A country trying to be real

Jan 03, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – Some developments in the oil and gas sector are so mindboggling that they send into a tailspin. Four years after an audit is completed, US$214M in findings continue to be a source of disagreement between the Guyana Government and US multinational ExxonMobil. The four years mentioned is not a misprint, an error in place of four months. It has been four years since the first oil audit was completed, but resolution of the findings still can’t be finalized. When an arrangement that is supposed to be a partnership of equals suffers from this lack of cooperation, then what is it that Guyanese really have in their oil and gas sector, their prized inheritance?

President Ali has made a living talking about “sanctity of contract”, and there is this four-year delay in settling this US$214M audit matter that reduces Guyana, a sovereign nation, to a beggar. The delay is due to getting Guyana and ExxonMobil on the same page relative to a “sole expert” to serve as the arbitrator tasked with bringing this matter to an end. Is the Government of Guyana and ExxonMobil serious, or is this part of a new kind of ruse at which both are now so skilled at fabricating and delivering? For a national government, a steward over rich oil resources, to be this lackadaisical and this impotent says quite a bit about Guyana’s subservient role in this oil partnership. The fact that the government has the gall to highlight groundbreaking projects, while almost a quarter billion US dollars are unresolved for four years, points to leaders who have their heads in the wrong place, and are just lacking.

ExxonMobil is proud to instill the misleading in Guyanese, which is that it is a partner that can be trusted. The IHS-Markit audit findings, however, showed how slick it can be when millions are involved. By some special arrangement, probably originating in secret conversations with the right PPPC Government officials, the British audit findings were diminished from US$214M to US$3M by some accounting magic, and everyone made sure to keep their fingerprints from what looked like recklessness on a grand scale at best, or some type of sinister collusion (a fraud) at the other end of the range. Did that attempt at a costly con occur through a system generated glitch, or were there human minds and hands in the partnership working together for that US$3M outcome? And when ExxonMobil itself rushed forward to put in a kind word for the loyal worker who was made into a willing scapegoat for the attempted audit caper, there was certain sickly smell that came out of that development. It stained everyone in what has become too much of a cozy partnership.

From that attempted hijacking of Guyana’s interests, the call for binding arbitration, as provided for in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement, has floated around without any sense of urgency, the desire to get this matter over and done with. With the PPPC Government so wrapped up in ExxonMobil’s treacherous embrace, and all but helpless, it doesn’t surprise that the IHS-Markit findings have gone no place, after four years. ExxonMobil’s top man in Guyana, Alistair Routledge, in his recent press conference shared this piece: “We are working with the GRA on identifying a sole expert with whom both parties are comfortable. This is a process that takes a little bit of time, partly because it is the first time that we have done this together.” Things are getting better all the time in the oil and gas sector, for there was Routledge knowing that four years have elapsed since the findings, but he still calls it “a little bit of time.” ExxonMobil has that luxury, because it has a lock on Guyana’s oil for a few more decades. For Guyanese, every dollar counts, particularly when so many are squeezed by ExxonMobil’s lopsided contract.

We think that putting that US$214M to a sole expert is taking a risk. Recall the mystery of the US$214M that hemorrhaged to US$3M, and there is a precedent that should not be repeated in a binding arbitration. It’s better to have a panel of three experts to closeout this audit that has lingered so long.

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Editorial, ExxonMobil, lopsided contract, Oil and Gas

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