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Guyana in the dark on how much oil is being deducted by Exxon for its operations – Int’l lawyer says matter is of serious concern
Kaieteur News – The Petroleum Agreement between the Government of Guyana (GoG) and United States oil major, ExxonMobil provides for the operator of the Stabroek Block to use as much oil as it needs during the offshore operations.
International Lawyer, Melinda Janki
Article 11.9 of the Agreement states: “The Contractor shall have the right to use in any Petroleum Operations as much of the production as may reasonably be required by it therefor and the quantities so used or lost shall be excluded from any calculations of Cost Oil and/or Cost Gas and Profit Oil and/or Profit Gas entitlement.”
Be that as it may, the country does not know what quantity of oil is being taken out by Exxon to run its operations. Flagging this issue was International Award-winning Lawyer, Melinda Janki during a webinar on Sunday. The virtual discussion titled ‘Guyana’s oil- boom or blowout?’ was widely attended by close to 100 participants from different countries.
In her presentation, the Lawyer pointed out, “The Petroleum Agreement says that Exxon, Hess and CNOOC can take as much oil as they need for the operations. So when they produce the oil, they can take, each one of them, Exxon, Hess and CNOOC, each one of them can take as much oil as they say they need for their operations.”
In 2021, Janki said she wrote to President Irfaan Ali requesting information on how much oil was being deducted by the companies; however, she never received a response.
She said, “Either he doesn’t know or he doesn’t want to say, but this oil does not get counted, it’s just gone and the rest of the oil is divided into cost oil and profit oil, so if you think of the oil, you have got three things- one, the free oil that’s taken off the top, we don’t know how much that is and it doesn’t count and then the rest of the oil which is divided into something called cost oil and profit oil.”
It should be noted that ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), as the operator of the Stabroek Block is required to submit a quarterly production statement to the government of Guyana, outlining among other things the gross quantity of crude oil or natural gas produced as well as the “quantities used for the purpose of carrying on petroleum operations, including drilling and production operations and pumping to field storage.”
Data on the Ministry of Natural Resources Petroleum Management Programme does not indicate how much oil is taken out by Exxon for its operations. The website however publishes information on the amount of oil produced daily by the company and provides an overview of gas injected, flared and used for fuel. This therefore raises questions about the publishing of selective information by the government.
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- dark, ExxonMobil, Janki, oil, operations
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