“Mo ile, mo ile, mo ile!” is the cry from all, excepting those Luddites who’d rather leave ours under the Atlantic, where it had been formed since Africa broke away from South America and all those ancient forests were squeezed into oil!! Did you even wonder, dear reader, why that part off Ghana where they struck oil – in their Jubilee Field – fits neatly into our shoreline?? Anyhow, Exxon and partners just announced they’ve started pumping oil from their third development into the FPSO Prosperity!
This gonna add another 220,000 bpd to the present production – taking the total up to 620,000 bpd in a few months!! Imagine that…little ole us, Mudland, pumping out 620,000 bpd of the sweetest oil you can find anywhere in the world!! Did you think it was a coincidence that even Mauritius – the most prosperous “African” nation in the middle of the Indian Ocean – just credentialed their Ambassador to Pres Ali?? In the modern world system, there’s only one way to make friends and influence countries – produce something they all want!! That’ll grab their attention!! And since plans are already floated (pun intended!) to produce 1.2 Mbpd by 2027 – from the Stabroek Block alone – you can bet we’ll be credentialising plenty more ambassadors for a long time!!
But you, being Guyanese, dear reader – and as such, by definition a sceptic – would be asking, “So what’s in it for us, the average Harry and Harilall?” Well, all your Eyewitness can do is point out the obvious – 14.6% of 1.2 Mbpd is a heckuva lot more than 14.6% of the 400,000 bpd we’ve been pumping to date. And we haven’t been doing too badly, have we?? And your Eyewitness ain’t talking just about various and sundry ambassadors traipsing up the steps of the Presidential Complex.
We’ve been able to begin funding so many of the infrastructural projects we’ve only been dreaming about for decades!! Have you noticed the slew of hospitals being built, and older ones being made “smart”?? Now, this mightn’t be as sexy as those fancy skyscrapers in Dubai, but think about it. Isn’t that more concrete development that’ll help the aforementioned Harry and Harrilall? And all those schools being built – especially in the interior – aren’t we securing our future by educating Harry and Harrilall’s young’uns??
Now, your Eyewitness can go on and on in this vein – but he wants you to also know that with the guaranteed 14.6% of 1.2M bpd on the horizon, banks and countries are lining up to lend us money!! It’s the old rule in finance: “Them who has, gets!!”
So yes…a lot more ile…
…strategy
Your Eyewitness has been thinking about Hamas’s end game in their long-planned assault on Israel that was launched on Oct 7. They knew they’d draw Israel into a war – but would’ve also known they couldn’t win in a direct slugfest – against the former’s more formidable firepower. However, with the tunnels they have dug over the years, they figure they can fight an extended guerrilla war – even though they know they’ll take unmanageable casualties. Which they have.
But they’ve been suffering those same casualties since 1948 – when Israel expelled 900,000 of them from their homes. This has been overlooked because the casualties weren’t as dramatic as the present ones. So, they got the world’s attention – and change now gotta come. At this point, Israel is its own worst enemy as it dissipates all the goodwill it earned from the European Jewish Holocaust. By backing the Palestinian cause, China and Russia have earned brownie points from even America’s erstwhile ally, Saudi Arabia.
Israel overplayed its hands, not expecting the Palestinians to hold on.
…nous?
One lawyer’s second-guessing the tack our lawyers have taken at the ICJ on the Venezuelan Border Controversy. Now, she wasn’t taken up blocking oil production in 2018 when the case was filed – since oil started flowing in 2019. Sleeping?
