Exxon’s US$7.3B expense not thoroughly audited – former Auditor General

Oct 26, 2025 News

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…doubts less than 1% of sum was ineligible

(Kaieteur News) – Former Auditor General (AG) Anand Goolsarran has raised fresh concerns regarding the US$7.3B audit of American oil giant, ExxonMobil.

In a recent Stabroek News column, he stated that the process was not thorough enough, hinging his conclusion on the fact that a prior audit of the company, conducted by a British firm, flagged a much higher percentage of questionable costs.

Goolsarran noted, “The auditors’ report identified amounts totalling US$7.435 billion as “Gross Recoverable Costs” for the period 2018 to 2020. However, there were two items: “Gross Exemptions” – US$64.790 million, and “Gross Exemptions Granted” – US$10.319 million, the nature of which as well as their impact on the recoverable costs have not been explained. In effect, the auditors found that an amount of US$54.471 million, or a mere 0.7 percent of the total recoverable costs, was ineligible, compared with 12.8 percent identified by IHS Markit in the first audit of the recoverable costs.”

To this end, he said, “In our view, not enough audit work was undertaken to enable the auditors to draw this conclusion.”

Shifting his attention to the audit report, Goolsarran said the document was deficient in a number of ways, specifically as it lacked “basic structure”.

He noted that the report features no table of contents to guide readers; no executive summary; no list of abbreviations; no definition of the technical terms used; and no sections dealing with the terms of reference for the assignment, the scope and methodology used, the auditing standards that were followed in the conduct of the audit, and findings, conclusions, and recommendations, among others.

“In the circumstances, one had to go through the meticulous and tedious task of sifting through the entire report to ascertain what were the findings and recommendations,” he added.

Additionally, the former AG berated the document for significantly and unnecessarily quoting the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). According to him, “…the report was badly in need of editing to ensure conciseness and user friendliness.”

Goolsarran was concerned that auditors stated that the documentation and process of transferring materials out of inventory could not be examined but gave no reasons why this was so.

He described this a “major shortcoming of the audit” since the value of materials issued from inventory to production over the period under review would have constituted a significant portion of the total amount shown in the Cost Recovery Statement.

Also concerning to the former AG is that auditors, in several parts of the report, stated that some of the issues would be further examined during the next audit. He said this clearly implied that there was an expectation that they would be re-appointed auditors. Moreover, he noted, “These statements were also clearly an acknowledgement that the audit was incomplete and did not meet acceptable standards.”

VHE consulting was contracted by the Government of Guyana in May 2022 to conduct Guyana’s first cost oil audit for the years 2018 to 2020.

They were later rehired for the third audit, this time to review a whopping US$19.6B spent by Exxon between 2021 and 2023. That report has been handed over to the government as reported in May 2025. The initial report has not been made public despite calls for transparency in the process. The government has said it will make the report public after the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) completes its review. In the meantime, there has been no word regarding the disputed sum flagged by the auditors.

Previously, Goolsarran questioned the selection of the local consortium to conduct such an important task on behalf of Guyana.

He stressed that given the financial implications for the nation, the audit required experienced professionals with proven expertise in cost verification.

On October 10, the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) awarded VHE Consulting (which is a registered partnership between Ramdihal & Haynes Inc; Eclisar Financial; and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc.), a $312 million contract to conduct the third audit of ExxonMobil’s expenses for the period 2021 to 2023.

The former AG reasoned that a thorough audit is crucial to ensure that only legitimate, reasonable expenses are recovered, which impacts Guyana’s profit share.

Moreover, he recalled that government in its invitation for bids to audit the company’s expenses said a key requirement is for the bidding firm, along with its partners (local and foreign) combined, to have completed at least three similar assignments during the past seven years. He added that no auditing firm operating in Guyana at that time, including VHE, would have met this requirement.

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• AG, Anand Goolsarran, Audit, disputed, Exxon, Report, VHE Consulting

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