Hard Truths by GHK Lall – ExxonMobil Could Blowup Guyana’s Future

Aug 11, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – When is this recklessness, this corporate madness going to come to a stop?  Where is the Guyanese political leader who has the glandular fierceness to insist and persist that this confounded nonsense has to stop, and it must come to a stop now? Would this repeated pushing past the limit even come up for discussion in a country of non-coloured people, those of WASP lineage and pretensions? Studying these Confederates from Exxon, something registers, the predominant colour near their crown is what makes bulls lose their cool, or some people faint.

We know that we have wimps for politicians, but they don’t have to be weasels and worms, simultaneously.  The American oil warriors come here, and they get Guyanese to dress in white sheets and cone hats to terrorize the natives who object to the company’s predations and exploitations, through still more increased production.

As Exxon accelerates its monster production machine to make its heart leap in delight, Guyanese need a furnace started under them to help them leap out of their reverie.  What I foresee is that as newer production numbers are conjured in the company’s ambitious laboratory, the odds are against Guyana.  The risks multiply from material and man hour fatigue; one small slip, one tiny miscalculation, one failed process, and all the finely computerized calibrations fall apart, are worth nothing.  A ‘Skull and Bones’ society we would be, which doesn’t reference Yale University.  Of course, Exxon has already gamed out its contingency scenario.  Simply put, problematic developments were not due to gross negligence or error on its part.  Who in Guyana is going to trace it to Exxon?  What capabilities do we have here to thwart possible Exxon’s cover-ups, to back the company against a wall, to make it admit to anything?

Our politicians are useless, and they have made the courts all but useless, with sensitive institutions already in that paralyzed state, despite the menacing developments that are coming out of Exxon’s overworked throat.  To begin with, an increase of 20% over current production is planned for the Liza Destiny and Liza Unity floating, production, storage, and offshore (FPSOs) vessels.  This means that, all things considered, a massive 80,000 more barrels in daily oil output at our offshore oilfields.  Is somebody playing the jester around herewith that announcement of ramping up production by 80,000 barrels daily?  Since it was the El Supremo, Mr. Darren Woods himself, this is serious stuff, and is going to happen, especially since neither brother Ali nor Jagdeo has what it takes to raise a hand like a traffic cop and say: halt! Not one inch (barrel) more!  When I think of these two Guyanese brothers in leadership roles, I look upwards, and protest: the burdens I am asked to carry; the patience and temperateness to manifest.

Not to worry, says the man now in Irving, Texas, by way of Wichita, Kansas.  This engineer of the impossible spoke glowingly, maybe convincingly to the slovenly Guyanese political rulership class, about the ‘ingenuity of [Exxon’s] workforce’, with the unsaid message being that all is in hand, and all will be well.  Just trust us.  I have an unprintable two-word phrase for the like of Messrs. Wood and Routledge.  Take that “ingenuity” and stuff a sock in it.  My unswerving conviction is that Exxon is experimenting (endangering Guyanese) with many things, in many ways, thinking that all Guyanese are certified idiots, pushovers.  This one isn’t.

Exxon is pushing past the red line and endangering the environment.  Exxon is endangering the viability of this country as an oil-producing nation.  Exxon is endangering Guyana’s present and future prosperity, holding our children’s destiny to ransom.  For sure, more production means more profits for Exxon; but it also represents more perils of many types for Guyana. Where is Guyana’s Oil Commissar, Dr. Jagdeo, other than lurking beneath Exxon’s bed.  Where is Guyana’s Head-of-State, besides being inside the shoe of Exxon’s leading people.

By Mr. Woods reckoning, Exxon could hit a million barrels prior to 2027, through more of this claimed and fabled ‘ingenuity.’  Many who others thought of as geniuses, and who saw themselves as geniuses, have been felled by similar hubris.  The Austrian Adolf Hitler was one.  The American Douglas MacArthur was another, when he wanted to race across the Yalu River in pursuit of elusive Chinese irregulars, and nuke China should it dare to challenge.  Yet another American, a Yankee this time, Donald Trump, did the same with his claimed election wizardries.  Still another American, an Exxon boat captain piloted a ship while drunk and devastated a perfect environmental paradise.  Talk about ingenuity and it was there on display in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.  Not to leave the British and their ingenuity when the BP guys in charge of the Deepwater Horizon operations in the Gulf of Mexico blew everything out of the water.

The top Guyanese scrutineer of Exxon’s bills lost crucial people to Exxon and CNOOC.  Meanwhile preps to produce more that generates more expenses, but with no qualified Guyanese around to manage the store.  Go, brother Jagdeo, go.  Lift Exxon up, take Guyana down.  This is better contract management, majestic leadership.  Where do we get these people from, most of them?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• ExxonMobil, GHK Lall, Guyanese, hard truths, political

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