Government has issued a production license to ExxonMobil, but prior to its issuance, anti-corruption advocate Transparency Institute Guyana Incorporated (TIGI) had raised a number of questions for which an undertaken was given that a
TIGI President, Dr troy Thomas
meeting would have been held with stakeholders.
According to TIGI President, Dr Troy Thomas, the organisation is of the view that its many questions about the process remain unanswered. Thomas stated that contrary to what had been expressed to them, a production licence was issued to Exxon days after it raised its concerns with Government.
“At one point the Minister had said to us that they would have some consultations prior to issuing the licence, because we had asked about feasibility studies and all that,” Thomas said. “We haven’t really gotten any response on it. And then we saw that the licence was issued shortly after, in direct contradiction to what was said in that letter.”
He noted that the organisation would continue to press for the contract to be released in the interest of transparency.
In April, TIGI had issued a statement calling for the Government to share with it
Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman
the types and particulars of the studies and investigations they had requested as part of the process for evaluating Exxon’s production licence application.
TIGI had also requested that the Government provide clarification on whether Exxon had submitted an economic feasibility study of its proposed operations in the Stabroek block.
In May, TIGI had reported that after a month of no responses to its issued statement, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman finally responded.
But instead of responding directly to TIGI’s questions, the Minister deferred to Worley Parsons, a consultant company the Government contracted without any open tendering.
According to TIGI, Minister Trotman never responded directly to its questions and claimed that “the matters raised in your letter are presently being addressed by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) in conjunction with an international consulting company, Worley Parsons.”
Worley Parsons is an Australian resources and energy consultant company that had been contracted by Government to review Exxon’s development plan. In addition, offshore and civil engineering expert, Dr Jan Mangal was appointed earlier this year as an advisor on Petroleum within the Ministry of the Presidency.
But TIGI noted that at no point in time was there a public tender for the services of the consultancy firm.
TIGI had also noted that Minister Trotman concluded his letter by indicating that Government was committed to holding “stakeholder discussions” after Worley Parsons and the GGMC have submitted their reports.
In June 2017, Exxon was granted its formal production licence. Before that, reviews were done of the technical and environmental aspects of the Liza Project Development Plan submitted by Esso Exploration and Production (Guyana) Ltd in December 2017
Grey areas
Government has revealed that Guyana will receive a two per cent royalty on gross earnings from the oil on a barrel to barrel basis.
In addition, Guyana will receive 50 per cent of the profits from Exxon’s sale of petroleum.
But there have always been grey areas concerning other particulars of the contract. Economist Ramon Gaskin is one such individual who has questioned the lack of information concerning the contract. He had noted that the public’s lack of information, besides what royalty payments Guyana would accrue, extended to how much taxes Exxon would pay when it did start production.
