Must Guyana have its own oil refinery?

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor,

We trust that all is well. We write in relation to the recent assessment by the consultant Pedro Hass from the British-based international think-tank Chatham House, which concluded that building a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in Guyana could cost up to US$5 billion, and that such an enterprise would yield a net negative outcome of US$2-3 billion per annum.

We note that many very thoughtful voices have argued that such an undertaking is essential to our national development project, citing a range of promising economic and financial outcomes and numerous examples of countries not unlike Guyana building and successfully operating refineries.

We disagree with each other as to whether a refinery should be built. However, in our discussions, we quickly recognised a fundamental problem with our discourse and the Guyanese national discourse – we were/are collectively not proceeding from a set of shared assumptions!

In this essay, the first part of our series, we start at the beginning: What are the foundational elements in making this and similar decisions of this type, which would undoubtedly emerge in Guyana’s near-term and medium-term future?

In our next installment, we will address the key sectoral issues that are critical inputs for a decision on constructing a refinery for Guyana; and in Part III of this essay, we would examine practical options for Guyana at this stage in her journey.

We look forward to inviting you, your readers, and the Guyanese citizenry into this discussion.

 

Yours truly,

Terrence Blackman

and Kojo Parris

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