Cost oil audits: EMGL assures company working to respond to GRA on first 2 audits

– We will accept if conclusion reached that expenses not aligned with cost oil- EMGL Pres.

With ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) being granted an extension to respond to queries from the first two cost oil audits, the company’s President Alistair Routledge has assured that if they are able to conclude that the costs found are not aligned with cost oil, then they will accept this.
During a recent press conference, Routledge was asked about these two audits. The first one saw the auditor flagging US$214.4 million as questionable costs, while in the second one- the first in which a local consortium handled the auditing work on their own- inaccuracies were also flagged.
According to Routledge, the company is working to fulfil Guyana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) requests for additional information. As a matter of fact, they were given an extension to do just this. That being said, he noted that they are still in the information gathering and sharing stage.
“Work is actually underway for the third audit, which covers the period through to 2023. For the first two audits, there’s really nothing new to report. The work is ongoing. We’re working to respond to the GRA. They gave us a little bit of extension, because they had asked us for a substantial amount of additional information. We are working to gather that,” Routledge said.

“It is in the spirit that we want to be as transparent, we want to answer the questions. We believe we’ve accounted for things absolutely, per the rules that have been established. International standard rules. Should we, as we reach conclusions that there’s something not aligned, then we will accept that. But at this point we’re still in that information gathering, understanding the questions and providing answers and responses.”
According to Routledge, their team regularly updates the GRA and is conscientious about the deadlines they are working with. He assured that at the end of the day, Exxon is interested in ensuring a transparent process and that the people of Guyana are assured that any costs that are accepted are valid.
“There have been queries raised. And when the first set of queries came in, they were not particularly specific, it was hard to give a detailed response. More specific queries have been raised, so we’re able to provide additional documentation.”
“That’s the process, we’re in on both the audits. We are responding within the time requested or we ask for an extension. Currently we’re very much complying with all the deadlines. And we will continue to do so.”
When it comes to the first cost oil audit, British firm IHS Markit had flagged US$214.4 million as questionable costs of ExxonMobil’s expenses incurred between 1999 and 2017 from its operations in Guyana.
Following months of review, GRA – the technical body tasked with advising the Government on the audited oil expenses – had supported the dispute of the US$214.4 million, as flagged by IHS Markit.

The Government had subsequently declared its intentions to move to arbitration to settle this disputed amount being claimed by the US oil major.
Meanwhile, following the second audit, GRA had flagged inaccuracies in declarations made by a Trinidadian logistics company that acted as the broker on oil well equipment imported for ExxonMobil. It was reported that the company, in submitting the declaration, had listed US$4.4 million worth of oil well equipment as a whopping US$12.1 billion.
ExxonMobil Guyana, for its part, had claimed that it was a typographical error that caused the worth of the equipment to be overstated in November 2023. Further, the oil company had said that it had cut ties with the supplier and had beefed up its internal systems.
In response to a March 18, 2024 letter from GRA, asking it to show cause why proceedings should not be instituted against it, Exxon had committed to working along with GRA to address any further concerns on the matter.