The sixth oil project

Apr 23, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The sixth oil project has been approved with all its impurities – starting from the lack of ring-fencing to inadequate protection from an oil spill. We have also reported on the risks it poses to our environment, the fishing industry and how its impacts will touch even our local markets.

The US$12.7 billion Whiptail development will target an estimated resource base of more than 850 million barrels of oil and include up to 10 drill centers and 48 production and injection wells. The floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for Whiptail, which will be called Jaguar, is already under construction. ExxonMobil also announced its Final Investment Decision (FID) for the project that is expected to produce approximately 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2027. Liam Mallon, President of ExxonMobil Upstream Company said, “Our sixth multi-billion-dollar project in Guyana will bring the country’s production capacity to approximately 1.3 million barrels per day.”

Guyanese have to make up their own minds regarding ExxonMobil’s and Vice President Jagdeo’s sixth oil project. Guyanese must make their minds about whether the American oil partner is a straight shooter and a clean operator, viz., a set of people with whom they can do business. In other words, when people from ExxonMobil say that this is the way it is, then it is guaranteed to be so, come rain or shine. Regarding the Vice President, once one of Guyana’s favourite sons, if not the most favourite one of all, the people of this country must also decide for themselves how far they are prepared to trust him, and where does that leave them, should he prove to be a huckster and operator for ExxonMobil.

Anyone paying careful attention to how the American company operates here, and the manner in which Guyana’s Jagdeo has sprawled himself backwards to accommodate the company’s objectives, would come to one conclusion. There is no better tango team than America’s ExxonMobil and Guyana’s Bharrat Jagdeo. Both know what the other desires, each one works with an extraordinary degree of knowing arrangements towards what satisfies the other.

This has been the way for prior oil projects, such as three, four, and five, as handled by ExxonMobil and Jagdeo. With each new oil project put on the drawing board, announced, and approved, the two partners in attitude and aptitude have gotten quicker, slicker, and slipperier. The sixth oil project forms part of the continuum, but at a higher pitch and this is the secret sauce at work between ExxonMobil and Jagdeo. What Guyanese are watching in slow motion are two of the cleverest manufacturers (of how things ought to be), and operators (focused on getting things done).

In recent times, when Guyanese look at their own Jagdeo, he is unrecognizable. He is no longer one of them, for he is now blissfully happy to be ExxonMobil’s man on the ground in Guyana. Any one of ExxonMobil’s heavy hitters tips a delicately manicured fingernail, and there is Jagdeo hanging in the air. He does not care if he has to hang the hopes of every Guyanese, all he cares about is ExxonMobil and its interests, what is beneficial to it, notwithstanding how much is the cost to Guyana. This is what is going on with ExxonMobil and Jagdeo in a blur of motion.

ExxonMobil presents the compulsory Environmental Impact Assessment (or public consultations and regulatory stages) that needs to go through the whole nine yards, not to worry. For there is ExxonMobil’s man Jagdeo landing on the beaches, like a battling MacArthur marine, clearing out snipers, landmines, and bunkers. This is the wealth of Guyanese. This oil is the inheritance of Guyanese. This is a major part of the aspirations and destiny of generations of Guyanese. So, what is it going to be? ExxonMobil and Jagdeo must pay more for this sixth project. If not, it must be stopped.

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Editorial, ENVIRONMENT, FPSO, project, Whiptail

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