Exxon dodges question on billions recovered from Guyana’s oil

Oct 22, 2025 News

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…claims “negative cash flow” but refuses to reveal cost recovery total

(Kaieteur News) – ExxonMobil Guyana President Alistair Routledge has refused to disclose how much money the oil giant has recovered from Guyana’s oil revenues to date, despite repeated requests from the media.

When pressed by Kaieteur News for a cost recovery update during a press conference at Exxon’s Ogle headquarters on October 13, Routledge said: “I don’t have in front of me, the cumulative, figure we can follow up on some of those numbers. As I said, we’re probably still around about US$6B on a negative cash flow. As we look at the cumulative expenditures and the cumulative revenues that we’ve seen from the Stabroek Block.”

Prior to the event, the company’s Public Relations department contacted media personnel requesting information on topics they would like to have addressed. Notably, this newspaper shared its interest in receiving a cost recovery update, among others.

Instead, Routledge said there was approximately US$6B in the cost bank still to be recovered, as at September 2025. He informed another reporter, “Yes. It is, that is the net difference on a cumulative basis…up until about a month ago, when it’s the last time I saw the financials.” It would be important to point out that over the last month government granted the company approval for its seventh project, therefore adding more expenditure to the cost bank. It is unclear whether the US$6B referenced by Routledge includes the cost of the new project.

Guyanese have been left in the dark regarding the utilisation of its oil wealth by both Exxon and the government of Guyana (GoG). This is particularly the case since a whopping 75% is deducted monthly by the oil company for expenses. The remaining 25% is split between the GoG and Exxon as “profit oil” in keeping with the terms of the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA).

Notably, the contract also provides for quarterly cost recovery statements to be supplied to government from the operator. The agreement stipulates that the statement must include: (a) recoverable contract costs carried forward from the previous calendar quarter, if any; (b) recoverable contract costs for the calendar quarter in question; (c) total recoverable contract costs; (d) quantity and value of cost oil taken and disposed of by the contractor for the calendar quarter in question; (e) contract costs recovered for the calendar quarter in question and (f) total cumulative amount of contract costs to be carried forward into the next calendar quarter.

The cost recovery statement for each quarter is required to be submitted no later than 30 days after the end of each quarter. At the beginning of this year, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told Reuters that some US$33.9B was recovered by the Stabroek Block partners as at the end of January, 2025. Since then there has been no update on the billions recovered by ExxonMobil, using Guyana’s oil.

Former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams previously called for the cost recovery statements prepared by Exxon, to be made public as he pointed to the lack of transparency in the billions of US-dollars being recovered by the oil giant.

He said, “We do not see a breakdown in those numbers. We are not even getting in the audit as to what’s coming out for operations and what’s coming out for capital”.

Even in the case of a house mortgage, he said, a schedule is provided with how the money is paid off.

Moreover, then President of Transparency Institute Guyana Inc (TIGI), Frederick Collins had made it clear that Guyanese deserve to know what their resources are being used to fund and that government must remember that they are merely the managers and not the owners of the country’s wealth.

“It is not just that we deserve to know what our oil is being used to pay for but it is our resources and it is our business. All a government is, is a caretaker. They are the managers of our affairs, the Constitution says that,” Collins urged.

The former TIGI President added that while the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) committed to greater transparency in the management of the oil sector in its 2020 Elections Manifesto, there has been no evidence of this to date.

He said, “There is no greater transparency…between the government and Exxon, they seem to be playing a game of hide and seek with the people…the constitution says very clearly that all those affairs are the people of Guyana affairs and all the government is doing is managing it for us. There is no reason why they should be keeping those things secret.”

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• Cost Recovery, Exxon, Guyana Oil, refuse, Routledge, Stabroek Block, Statements

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