Guyana described as next big global oil beast without meaningful benefits

Dear Editor,
Mr Robin Mills, a guru in the oil industry, writing for “The National”, an online and print media platform, posted on October 8, 2018 that – “Guyana may be the next big beast in Global Oil”; Mills foresees the country emerging as the top per capita oil producer.
It is noteworthy that Mr Mills of The National ignored the robber baron 2 per cent royalty in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) between Exxon’s Esso two partners, Hess & Nexen, and the Government of Guyana, which is so blatantly minuscule, odious and obnoxious.
Guyana, after being referred to as a Frontier State by international energy research firm “Wood McKenzie”, and now an oil beast by The National”, has indeed suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Our economic straits have now housed us as a global oil nation, without remedying the abysmal 2 per cent royalty that enchains us.
Many are inclined to focus on the shadowy and smoky 50/50 “profit sharing” post expense contract stipulation; it is more a contrivance than a condition of any value, that should be ignored due to its subjectivity in the treatment of capital and current costs, and what could be deducted and set-off from the profit share remnants, if any; with special emphasis on the mysterious, coreless and fungible pre– contract costs.
The will of the Guyanese who seek and strive to obtain a fair share of our oil resources by having the incomparable, incongruous and incompatible 2 per cent royalty renegotiated is undiluted. Whether we have one billion or fifteen billion barrels of oil; whether we are governed by PPP/C or PNCR, we must benefit meaningfully from our resources.
Every Guyanese politician, non–governmental organisation, private sector executive, some local commentators, and international organisation such as Chatham House, Natural Resource Government Institution, among others, try to treat us as myopics and encourage us to focus on the terms of post oil contracts. The attempted Segway is an oily herring that is a form of glad-handing with the handlers.
The global oil giant ExxonMobil currently controls Guyana’s Stabroek Block contract, a block that represent 100 per cent of commercial oil discovered in Guyana’s offshore as at September 30, 2018.
Yet, we have some analysts and commentators twisting themselves into pretzels by seeking to have Guyanese focus on other oil contracts that the Government of Guyana has with Repsol, Tullow, Mid-Atlantic and Total, among others; though these companies have discovered zero oil in Guyana’s offshore. Let us focus our energies on revising the contract with Exxon’s Esso and their partners.
Some of our learned and “objective” oil aficionados have made a stormy fuss about the difference between one per cent and two per cent, while overlooking the depraved nature of the beastly contract that has so far accounted for over five billion barrels of known oil recoverable reserves, carrying plundering 2 per cent royalty. The specialists compute the value of 1 per cent of zero; while the exploitative 2 per cent contract with Exxon’s Esso is not mentioned or made invisible to the general public, even as it is covered in sanctity and sanity by overlooking its morass contract terms.
Let us not endorse and make a reality of the words of Sophocles, the greatest of the Greek tragedians, who said, “The greatest grief are those we cause ourselves.”
Yank and revise the 2016 PSA, as consistently requested by Christopher Ram, Melinda Janki and Ramon Gaskin.
Sincerely,
Nigel Hinds