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Guyana – to be among most successful, yet

Mar 24, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – On most occasions when the people who count at ExxonMobil say something of importance, a word features prominently.  Guyana is that word.  When CEO Woods, CFO Mikells, and ExxonMobil’s Guyana Country Head Routledge speak, Guyana’s glittering prospects drip from their lips in a rich stream of words.  Guyana is ‘the crown jewel’ and ‘unprecedented’ and ‘world class’ and more of such grand expressions.  In a recent public utterance, CEO Woods took the bright beauty of Guyana into the stratosphere.

“The Guyana development will go down as one of the most successful deepwater developments in the history of the industry and the success of that development is…driven by all the work…to grow that value, to develop that resource effectively and expeditiously.” The first question for Mr. Woods is “to grow that value for whom?”  For sure, it cannot be for the benefit of the Guyanese people because it has not been so.  Not when ExxonMobil has made a textbook case of pushing production safety limits.  Not when ExxonMobil has connived with the Government of Guyana to conceal billions in expenses from the local population.  Now when ExxonMobil has announced eight new oil discoveries but is as silent as the dead about how many barrels of oil have been found in each of those oil finds.

It should be a source of great cheer for poor Guyanese to read Mr. Woods lavish words about Guyana’s oil giving strong indications of being “one of the most successful…in the history of the industry.”  But other than the 2% royalty trickle, and a half and half profit sharing (that is disputed as not being fully so), where and how has the success of Guyana’s oil, as recorded to this point, translated into the significance that it should have been for the citizens of this country?  Considering the brazen and ongoing high seas robbery with the deepwater activity in Guyana’s offshore oilfields by ExxonMobil, there is a grim subtitle to Mr. Woods sparkling picture about the success anticipated by his company.  Present success from the immense profitability of Guyana’s cheap to produce oil, high quality oil, has meant nothing but the paltriness of crumbs for Guyanese.  It should follow, therefore, that the same impoverishing situation will continue no matter the dazzling, likely history making, success of Guyana’s deepwater oil riches.

Mr. Woods could not have been clearer in his public statement: much work is going on “to develop that resource effectively and expeditiously.”  It is the closest that any leading official at ExxonMobil has come to what could be regarded as having truth about it, and then only partially.  The Guyana resource is being developed aggressively, with fears of safety enshrouding Guyanese, for “expeditiously” is what it has been.  Higher and higher daily, continuous production levels, and with more new projects waiting in the approval pipeline.  The ExxonMobil CEO has his thinking right with that reality.  On the other hand, there is the company mystery surrounding the development of the Guyana resource “effectively.”  In the manner held high by corporate chieftains, Mr. Woods is allowed to fool himself that “effectively” is an unreadable code, except that it isn’t.  For to develop Guyana great successful story in the making “effectively” has no meaning for the Guyanese people.

To develop “effectively” this once in a century oil motherlode is a commitment made to the investors, stakeholders, and workers of ExxonMobil, and ExxonMobil first and foremost, and ExxonMobil only.  Guyanese are bystanders in this potentially among the greatest of successful stories.  Darren Woods through his man on the ground here, Alistair Routledge, has made clear that there will be no renegotiation of the heinous 2016 oil contract that his company foisted on a backward country.  ExxonMobil has the best local partners to be found anywhere in the world.  There is President Ali and Chief Policymaker Jagdeo.  They are almost completely in the ExxonMobil camp.  Both have abandoned their own people, both have participated in the continuing condonement of the company’s repugnant handiwork, the 2016 oil contract that hemorrhages Guyanese hopes.

Guyanese must see these people (foreign and local) for who they really are, how they ravage this wealth.  Otherwise, this great waiting success will forever be in their imagination only.

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