Dear Editor,
This is a request for expressions of interest (EoI) for persons who know how to market gold on the world markets. “I have gold, I am looking for someone (Contractor) to help me sell my gold, but I don’t know anything about gold, I just got lots of it, millions of ounces, so I will also pay the contractor to teach me how to grade and sell gold while they have the contract to sell my gold”. Any Guyanese seeing this ad would be able to tell you what would happen to this fool and his gold; now replace “gold” with “oil’ and examine the Department of Energy’s request for EoI to market Guyana’s oil. The naivety on display is alarming.
The Department of Energy and its head, Dr Mark Bynoe, are proudly declaring they know nothing about how oil is graded and marketed, they want someone to come to do it all and teach them “the successful marketer is expected to also support the DoE in the first year of introduction of the grade in multiple geographies and refinery systems and must work closely with the agency in understanding the behaviour and yields of the Liza Blend and how these affect pricing differentials”. This is much like watching a child with crayons and his inordinate pride at having defaced your living room wall, it is not art and a firm hand is needed to administer discipline or there goes the rest of the house to Picasso junior. Bynoe is already engaged in a cover-up of his first ‘deal’ with Shell Western, studiously avoiding anything approaching a detail or a fact. One million and ninety-three thousand barrels seem to have been lost on that learning curve.
Any gold miner can tell you the price of gold is based on the assay, a process to measure the purity of items containing gold. Oil is no different, essentially the Brent crude benchmark is 0.37% sulphur, lower impurities equals a higher price and conversely higher levels of impurity a lower price. The Department of Energy should have hired two dozen of our bright young people and sent them to different parts of the world to gain experience and (importantly) contacts. I can assure you that the formulas and chemistry would be within their grasp almost immediately. These locals could be supplemented with some old hands in the business, retirees from the large companies that are in that phase of life where they want to impart knowledge and can utilise contacts and get the best deals for Guyana in house. Three teams competing within the DoE for the best deal on every lift would surely be more beneficial than the inviting of marketing companies to partake in a feast on the bounty and prey on the proud ignorance as advertised.
Mr Bynoe seems oblivious to the general elections on the 2nd of March and its possible impact on him directly as he continues to whistle past the graveyard. Bynoe undertook a great responsibility to oversee the sale of our profit oil; he cannot continue to dodge questions as to where the profit is now that the oil has been sold. The moon is running but the day is fast approaching.
Respectfully,
Robin Singh
