‘Exxon hiding US$ billions behind cost bank myth’ – Chartered Accountant Ram

Jul 08, 2026 News

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…cites glaring omissions, conflicting figures in oil companies’ financials

…says auditor’s silence conceal true value of Guyana’s oil wealth

(Kaieteur News) – Chartered Accountant and attorney Christopher Ram has strongly criticised the financial reporting of the ExxonMobil-led Stabroek Block consortium accusing the oil giant and its partners of producing financial statements riddled with omissions and inconsistencies that obscure the true economics of Guyana’s oil industry.

In one of his recent installments of his Road to First Oil column, Ram argues that the accounts of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, Hess Corporation and CNOOC, despite covering the same oil block, the same petroleum agreement and being audited by the same firm, fail to tell a consistent story.

He contends that the discrepancies are so fundamental that they raise serious questions about how the companies received clean audit opinions.

Ram dismisses explanations previously offered by Exxon officials that Guyana’s relatively small share of oil revenues is the result of “petroleum agreement accounting” and a “cost bank.” According to him, neither concept appears in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement or in the financial statements of the Stabroek Block partners.

Instead, he points to ExxonMobil Guyana’s own 2025 accounts, which show costs amounting to less than 30 per cent of revenue while profits exceed 70 per cent, contradicting suggestions that the bulk of oil earnings are being consumed by cost recovery.

Back in June Kaieteur News had reported that ExxonMobil in 2025 recorded a staggering US$6B in profit before taxes, while its partners, Hess and CNOOC earned US$4B and US$2.5B respectively- some five times the amount that flowed into Guyana’s account that year.

In 2025, this country received US$2.5B in oil revenue according to official reports by the Government of Guyana (GoG). The country is entitled to 50% of profits generated in the Stabroek Block, while the contractor group enjoys the remaining 50%. The country also receives 2% of all oil produced in the Stabroek Block, according to the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). This means that Guyana’s profit share should be greater than the contractors’, yet the oil companies each reported earnings that vastly outperform the nation.

Exxon reported its financial performance for 2025 during a media conference at its Ogle, East Coast Demerara Headquarters.

The financial statement for the year ended 31st December, 2025 was presented by EMGL Vice President and Business Services Manager, John Colling.

Colling said ExxonMobil sold about 102 million barrels of oil in 2025. The company’s financials, reported in Guyana dollars state that its revenue for the year was $1.713 trillion, compared with $1.733T in 2024. Exxon said the lower cost per barrel of oil in 2025 was the reason for the reduction in earnings, compared with the previous year, although a new Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO) commenced production in August last year.

Colling was asked by this newspaper to explain this discrepancy in the profit-sharing arrangement. He said, “As we mentioned before, there’s a difference between petroleum agreement, accounting and IFRS. So, the petroleum agreement is really designed to allocate profit oil on a cash basis between ExxonMobil Guyana Limited and its co-venturers, and the government.”

Colling added that 75% of revenue generated is presently utilised for cost recovery as is reflected in the IFRS financial statements.

He assured that upon the recovery of those costs, Guyana’s pool of revenue will grow and is poised to increase as more projects come online.

Ownership interest

In his column Ram highlighted ExxonMobil Guyana’s failure to identify the exact ownership interest on which its financial statements are based. While Hess and CNOOC explicitly disclose their respective stakes in the Stabroek Block, ExxonMobil Guyana merely refers to an “unassigned interest in various Petroleum Agreements,” leaving readers without a clear understanding of what the accounts actually represent.

Ram also points to conflicting tax disclosures. ExxonMobil Guyana reports an effective tax rate of about 19 per cent, Hess approximately 25 per cent and CNOOC about eight per cent, despite all operating under the same petroleum agreement. He argues that the financial statements create the impression the companies pay these taxes themselves, when under the Production Sharing Agreement, the taxes are effectively paid by the Government of Guyana on their behalf.

Another issue raised is an unexplained difference of more than G$130 billion between depreciation figures reported in ExxonMobil Guyana’s income statement and those disclosed in its notes. While the difference may be legitimate, Ram says the company provides no reconciliation, leaving readers to speculate.

He also questions the vastly different decommissioning liabilities reported by the three companies. Although ExxonMobil Guyana holds the largest interest in the Stabroek Block, it reports a significantly smaller liability than CNOOC and provides less information about the assumptions used to calculate those future costs.

Ram also zeroed in on what he describes as the missing “cost bank.” He argues that while Exxon repeatedly cites unrecovered costs to explain why the consortium receives a much larger share of petroleum revenues than Guyana, none of the three companies disclose the outstanding balance of those recoverable costs or how that balance changes from year to year.

According to Ram, that omission conceals what may be the single most important figure governing how oil revenues are divided between Guyana and the consortium.

He concluded that while directors are responsible for preparing the financial statements, the auditor must answer how accounts containing omissions of such significance were nevertheless granted unqualified audit opinions.

Ram says the issue is no longer whether isolated figures may be wrong, but whether financial statements missing information central to understanding Guyana’s oil revenues can truly be considered a fair presentation of the country’s most valuable resource.

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• Cost Bank, Exxon, Guyana’s oil wealth, oil companies

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