerations, and distortions. We can all put this to bed: Nobody walks away from what is good. Guyana is more than good to ExxonMobil; Guyana is great and glorious for the company’s profits and glittering prospects.

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Editorial, ExxonMobil, Guyanese, Harvard, Oxford

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