Oil – what is meaningful to me

Feb 16, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Right off the bat I put before everyone what is most meaningful to me on this oil patrimony of Guyana.  There are three strains to my thinking, and in order of priority here they are.  The first is the prosperity that is due to all Guyanese.  The second is the profitability of this country’s oil partner, Exxon.  The third is the cultivation of close connectivity to the American government.  All three have their challenges, all three have unlimited upside.

The first thing that readers should notice is that I have given no priority, no pride of place, for the fortunes of the PPP and its leaders, their cronies, families, and hangers-on.  The same applies in the fullest measure to the PNC and that gang of good Guyanese. The interests of both parties and their movers and shakers are of no significance to me, pale into the inconsequential.  Both political groups are well-equipped to take care of what is important to them.  Now, I wish to get one thing straight: I have no constituency; I serve no majority; I identify with no minority, other than the voiceless and powerless and friendless.  I bow completely before only one constitution -my conscience.

Whoever is there in Guyana that can deal with the above, is a friend; whoever can’t still qualify as a friend. Like it or lump it, but live with it.  Now it is time to get down to the real business of this contribution.

This country has enough proven reserves of oil for there to be fulfillment, early as in now, of the first priority identified above.  The prosperity of every Guyanese, whether they number 780,000, or 900,000, or about a million, which is now being bandied about.  The population is still small enough and the oil assets huge enough for all Guyanese to get their fair slice of the pie.  At the rate that Exxon is pumping oil daily, and considering where the price of oil has been (the range), there is every reason why Guyanese should have, had to have, come into their own.  Oil owners.  Oil harvesters.  Oil benefiters.  It has not happened, even come close, and this is a burning concern for me.  “We are not rich yet” they say.  If not today, when Exxon is making hay, then when?  The so-called sanctity of contract has been massaged and manipulated capriciously and primarily to the benefit of Exxon.  Yet there has been only the self-serving, self-promoting mulishness of Guyana’s political leaders about coming clean and taking the clearest stand on bringing about material changes to the contract.

The trouble in the hall is that PPP Government leaders are about the drop-dead primacy of power at any cost.  Hold on to it.  Do not relinquish it, under any circumstances.  Do whatever it takes to get on and stay on the best side of Exxon.  Guyana’s opposition is made of like flesh, in that the first priority is to get in the good books of Exxon to give the party a fighting chance at getting into power.  Power is the perversion that leads to all the word games and posturing from political leaders, all too consumed about doing what is looked upon favorably by Exxon.  So, there is this jockeying for power, which destroys the chances of Guyanese at the prosperity, which is rightfully theirs, and rightly due right now.  Exxon and America are where the power originates, passes through to the chosen group. Who didn’t know it before, should have the commonsense to know it now.  Just revisit the obfuscations, vacillations, and contortions of our leaders.

Secondly, Exxon must make a profit.  Not one that is marginal, but profitability that is eye-popping and mouthwatering.  This is highly likely after a real leader and a real government take the fight to Exxon to renegotiate the 2016 instrument of enslavement, what distresses Guyanese.  I scoff and laugh when I hear blabber about ‘honorable’ from locals, for it’s a cover to do nothing, to secure the party’s place of favor.  Guyana’s oil is so cheap (contractually [new terms applying]), high-quality (proven), and production inspiring (breakeven) that Exxon’s profitability is guaranteed.  It is the mere matter of a touchup of the slightest haircut on the company’s existing profits out of Guyana.  Because Exxon has so doggedly and unartfully resisted any move to renegotiate the 2016 contract, what Guyanese see (including PPP diehards and blowhards) is the company representing the worst manifestations and excesses of capitalism.  It is perverted and it is racist.  It will take some undoing by Exxon to remove those smears on its corporate identity.  The key is that it still has some time to do right by Guyana, and still profit gorgeously.

Lastly, admitted or not, Guyana is now tied to the American Eagle.  It has to make a pick: the rising Chinese Dragon, or the faltering American Eagle.  For its own security, its own stability and tranquility, Guyana must cultivate the closest connectivity with the Yankees.  They can be hypocritical, sanctimonious, and overbearing.  But they are the best that we have, what this country needs.  Being where we are, commodity and geography, there is no avoiding the Yankee shadow. Any leader making these three priorities his or her highest, and in the same order, and there could be a radically new Guyana in the making.  A satisfied one.

(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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• Because Exxon, PNC and that gang of good Guyanese, PPP Government, self-promoting, self-serving

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