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Jagdeo wants to sell assets already paid for by Guyana to cover oil spill – Former EPA head
Former EPA Head, Dr. Vincent Adams
Kaieteur News – Former Head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams has mocked the response provided by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that Guyana could sell US$20B in assets owned by ExxonMobil Guyana to cover costs associated with an oil spill that occurs in the Stabroek Block.
Dr. Adams during a virtual Alliance For Change (AFC) press conference on Friday dissected the recent comments of the chief policymaker for the oil sector, who said during his February 22, 2024 press conference at Freedom House in Georgetown that Exxon has some $20B in assets that can be sold in the event of an oil spill.
He was asked by Kaieteur News to list the assets, but instead shifted his attention to the assets of Hess- a 30 percent shareholder in Guyana’s Stabroek Block. Jagdeo said, “If I have to list the assets of Exxon, have you read the balance sheet, have you gone to the financial statements and looked at the balance sheets? You should look at that. I have to list every asset that they have and considering something else. We talk about the book value of the assets, let me just give you an idea. You’ve heard about the merger between Chevron and Hess…”
Weighing in on the response provided by the VP, Dr. Adams said that the recent oil spill in Tobago has again awakened the attention of all of Guyana and the Caribbean that can be in serious danger of not only an environmental catastrophe, but also financial bankruptcy.
He pointed out that the spill in Trinidad is little compared to the existing threat posed by the vessels that traverse through the Caribbean from Guyana with a load of 1million barrels of oil every other day, which will soon increase to at least 1million barrels every day – 35 times the Tobago spill.
“If this 30,000-barrel spill is a national disaster, imagine what it will be with a 1-million-barrel spill, or 35 times Tobago’s, from a ship carrying oil from Guyana; or from a well blow-out spilling millions of barrels,” Dr. Adams stressed.
Be that as it may, he argued that Guyana remains grossly unprepared for the impacts of such a disaster.
“As expected, the VP had to swivel to his foolishness about some sort of concocted US$2.6B, and phantom US$20B in assets that he could seize from EMGL to pay for an oil spill,” the former EPA head said.
The US$2.6B he referred to includes the US$2B oil spill guarantee recently submitted by Exxon to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US$600 million oil spill insurance.
The former EPA head then explained that the US$20B assets of Exxon being touted by the VP are being paid for by Guyana through the cost recovery mechanism outlined in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA).
He said, “All assets are being bought and paid for, by Guyana through cost oil, and per the PSA, will be turned over to Guyana free of charge upon termination; so, it is daftness to keep repeating that he will seize our own assets from EMGL.”
Consequently, he dared Jagdeo to please publish the assets he claims to be owned by ‘child company’ EMGL that adds up to $20B. “In other words, put up or shut up to stop fooling the people,” he asserted.
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