Five years later Govt. still to settle US$214M audit dispute with Exxon

May 05, 2026 News

…no agreement on sole expert

(Kaieteur News) – Five years after it received an audit report flagging the blatant misuse of US$214M in Guyana’s oil money by ExxonMobil, the Government of Guyana (GoG) is yet to push the process forward for the company to return the nation’s profits.

On Monday, Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat told Kaieteur News that the sole expert to settle the audit dispute is still not appointed. In response to a question on whether the appointment was done, Bharrat said, “Not yet. The GRA (Guyana Revenue Authority) is working on it with Exxon.”

Five years later Govt. still to settle US$214M audit dispute with Exxon

Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat

He did not state whether an agreement has been reached on a candidate to settle the dispute. The US$1.6B audit of Exxon for the period 1999-2017 was conducted by a British consultant, IHS-Markit. The audit report was completed and handed over to the GoG since March 2021. The consultant advised that “GoG has reasonable grounds to dispute $214.4 million plus overhead adjustments of the costs currently included by EEPGL (now EMGL) in the Cost Bank. This amount represents 12.8% of the cumulative cost recovery balance as of Q4 2017 Statement.”

Following the submission of that report, the flagged sum was reduced to a meager US$3 million by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Petroleum Department. The Government however later announced that it would stand by the findings of the report, to the dismay of the contractor.

Consequently, the sole expert process has been invoked to settle the dispute between the parties. Should the sole expert determine that the costs were inaccurately added to the cost bank, Exxon will be required to credit the sum. The amount will be split evenly between the two parties- US$107.2M to each.

Article 26 of the Petroleum Agreement states that if the parties fail to agree on a sole expert within 30 days such expert shall be appointed by the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) in accordance with its rules for the appointment of experts and neutrals.

That timeline has long expired with some stakeholders accusing government of dragging its feet on the matter.

The oil contract states at Article 26.10 “…the parties shall cooperate fully in the expeditious conduct of such expert determination and provide the expert with access to all facilities, books, records, documents, information and personnel necessary to make a fully informed decision in an expeditious manner. The sole expert shall act as an expert and not as an arbitrator or mediator, and shall endeavour to provide an opinion on the dispute within thirty (30) days of his appointment, but no later than sixty (60) days after his appointment…”

While the first audit drags on, two other audits of the company still remain to be concluded as well. The second audit, for the period 2018 to 2020 was conducted by VHE consulting. The local audit team found that another US$65 million of the US$7.2 billion in expenses was incorrectly charged to Guyana.

Questions still remain on whether the full report was published by the GoG for the US$7.2B audit. Meanwhile Exxon’s third and largest audit, on record to date, amounts to a whopping US$19.6B. It was conducted by the same local group, VHE. Although Government received that report since May 2025, it has refused to make the document public. The administration is also not inclined to highlight the disputed costs flagged by the auditors.

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Audit, Exxon, Guyana oil profit, Vickram Bharrat

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