Profits for Exxon, poverty for Guyanese

Feb 09, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – The numbers are beautiful, and Exxon is on top of the world. In the event that anyone is wondering where Guyana is, just look towards the bottom.  Guyana is buried down there.  The newswires are abuzz: Exxon striking it rich again with US$36 billion in profits for 2023.  It is a figure to thrill any shareholder’s heart.  Guyanese hearts are still hoping. Guyana is ranked the 10^th richest globally based on GDP by the IMF; sizzling double-digit growth has been recorded the last few years, with more of the same white-hot growth projected.

Yet Guyana’s multitudes are still out in the cold.  According to the local economics maestro, Daktah Jagdeo, Guyanese time will come.  It is just not this year. A blip may be in the works for next year, due to crafty elections considerations.  It is likely that the money that cannot be found now, will be found then.  Meanwhile, Exxon is going great guns, and nowadays, they are rip-roaring and soaring.

In 2023, Exxon’s revenues jumped 45%.  Y thinking is that the creaming off of billions in expenses that Guyanese are prevented from viewing had a little to do with that development.  Earnings per share for last year was a round US$8.89 per share, which is more than one and a half times what many Guyanese had in their hands to spend per day.  Guyanese are grappling with a scorching and unforgiving cost-of-living setting, practically falling farther and farther behind daily.  In the 10^th richest country in the world, with GDP numbers not seen anywhere in recent times, there are too many Guyanese, who are afraid to go food shopping for fear of embarrassing themselves.

In contrast, Exxon was in the top ten of US profit performers in 2023, occupying 8^th place on that chart.  The next nearest oil company was Chevron, which was well-positioned in the 12^th spot.  This oil major has to be drooling about what its arrival in Guyana could mean for its income statement, and that most watched metric, net profit.  In 2023, Exxon distributed a total of US$32.4 billion to its shareholders.  At the current rate of deposits in Guyana’s New York-based oil fund, it will be somewhere close to the year 2050 when Guyana would have collected that much in its hands.  The qualifier is that oil holds steady, and does not swoon into one of its customary extended fainting spells.  Whether it is from the company’s own corporate communications, or from the financial news networks, Exxon is riding high and handsome from Guyana’s oil.  This is while a great many Guyanese are crawling around and scrapping about below the economic radar to eke out a living.

Look at those 2023 numbers for Exxon again. US$7.6B from the Guyana portion of its operations.  In a partnership that calls for a half and half sharing relationship, Guyana didn’t even draw close to that US$2B for last year.  From my perspective, half and half with Exxon for Guyana is more of what is in theory, and not what is practiced.  It goes to show how much that hemorrhaging 75% expense subtraction from off the top of Guyana’s oil revenues goes to balloon Exxon’s oil profits from this country.  That expense lake is where the real profits are for Exxon, and where there is room for many kinds of manipulation. No Guyanese should need any explanation, or anyone to hold their hands, to appreciate why Exxon insists that those expenses stay hidden.  Or, why Vice President Jagdeo skips and hopscotches to help Exxon keep them a secret, even if it means that he must engage in the venomous while attacking dissenting Guyanese who call for transparency.  I venture to remind my fellow citizens of what has surfaced from partial audits of some of Exxon’s expenses, and how poorly those made the company look.  I urge interested Guyanese to refresh their minds about the behind-the-scenes tricks and deceptions that surrounded that recent US$214M in findings by IHS Markit. I believe that that went much higher than a foot soldier like Gopnauth “Bobby” Gossai.  If for an amount as relatively small as that, then why not for amounts that are bigger, and that have the insulation of being a tightly held secret from the people who are paying, Guyanese?

When pressured to get more for Guyanese by forcing Exxon towards renegotiation of the 2016 contract, Excellency Ali took shelter under the most laughable of slippery constructions: “we are honorable people.” He didn’t have to because he already had a good idea of how honorably (or dishonorably) the company operates here, but President Ali still reassured Exxon. I encourage the same President Ali to impress that business about “honorable people” upon Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, who has gone another way in his baseless, obscene attacks on Guyanese who expose both Exxon and him. When all this is added up, Exxon’s numbers from Guyana go up and up.  Over 21% of Exxon’s 2023 profits came from Guyana, considering its US$7.6B booty. More than one in five of Exxon’s 2023 profit dollars came from Guyana’s oil. The reality of Guyanese today is that there is a PPP Government collaborating in every way possible with Exxon.  Exxon prospers, Guyanese remain impoverished.

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, billions in expenses, GDP by the IMF, Guyanese, sharing relationship, Vice President

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