The gas that got away

Oct 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – There are few things as elusive as control, especially when it comes to oil and gas. Once you sign it away, it tends to stay gone, as stubbornly as a ship that’s already slipped its moorings and sailed out to sea.

Guyana, in its youthful excitement at having struck oil, once inked a deal with ExxonMobil that was supposed to herald a new dawn of prosperity. Instead, what it really did was hand over the keys to the kingdom and, apparently, the gas fields as well.

The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), signed by the APNU+AFC government, was kept secret for a long time. But from the moment it was made public, the critics whispered—then screamed—that it was, in fact, an instrument of surrender. It gave Exxon and its partners more control than any sensible nation would part with, particularly over the natural gas that lay in the same reservoirs as the oil. The PSA was supposed to be a sharing agreement. It turned out to be more of a giving agreement.

When in Opposition, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) promised to fix this. Renegotiation was the word of the day, word meant to comfort those who knew they’d been shortchanged. The PPPC declared that the old deal was lopsided and was a sellout. And so, it said, when it got back into office, it would make it right. And some persons actually believed that!

That was then.

Now, the same government that promised to wrest control back from ExxonMobil is declaring, somewhat indignantly, that the oil majors should not be the ones to decide when and how Guyana’s natural gas is developed. It is a fine sentiment, rich in rhetorical bravado. But as every fisherman knows, there is little point shouting at a fish after it’s slipped off the hook.

By failing to renegotiate the contract, the PPPC has left effective control right where it was. It has left it in ExxonMobil’s capable, profit-driven hands. The government may issue requests for proposals, expressions of interest, or even impassioned press statements, but none of these things can compel the oil companies to act. The PSA, in its present form, gives ExxonMobil the right to determine the pace, timing, and scope of gas development. Guyana, the nominal owner of the resource, must wait politely in line for its own invitation.

It is a peculiar form of sovereignty. One in which the government can hold conferences, call tenders, and make stirring speeches about national destiny, but cannot make a single cubic foot of gas move without the company’s nod. The irony is almost elegant.

If ExxonMobil decides that the development of natural gas is not a priority, if it prefers to focus on oil, which, after all, is where the money flows most freely, then Guyana must wait. And wait. And wait some more. The government may fume; the General Secretary may huff and puff but the gas will stay right where it is beneath the ocean floor.

In its zeal to win power, the PPPC had drawn a moral line between itself and its predecessor. The old government had signed a bad deal; the new one would fix it. That was the story. But politics, like petroleum, is full of viscosity. Promises, once made, tend to congeal into excuses. The PPPC now finds itself in the curious position of complaining about the very state of affairs it once vowed to change.

The question, then, is not whether ExxonMobil is acting in its own interest. Of course it is. Corporations are not charities; they are organisms built for the pursuit of profit. The question is why the government, having had five full years to alter the terms of engagement, failed to do so.

The PPPC’s failure to renegotiate the PSA was not a passive omission; it was an active choice. Renegotiation might have been messy. But it would have also rebalanced the relationship, restored some measure of control, and given the State a genuine voice in the destiny of its own resources.

Instead, Guyana finds itself governed by a paradox: a sovereign state that must ask permission to use its own gas.

And so, the government can issue as many invitations as it likes—open tenders, public appeals, requests for participation—but ExxonMobil will answer only when it suits ExxonMobil to do so. Until then, the gas will remain untapped.

The PPPC’s current indignation is convenient, but the facts are not on its side. The control it complains of was not taken by Exxon; it was given. And once given, it is hard to take back.

The General Secretary can therefore blow as hot as he likes; the gas, alas, will not follow.

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

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• AFC, APNU, Oil and Gas, Peeping Tom, Production Sharing Agreement

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