PM Hinds contemplates the possibility of major oil discovery in Guyana

By Prime Minister Samuel Hinds –

Over the last three years, I have been advised, on many occasions, that Guyana should start preparing for a find of lots and lots of oil, off our shores.  “Let’s not count our chickens before they are hatched,” I have cautioned, trying to resist the seduction in contemplating such good fortune.  Such caution notwithstanding, in January, I attended the Annual Energy Sustainability Week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and sought to learn, on the ground, as much as I could from the example of the UAE:  of how Guyana might be if lots and lots of oil were found off our shores.  If we are to benefit from such a find, we must be prepared for a wide opening of our doors to many, to provide us with the goods and services of a better life, while earning for themselves, without any of us begrudging them a better life also and there will be a challenge for us, not to pass our time idly by, but to take the opportunity to be the best persons we could be.  We don’t become a Usain Bolt, a Clive Lloyd or Shivnarine Chanderpaul, a Ray Luck or a Rihanna, a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, without hours, leading into years of steady focus, dedicated study, practice, and application.  A find of lots and lots of oil would open such a door for us.

Good prospects
It’s 09:00h on Monday morning, March 4.   Clive Smith and Molly McAdams are interviewing me for Fortune magazine, getting my thoughts about the good prospects for Guyana.
“Why should Fortune tell the world that the future looks good for Guyana?  Why should someone in the world be made to think, that among all the countries in the world,   Guyana is a good place to go and set up shop among the Guyanese?”   And, then, they asked, “Do you think that there would be lots of oil found off-shore Guyana?  And what would Guyana be like then?”
Of course, my hope is that lots and lots of oil would be found off-shore Guyana.  I have been working with, encouraging, and facilitating oil prospectors for the last 20 years – keeping the faith, keeping hope alive. Only the prospectors themselves have had more invested in success, than me!
What would Guyana be like, once lots and lots of oil are found?  I thought of the UAE.  I had just been there, in Abu Dhabi, for nearly a week, in mid-January, along with Dr Mahender Sharma, chief executive officer of the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) and Mr Roopchand Bissessar, my assistant.
Remarkable transformation
Up to the end of the 1950s, as some postcards show, the area being mostly desert, Emiratis were making a bare living, diving for pearl-bearing oysters, fishing, and travelling with their camels, across deserts from one fertile oasis to another.    I am still to find out what their GDP was then, but, today, the average per capita GDP of the Emiratis, no doubt still heavily dependent on oil revenues, is put at US$100,000!  To appreciate this figure, let me say that the comparable figure for the USA is US$40,000 to $50,000, about one-half!
The U.S. citizen would likely  say that his  US$50,000 comes from hard work, application, production  and productivity,  effectiveness  and  efficiency;  the physical and social infrastructure  and the knowledge discovered,  laid in, and accumulated in, the U.S.  for  over two to three centuries; the tortuous history by which the equality of all (white) men, was extended to include white women  and, eventually, Afro-Americans and non-white people;  their overall capability, and a union growing steadily more perfect.  Some may say  that  the  Emiratis’  US$100,000 is like the  winnings of  a  lottery, having  the  fortune to have been  living in a place where there happened  to be  lots and lots of oil under the sandy desert, waiting to be discovered.  Oil which others need, so they came in with their investments, knowledge, workers, markets, and turned it into a huge bonanza for the Emiratis.
Guyana’s per capita GDP is, today, a number of times what it was 20 years ago, but still about US$3000 only; and if we strike oil, whether oil royalties take us to US$10,000, US$50,000 or US$100,000 average per capita GDP, we surely would be greatly changed.
The Emiratis are all in praise of Emir Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan −  and quite rightly so − who set them on a policy course that has made the Emirates, today, the desire of many,  including your prime minister.  But it meant, though controlled and managed as best as they could, going along a road of opening to, and embracing the world.  If we are blessed with a significant find of oil, we Guyanese could learn a lot from the UAE in the exploitation of its oil and the use of the huge income flows from its tremendous petroleum resources.
What does one do with lots and lots of money coming his way from good luck?  It is said that half of the persons winning big in lotteries, after some time, are worse off than before! At a national level,  there is the term  the ‘Dutch disease’,  and many citizens would rather not work  than take a job that pays less than what they imagined they would receive for a comparable job,  in the usually high-paying oil sector.
A sense of purpose
It seems that we humans need some sense of scarcity, sensed limits, and the challenges inherent in those limits, to have a sense of purpose in life, and a sense of achievement and satisfaction.  Certainly, quality of life should be improved, but a life of no problems, only sporting, drinking and feasting, would soon be a life of huge social and health problems.   A major aim should be to improve the capability of everyone – education, training, learning to learn, inculcating good world views and attitudes, and so on; performing well at whatever jobs we may pursue and becoming people of the highest quality, the best persons that we could be.
It was good timing for the  Emiratis,  having the initial oil  developments in the 1960s when oil was still less than US$3 per  barrel, and then the oil ‘shocks’ of the mid-70s  and  early 80s, brought tremendous  increases in the  flow of wealth to the oil-producing countries.
There were discussions, and writings, in all of the important fora in the world about circulating the petro-dollars accumulating in oil-producing countries, if major economic and financial problems worldwide were to be avoided.   It seemed to me, then,  that the answer being advocated  was to seduce the oil countries into spending the petro-dollars on things  the oil-consuming,  developed countries could supply – grand roads, buildings, airports, hotels, schools, hospitals, industrial plants, consumer goods, preferably of the luxury-type,  and so on.  Sheikh Zayed did not reject these approaches, authorising developments to rapidly improve the quality of life of the Emirati people, welcoming foreigners coming to serve the Emirati people, and the Emirates.
All the top universities and institutions of North America and Europe seemed to be present in the Emirates, having  branches or association with institutions in the UAE,  attracted by the very best installations and working conditions, and, no doubt,  top-ups in pay.  It was said that there were many students from foreign countries, no doubt to challenge the young Emiratis to their best performance.  At the same time, there were many Emiratis studying abroad.  No money was being spared in making every Emirati, the best person he could be! Money was also put into various countries’ sovereign funds, and profitable investments made in the Emirates and in markets around the world, all for the future.