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Oil refinery
(Kaieteur News) – An oil refinery could be a good development for Guyana. With decades of oil production ahead, over a million barrels of oil equivalents daily in the near future, Guyana having its own oil refinery makes sense. With probably more commercially feasible oil discoveries in the making in the Stabroek Block, one could say that an oil refinery is simply a matter of time. We at this paper wish to state in the clearest terms that now is not the time for the building of a local oil refinery. That time will come, but shouldn’t be in the next few years. It may be closer to the end of a decade, if certain components are in place.
There must be national political leadership willing to open itself to scrutiny, especially on a project with such massive demands on money and other resources. In other words, to be honest enough to generate trust in citizens. The US$2B Wales gas-to-energy project already stands as a revealing case study of leadership incompetency and inefficiency. There is much skepticism on the part of many citizens that their leaders have been completely honest with them on this biggest infrastructure project to date in Guyana’s history. There have been mysteries in abundance, mistakes enough to make cynics of once supportive backers, and one delay after another, with cost overruns looking highly probable.
The Wales GTE is so plagued with secrets, par for a government that knows little else, that hopeful Guyanese have no clue about when government leaders are giving them a clean story, or one more clumsy deception. A finished Wales GTE within budget and on time, and functioning as repeatedly marketed to citizens, would have been the welcome precedent, a success story that Guyanese have been longing to hear and know about in the last 50 to 60 years. Money down the drain, political coverup, another costly white elephant, a project debt that has to be paid off, and no one feeling the lash of penalties are all that this country has known. To begin the conversation, therefore, about the construction of another megaproject against such a background, would be more than wishful thinking. It would be what amounts to a fool’s folly, and even that falls short of giving a wide lens image of what could be another disaster in the making.
Also, it has been freely admitted at the highest official levels that Guyana still labors with a major human resource deficit, going onto seven years since local oil production started. We do not possess the skills to manage the ballooning oil and gas sector. We have a huge lack of capacity in vital areas that range from engineering to the caliber of auditors to a suite of legal and regulatory competencies needed to manage this nation’s oil sector. To reinforce this position, the expertise needed for satisfactory involvement in Guyana’s oil patrimony is short of both quality and quantity. ExxonMobil has made rings around Guyanese, including some of those holding high national offices.
Because it is aware of Guyana’s capacity limitations, made worse by weak political leaders, some ExxonMobil’s people occasionally push the envelope, and treat Guyanese as though they are illiterates, not worthy of their time. Even the most rankly partisan in Guyana would admit that Guyana’s lack of capacity has and is handicapping this country from rising to its full potential as quickly and confidently as it should. Why now add to the steadily expanding portfolio of projects, a costly and complex oil refinery? Why embark on something so huge, when already existing projects are not getting the degree of attention and competence that they should?
Then, funding an oil refinery can be a dilemma. Even when oil prices are high, stay high, Guyana’s oil earnings are not that impressive, what is inspiring. The Natural Resource Fund now functions as a government ATM, while bingeing on debt is another signature government practice. Lenders would loan Guyana whatever it needs to build an oil refinery, but this country is already overloaded with debt, notwithstanding comforting paper ratios. They usually do, until some material event knocks over political arrogance. We say that an oil refinery time will come, only it isn’t now.
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