Alistair Routledge slam dunks, Guyanese ducking

Dec 06, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- In a recent sharing on the internet, Exxon’s Guyana President, Mr. Alistair Routledge, pulled out all the stops, went overboard.

The superlatives ran into each other. Such was Mr. Routledge’s hurry to tell Exxon’s great Guyana oil story. His focus was on Payara, the third offshore oil project.  It was birthed in the passage of a fine Canadian who didn’t know her head from her handbag, where oil is involved.  It has since grown into a blend of a genie and a giant, brilliant ones, according to President Routledge.

It is worth regurgitating some of the rich extracts from his lush tributary of accolades about Payara: “dream start-up” and “industry records” and “extremely high reliability” and “fastest ramp up” and “full capacity.”  For Exxon, Payara has become Formula One and the American space programme all in one. I look at this latest string of Routledge-an gems and place them where Payara is rooted. It is Guyana. Guyanese know that their fishing grounds are rich, but to hear Mr. Routledge tell it (and for Payara alone), those offshore oil grounds are in a universe of their own.

Payara is a “dream start-up.”  Thank God for Exxon’s technological prowess that facilitated such a dream beginning.  I would be the happiest man anywhere if my fellow Guyanese, especially the left-out ones, were sharing in that dream.  They are in a sense, for there’s great anticipation about the US$500 that is coming their way.  No folks, there’s no typo, no zero dropped in that US$500 figure.  Three oil projects, five years of oil production, 500 million barrels delivered to traders and refineries, and the Guyanese Dream is US$100 here, another tidbit somewhere else, and now US$500 for their inheritance.  One that the world cannot stop dreaming and drooling about.

Payara is breaking “industry records” the man from Exxon said.  Record profits have resulted for the company and its web of investors, workers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.  Guyanese are stuck with the same old record: where is the money?  What about the individual prosperity today of those whose wealth this is?  I regret, but am privileged, to be calling out and damning Mr. Routledge and Exxon in their cathedral from which they conjure these verbal obscenities that insult Guyanese and their bitter realities.  For fellow citizens-outsiders, outcasts, out-of-luck, it is always that tomorrow will come, tomorrow will be better.  Later is the commitment from local leaders that have always made the citizens of this country cry.  It has been that kind of broken record, with oil in the same groove.  A partnership that is trampling upon “industry records” works best, lasts the longest, when both parties share fairly in the package of benefits.

Payara, Mr. Routledge assures everyone, functions with “extremely high reliability.”  Exxon has upped the bar on itself, going from ‘highly unlikely’ to “extremely high reliability”.  Even the iconic Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar had their off seasons. As a courtesy to Mr. Routledge, so also did NFL machines named Joe Montana and Tom Brady. President Routledge spoke with rapturous translucency about Payara operating with “reliability” to the nth degree.  I was at the World Trade Center, my Lord, and all the wise men said that it couldn’t be brought down.  Perhaps, this is my real destiny.  One hiccup and the mess-up could be so massive that Guyanese can forget about clean-up. A blotch this country could be.

Payara is now a symphony of Mozartian distinctiveness for Exxon.  The man talks about “fastest ramp-up” while sharing confidences (with fingers crossed) about “extremely high reliability.”  In other words, trust Exxon.  The company knows what it is doing, has everything under control.  I recommend that Exxon’s Routledge educate the Guyanese public about what happened to the nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion. Men make monstrous miscalculations.  The masses in poor countries, like Guyana, pay the highest price.

Exxon has become notorious for its “ramp-up” culture in Guyana. Who in Guyana is looking?  Who here knows what is going on?  Who in the Guyana Government has the freedom and the onions to stop Exxon’s race for more barrels daily?  Tens of thousands of barrels above the safety limits?  Today, the platitudes multiply.  I trust that someone may remember that a few said, let’s remember that there could be peril, too.

Payara, according to Mr. Routledge, is at “full capacity.” It is said that hindsight is perfect vision.  I say to Mr. Routledge: congratulations, sir: Exxon just scored a perfect 10 with foresight.  High speed ramp-up, high reliability, and the highest capacity possible.  This is so good as to be beyond great.  So good as to breach the boundaries of the unbelievable.  Exxon achieved all of this right under the noses of Guyanese.

Truly, it is the season of the American Oil Superman.  In watching Alistair Routledge, I see Clark Kent (the civilian superman).  Exxon couldn’t have picked a more perfect place than Guyana to dig for oil, then plunder most of its rewards.  With a government like the PPP, leaders like Quislings present, and a population subjugated in sinew, spirit, and soul, Payara stands as a monument to all that is disturbing about Guyana. The right and the rich that have gone wrong and wring every Guyanese neck in its unfolding to Exxon’s glory.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

(Alistair Routledge slam dunks, Guyanese ducking)

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• Alistair Routledge slam dunks, Guyana oil story, Guyanese ducking, hard truths, Payara

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