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Is ExxonMobil going too fast

Dec 18, 2024 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- The going is good until it starts to go downhill before anyone knows it, before control can be regained over it.  One small slip could lead to a prolonged fall, one without a bottom.  This was the case 14 years ago in the Gulf of Mexico.  One of the world’s leading oil companies, BP, had an oil rig that blew up creating catastrophic damage, with the loss of 11 lives.  The world knows it as the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The systems that were held as foolproof and safety perfect didn’t turnout to be as invincible as they were marketed.  In the brave, new world of Oil Guyana, there is ExxonMobil, and we permit the company’s resident president, Mr. Alistair Routledge to do the honors, deliver the good news.  It is all good, and by considerable margins.

“It’s been a dream startup. The Payara project set all kinds of industry records for safety, no hurts in the first year of operation, extremely high reliability, has also had the fastest ramp up from first startup all the way to full capacity that we have been able to identify in the industry, certainly for a deep water, offshore operation so, really an outstanding project and multiple achievements within that milestone of one year.”

Guyanese, the bona fide owners of this oil project of which Routledge overflows with excitement, must be pinching themselves and asking themselves a question.  Given that this one project is so earthshattering in every aspect of its existence, then why are they still eating dirt daily.  The positives, as articulated by the ExxonMobil Guyana President are not just incredible, they are endless.  There is not a single negative cloud on the Guyana oil horizon, as marketed by ExxonMobil.  This could be too good to be true, except that it has both its pluses and there is no question that there is much to be said for those.  The Guyana Payara project is real, but can it really holdup under the intense pressure and high speeds under which ExxonMobil pushes it?  The concern that should give all Guyanese pause, is whether this unstoppable American oil juggernaut is going too fast.

From a conservative perspective, the lessons of many a cautionary tale usually ignored, what about the ‘what ifs?’  The failure of technology, the probability of human error, the severe stresses placed on systems in operation.  With a current maximum of US$2B in liability should there be a problem of proportions, it could be said with reason that ExxonMobil has incentivized itself to throw caution to the winds and plunge ahead.  To a company operating on the gigantic scale of ExxonMobil, and with the economic horsepower under its belt, US$2B is a drop in the bucket.  It is an amount that it could gamble on, and not worry should all of it be gone.  Its stable of lawyers are more than capable of dealing with the rest that follows, which means Guyanese lose again, possibly irrecoverably so.

The best engineering that has been conceived by human mind has its limitations.  The Titanic stands as a now ancient precedent, and remember how much was said about that big beautiful ship.  In 2024, ExxonMobil’s Routledge has gone beyond that with what must now stand as the legend of Guyana’s Payara.  As much as it is resisted, wished against, some legends have a habit of dying in one’s hand.  For the sake of this country and its citizens, may it not be so.  From a point of prudence, is ExxonMobil not going too fast with its three offshore oil projects here?

Before Routledge’s podcast, there was his CEO, Darren Woods leading the chant.  “Our Payara project…continues to perform above investment basis – as has been the case with all the projects we’ve brought online in the world’s premier deepwater development.”  We urge our readers, Guyanese foremost, to zero in on Woods’s priority: “above investment basis.”  It would have inspired Guyanese if genuine safety was his first interest. Once again, for the good of Guyana, is ExxonMobil going too fast not just with Payara, but all three oil projects in operation offshore Guyana?  We think that it is, assert again that it is in the red zone.

(Is ExxonMobil going too fast)

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