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Oil spill protection
Editorial
(Kaieteur News) – Oil spill protection: should there be a limit to the dollar amount? We do not think so. Frankly, we find the notions of ‘open-ended and unquantifiable’ offensive, nothing but weak verbal exercises that ignore potential national harm. When a government in a newly rich oil producing country can join hands with an investor to fight the interests of its own people, that must rank beyond cowardly dereliction of duty. It stands as unpardonable treachery.
No one wants to hear the two words ‘oil spill.’ Worse, preface them with a word like ‘major’ or ‘massive’ and the promise of an oil rich country begins to dissipate in a thick blanket of flames and smoke. No one knows when an oil spill is going to happen, or wishes for such a leak or blowout to happen in their country. No one knows, should there be a huge one, anything about the length of it, the impacts of environmental damage, and the total cost for the entire catastrophe when that has to be counted. In such a condition, one fraught with many unknowns, none of them necessarily on the cheap side, it is the height of basic commonsense to pursue the greatest amount of protection that can be had. But more than just pursue it. There must be willingness to fight tooth and nail to obtain what offers peace of mind to citizens. There is the comfort of knowing that a big business is in operation, that its known risks are managed, that there is a healthy balance between production and profits and, after all of those, there is still another layer. It is the ultimate in protection of environment, economy, and the welfare of the people. People whose welfare is intimately tied to oil operations and oil earnings. From a solely financial point of view, the dollar limit of oil spill protection is not a consideration to be taken casually, one that is limited in any manner.
At the furious rate of daily oil production currently in motion in Guyana’s offshore Stabroek Block, it is better to be secure than sorry ever after. Nothing and no one, neither government nor any other arm of government, should stand in the way, or contest, or quibble, over what should be the cap to be placed for protection in the event of a catastrophic oil spill. What could be a more paramount objective than protecting one’s homeland, than taking care of the interests of one’s own people? We find it repugnant, therefore, to hear this hollow debate about limited versus unlimited protection, about unlimited parent company guarantee versus a cap. Especially when the health of this entire country could be jeopardized by one uncontrolled, consequential oil spill. It is insulting to even engage in such a debate, such a disagreement. No national leader, no national government, should be so depraved as to stoop so low and stand alongside an investor, while great risks lurk for the people. Regardless of how low or remote the probability of an oil spill, a government’s place is not beside an investor. An elected government’s only place is beside the people who they represent.
The fact that Guyana’s leading investor is also a partner weigh heavily. Which partner that holds the other in a respectable light, an equal footing, would not be keen on the provision of unlimited oil spill protection? Why not, when the absence of such, or anything less, could devastate the prospects of the weaker, now-getting-to-its-feet, partner? With a cluster of oil wells in a narrow arc, and with production set to grow by leaps and bounds, first to 1.3M barrels daily, then to 1.7M barrels by 2030, the circumstances make it even more imperative and nonnegotiable that unlimited oil spill protection is in place. Unlimited is used in its broadest everyday sense, with not a hair of meaning subtracted. There is no dollar limit. There is no room for absconding and disowning responsibility.
Many billions are being made now. All are glowing with good cheer now. An oil spill of great magnitude seeps into the picture and everything changes for the worst. Unlimited oil spill protection goes some way in mitigating the effects, the overall damage.
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