Exxon’s purported $100 MM STEM gift is tiny fraction of Guyanese own money handed back to them

Mar 07, 2026 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The incomparable Columnist and master of our lingo, GHK Lall, and my esteemed Oil & Gas Governance Network (OGGN) colleagues deserve high praise for their recent shining of light on the real story behind the grandiose US$100 ($10 MM annually for 10 years) gift to Guyana’s Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) program.

As someone who was responsible for sponsoring, establishing and managing a major STEM program for 10 US Universities as the pipeline for the US Department of Energy (USDOE) future talent, and someone who served as the University of Guyana Distinguished Engineer in Residence to help restructure the Engineering & Technology Faculty, STEM initiatives are near and dear to my heart and passionately welcomed; and as proven by the most powerful country of the USA, STEM disciplines are irrefutably the building block of any country, more so, developing countries such as Guyana. However, such a crucial program must be facilitated with a high degree of competence and seriousness including it being amongst the highest priorities in the national budget, rather than by the willy-nilly exploits bared in this Exxon gift.

It’s impossible for yours truly to match the linguistic genius of Mr. Lall; so, will beg his forgiving my poaching of excerpts from his exquisite missive in the March 3, 2026 edition of Kaieteur News (KN) where he described Exxon’s “well-ribboned sweetly packaged STEM gift” as “TAKING A MINOR FRACTION OF THE MONEY THAT IT SEIZED FROM GUYANA AND GIVING IT BACK TO THE STEM CHILDREN AS A PERFECTLY STREAMLINED, WELL-PUBLICIZED GIFT. Billions taken out; millions given back. It’s a nice racket.” As readily seen, Mr. Lall’s piece is an eye opener ferreting out the razzle-dazzle of “Exxon as thinkers, planners, clinical human calculators coming up with such tender, loving care for Guyana’s youths”, plying no better a tactic than handing back the youths a teeny-weeny bit of their own money with grandiosity.

As my OGGN Colleagues unfolded in their February 27, 2026 letter to the news media, the Guyana Govt. unprecedently pays all of Exxon’s US $ Billions in annual taxes. Exxon is then issued tax receipts certifying its payment of these taxes, though paid by the Govt. Exxon then turns around and submits those receipts to their web of registered countries such the USA, Netherlands and Bahamas to name a few, receiving huge tax concessions/credits for expenditures they never incurred. For example, Exxon was issued a receipt for the 2024 Govt. paid US$1.24 B taxes which will escalate by several US $ Billions over the years as oil production increases to more than double within the next 3 years.

OGGN pointed out that the US $10 MM per year Exxon gives back, is a paltry less than 1% of the 2024 US $1.24 B of free money they received from the Govt, and also means that Exxon’s take from the taxes they didn’t pay and tax credits earned from it, add up to far more than the US $1.24 B every year, infinite times the STEM give back. Readers may recall the recently published letter from three Senior US Senators inquiring whether the US taxpayers were subsidizing Exxon via this questionable practice.

Addedly, even with the expedient lowballed 11.6 billion barrels in recoverable oil reserves, and the very conservative assumption that Exxon’s profit share will remain constant at 12.5%, Exxon stands to gain a total profit share of US $110 B. In other words, even if one gets caught up believing the façade that the STEM gift comes out of Exxon’s pockets, that money will only account for far less than 1% of its profits.

Fortunately, Guyanese are savvy enough to not fall for Exxon’s masterminds’ calculatingly flashing a veneer of tender, loving care for Guyana’s youth, at no financial cost while yielding lucrative returns of quietude and distraction from the many atrocities committed against the Guyanese people.

Had Exxon loved and cared for Guyana, or its youths as they put on:

1. Instead of the deceptive meager US $100 MM, they would have gifted at least half of the tens of free US $ Billions they gain from not paying taxes, plus the tax credits received from it.
2. They would not so rabidly snub the people’s outcry for renegotiations of the never-before-seen immoral lopsided oil Contract, to attain a fair, just, and equitable Contract that would negate the need for a token STEM handout.
3. They would immediately agree to ringfencing which is not restricted by the Contract, and which would quickly increase Guyana’s profit share, without which, Guyana will likely never receive a share above the existing 14.5%.
4. They would not have dishonestly put up billboards fooling that Guyana gets 52%, when actually getting 14.5% which will likely not ever change without ringfencing; and pedaling the impossibility that investment costs will be paid off in 2026 increasing Guyana’s take from14.5%.
5. They would not be lowballing the true oil reserves – a ruse allowing their much higher up-front withholdings of US $ Billions in decommissioning costs.
6. They would not be callously exposing Guyana and Caribbean to financial bankruptcy and environmental catastrophe, in appealing the epic landmark court ruling requiring a Parent Company Guarantee (PCG) to cover all costs of oil spills.
7. They would not be putting Guyana and Caribbean in dangerous risks of financial and environmental catastrophe by exceeding the legal safe production limits enshrined into law – an act that risks a major oil spill without a PCG which they are furiously fighting against.
8. They would not have allowed Guyanese workers on operating ships to be paid slave wages, eating leftover food after others, most high-skilled jobs going to expatriates, and local firms struggling to meet qualification standards while foreign companies receive waivers.
9. They would not inhumanly flare and dump into the air and ocean, countless tons of produced gas with over 200 toxic contaminants; and oil laced, hot, toxic, radioactive water, instead of reinjecting into the oil reservoirs as mandated by international standards and the legal EIAs;
10. They would not be killing millions of fish eggs to devastate the fishing industry by choosing the cheaper alternative of sucking in these eggs with ocean water for injection, in lieu of reinjecting produced water being dumped in the ocean.
11. They would not be withholding US $ Billions in decommissioning costs, years before production starts in violation of the Contract; and Guyana getting stuck with potentially US $B costs of leaking of plugged wells decades after decommissioning – a major issue facing the USA.

Respectfully,

Dr. Vincent Adams

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• Dr. Vincent Adams, Exxon, Letters, STEM

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