Preaching one sermon, practising another

Mar 01, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Mr. Liam Mallon, President of ExxonMobil Upstream Company is due some considerable tolerance, for his unbridled enthusiasm about his employer’s commitment to safety. If an ExxonMobil insider like Mr. Mallon cannot manifest the zeal to advocate on his company’s behalf, then he would not be worth his place in the executive firmament. According to Mr. Mallon, safety is ExxonMobil’s middle name, a trusted one, where doing the right thing is involved. When the ExxonMobil big dog barks like this, he has entered the lofty company of PPPC Government propagandizers. It is a coveted place that Mr. Mallon has secured for himself, part of his company’s master plan to re-colonize Guyana, re-enslave Guyanese.

“We’ve been doing this for a century. We know how to do it. We know how to do it safely, reliably, and responsibly.” Mr. Mallon is ExxonMobil’s newest standard bearer; he can be pardoned for his gaps in memory, his company’s lapses in judgment. Like a couple of explosions and fires at ExxonMobil’s facilities in California and Montana, and one from back at the turn of the millennium, in which there was a fatality, and a couple injuries. It is possible that people like the savvy Liam Mallon would consider that part of the cost of doing business, hardly a ripple on its safety radar, definitely not in the batting of an eyelid category. There is the risk that this may not be well-received by Mr. Mallon and his bosses at ExxonMobil, but the examples noted represent only a scratching of the surface relative to the company’s safety record. Another way that this could be seen is that ExxonMobil reserved and rolled out its Upstream Company President for the Guyana Energy and Supply Chain Expo to give a special rendition of the blarney to locals about safety, reliably, and responsibly with gas pipelines. We are neither impressed nor swayed.

Taking a more generalized look at the situation, ExxonMobil is busy laying pipelines to Wales, but it is busier ratcheting up daily production levels at the offshore oilfields. Straight from the mouths of the people at the company is the equivalent of ‘don’t worry, we have everything under control.’ Leave everything to us, and trust us. When somebody with a special kind of history says ‘trust me’ then it does not require a college degree to know that it is time to start worrying. ExxonMobil has its history where safe operations are concerned, and it is not one that comforts. In addition, the American oil superpower has what is the freest of free hands, virtually unmanaged and unchecked and uncontrolled power to do what it wants offshore. It has not been sluggish in taking advantage of the situation, as made possible by an insidious and injudicious PPP/C Government. How much oil is really being produced daily? How much pressure are those lines, valves, and seals under? How alert are ExxonMobil’s highly secured and highly watched people?

Thinking of the ExxonMobil-Guyana relationship from a different perspective, the company has wrung every last dollar out of the pockets of this country via that 2016 contract that many call a crime of incredible savagery. Since it is left to its own devices 120 miles from Guyana’s shoreline, the temptation, if not the tendency, could be to do things on the cheap. Cheap means some risks not mitigated to the maximum, risk means some precautions missing due to complacency, and that spells danger. Guyanese should try this for size, and it should fit snugly. ExxonMobil took repeated chances and pushed the risk and safety envelopes in the United States of America, with damage following. There are so many watchdogs of potency, and oversight agencies of ethics and substance, and still ExxonMobil was caught wrong footed often enough. Within reason, and given the institutions of Guyana, ExxonMobil has every incentive to value Guyanese existence more cheaply, outdo itself in its race to more profits.

After all, ExxonMobil has carte blanche to conduct its operations in Guyana as it pleases. Mr. Mallon let the cat out of the bag, when he said that Guyana has “world leadership.” It is code for ExxonMobil being given the freedom by the PPP/C Government to carry on offshore without a care.

Editorial, firmament, Mr. Liam Mallon, Preaching, President of ExxonMobil Upstream Company

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