Citizens must have access to all of Exxon’s oil project plans

Aug 14, 2024 News

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“For a government to claim that they are open and transparent I don’t see why Jagdeo and the PPP are hiding all these important documents. First and foremost, the oil belongs to all Guyana. What is done with the oil and how it done, how it is produced is the business of every single Guyanese- technical or not.”

– Patterson dismisses VP Jagdeo’s statement that plans are too technical

Kaieteur News – “Ask the Minister…who would read it? Glenn Lall? I can’t even go through that. You need technical people. A Field Development Plan for an oil and gas sector you need specialized people. They would put Glenn Lall, the specialist to read it. Who in your agency would read it if you see it?”

That was the response provided by Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo to a reporter from Kaieteur News when asked to say whether his government would make the Field Development Plans (FDPs) public, for the oil projects approved for ExxonMobil.

An FDP outlines how a company intends to develop a petroleum field, manage the impact on the environment and society, as well as forecasts for production and costs.

To date, six projects have been approved for the American oil giant, operating Guyana’s prolific Stabroek Block, but FDPs outlining the specifications of each project have not been released to the public.  This newspaper recently acquired copies of the Liza One and Liza Two projects. Kaieteur News in a previous article exposed with the aid of the FDPs that Exxon was producing oil well above the design rates outlined for each project, creating fears that the oil could be drained well ahead of the 20-year project life.

Jagdeo was therefore asked whether government will make the FDPs public for the projects approved under his administration.

As anticipated, viewers of the VP’s press conference were briefly steered off-topic as Jagdeo addressed the position of Transparency Institute on the parking meter project and the fact that the body gave credit to the David Granger government for publishing the 2016 oil deal and strengthening the Integrity Commission.

Getting back to the subject, he boasted that government has published all the Permits and Licenses for projects approved since it took office.  “If I am not wrong, I would suspect that we are the ones also who made the (FDPs) available,” Jagdeo said.

When he was asked if he would make the other four available, he said, “Ask the Minister.” Jagdeo also mocked, “And who would read it? Glenn Lall? I can’t even go through that. You need technical people. A field development plan for an oil and gas sector you need specialised people. They would put Glenn Lall, the specialist to read it. Who in your agency would read it if you see it?”

All FDPs should be public

Former Minister of Public Infrastructure and Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC), David Patterson in an interview with this newspaper on Tuesday argued that all FDPs should be made public.  Patterson explained, “They should be available, that’s what the permit is based on. It has a lot of the details which the people should know. Several of the assumptions that the public are making are contained in their design criteria.”

He pointed out that the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for the oil projects are equally voluminous and technical, yet these have been made available to the public. “Kaieteur News and the rest of the public have gone through them line by line to discover what Exxon is claiming so for him to hide behind the excuse that the documents are technical and people can’t read them is absolutely unacceptable,” the Parliamentarian pointed out.

Patterson added, “For a government to claim that they are open and transparent I don’t see why Jagdeo and the PPP are hiding all these important documents. First and foremost, the oil belongs to all Guyana. What is done with the oil and how it done, how it is produced is the business of every single Guyanese- technical or not. The man in the street needs to know as well as the general public, so for him to hide about the technicalities just shows that they obviously are things in there that they know will come into question so they are just simply trying to deceive the people.”

In addition to the FDPs, the former Minister highlighted that government has failed to publish the reviews of the Field Development Plans, completed by Canadian lawyer and former politician, Alison Merrilla Redford.

She was used not once, but twice for the review of ExxonMobil’s Payara and Yellowtail FDPs. Given the fact that Redford has no well known track record of being a fierce defender of States on field development plans, industry experts could not comprehend why she was selected for such an important job. What has surprised them as well is “Guyana’s wild rate of approval for Exxon’s projects” following Redford’s input. They noted that Redford reviewed both Payara and Yellowtail within 42 and 52 days respectively.

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• ExxonMobil, FDP, Jagdeo, public, technical

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