Prime Minister makes third commitment to submit Wales Gas Projects agreements to Parliament

Dec 01, 2024 News

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…apologizes to House, makes another promise 

Kaieteur News– Prime Minister (PM) Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips, for a third time, last week promised the National Assembly to lay over the agreement signed with ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) for the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project.

During Wednesday’s Sitting of the National Assembly, former Minister David Patterson reminded the House that in January 2024, the PM made a commitment to lay over all the documents.

He said the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs on April 2, 2024 wrote to the Prime Minister informing him of his commitment.

Patterson said the letter stated, “…and to remind you, during the consideration of the 2024 Estimate of Revenue Expenditure, the 77^th sitting on 30^th January 2024, you promised to, as requested by Mr. David Patterson MP, to provide information with respect to the following: breakdown of the $73B for 2023 because if you could remember sir, there is a shortfall in the numbers you gave of $5.49B.”

He added that the letter also reminded the PM of his promise to provide the House with copies of the agreement with ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) – previously Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) – for the GTE project.

To this end, Patterson said, “Can the honourable Prime Minister say, not to me, to the country, why he has not kept his promise?”

PM Phillips apologized to the National Assembly for failing to provide the response and again promised to ensure the necessary information and documents are provided. According to him, this will be laid as soon as possible.

“Mr. Chair, if I had failed in offering my response as requested by the honourable member, let me apologize to this honourable House and I will seek to, in the shortest possible time, honour that request,” the Prime Minister said.

Seemingly not satisfied with the response, Patterson pointed out that this was now the third promise made by the PM to provide the information. The Speaker of the House, Manzoor Nadir however reminded Patterson that the forum allowed him to pursue with questions rather than a comment and that the PM has graciously committed to provide the information.

Earlier this year, Kaieteur News reported that the Prime Minister assured that the construction phases of the GTE project is insured and related documents can be provided to the House. He was responding to Patterson on whether insurance is in place for the current works to support the gas plants and whether the government can lay those in Parliament. The PM said, “The EPC (Engineering, Procuring and Construction) contract has its own insurance policy.” When reminded about the latter part of the question, he said, “Certainly Mr. Speaker.”

Similarly, on the issue of Exxon’s pipeline, the PM noted, “I am advised again Mr. Speaker that Exxon has insurance coverage with the contractor, so that is catered for…we will lay it over.”

He also committed to providing the total sum expended on the project to date, including costs for the transmission and distribution of electricity, consultancy and substations, among other costs, as well as the agreements signed for the project.

The GTE project is divided into two parts, with the first- a 225 kilometers pipeline from the Liza fields offshore to the Wales development site on the West Bank of Demerara- being financed by the Stabroek Block operator, ExxonMobil. This is expected to cost about US$1 billion.

The other aspect of the project entails a Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) facility and a 300-megawatt power plant to be financed by the Government of Guyana (GoG) through a loan from the United States Export Import (US EXIM) Bank. The two plants are pegged at US$759 million.

Hiding GTE agreement

Since 2022, the government signed a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with the Stabroek Co-ventures that outlines the principles and conditions for the commercial and technical arrangements of the deal.

In a previous article, Patterson told Kaieteur News that since 2022, he asked both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat for the contracts signed with Exxon and others.

“In 2022, the Prime Minister wrote back to the Parliament saying not all the agreements have been signed, as soon as all the agreements have been signed, he will lay it over in Parliament,” the former Minister pointed out.

Despite the repeated commitments with the pipeline now nearing completion, Patterson said believes that the government is reluctant to table the agreements as these would expose the beneficiaries of the arrangements. He said, “Obviously they don’t wanna lay it because that would unravel where the feed troughs are and how unviable this entire thing is. It would show how corrupt this thing is.”

The government has been reluctant to release documents relative to this project and numerous attempts by the Opposition to seek clarity in the National Assembly have been defeated.  MP Catherine Hughes had complained last year that questions submitted by her were not allowed by Speaker of the House, Manzoor Nadir since these issues were addressed by Head of the GTE Taskforce, Winston Brassington when Guyana hosted its Energy Conference in 2023.

(Prime Minister makes third commitment to submit Wales Gas Projects agreements to Parliament)

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• agreement, GTE, Parliament, Prime Minister

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