– urges prioritisation of national oil spill policy
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is urging Government to make issues such as formulating a national oil spill policy a priority, lest Guyana ends up repeating the mistakes of other oil producers.
With just two years to go before first oil, Jagdeo on Thursday turned on the pressure on this issue. According to the former President, not treating a national oil spill strategy as a priority is to risk Guyana retrogressing over the next few years.
“I’m saying to you, if we don’t address these critical issues, if we don’t address the rest of the economy, Guyana will be worst off in the next decade than we are now. You read the experience of many of those countries. Check the assessment of Chad and Nigeria and Venezuela and all those places. And just hear where they are today,” Jagdeo urged.
Jagdeo likened the delay in the oil policy to other faux pas’ in the industry; such as
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo
the renegotiated Production Sharing Agreement with Exxon’s subsidiary. The Government was heavily criticised for this agreement.
“This is not unique in the sector, in that all the things our Government was supposed to do to protect us, as a people and our interests, they have failed on. They have failed to negotiate a contract, after we established 3.2 million barrels of oil reserves, a contract that was better than the one given to ExxonMobil when we were trying to get them to explore. They did not. In fact Exxon came out ahead in those negotiations and that’s putting it mildly.”
“They were supposed to get the Sovereign Wealth Fund to protect our interest and they failed on that. They failed on the Petroleum Commission. They failed on local content. It’s the same pattern. They’re failing to address this issue in a manner that this is an environmental issue and the potential to tackle an oil spill.”
According to Jagdeo, Government has instead addressed the issue in a haphazard manner. He noted that Government seemed focused on one thing and that is oil but warned against this approach.
It is understood that development of the oil spill plan is being spearheaded by the Civil Defence Commission. In March, a stakeholder session was held to gain input for the draft. CDC’s partners in the process include the Guyana Energy Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency.
When it comes to deadlines, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman has said that a national oil spill and contingency plan will be established by 2020. Even before Jagdeo’s press conference, there have been criticisms about the slow pace of the plan’s development.
To its credit, however, Exxon has organised oil spill management training. This training has including providing information on dispersants, tools used and structure of response strategies among other exercises.
Protecting the environment
Last year, it was announced that the Audit Office of Guyana (AOG) would commence – a number of environmental audits in 2018. These audits, Auditor General Deodat Sharma had said, would analyse the capacity of the country’s relevant agencies to protect the environment and endangered species of animals in case of a disaster.
Guyana had a taste of such disasters during the 1995 cyanide spill. In gold mining, cyanide is used as an extracting agent for the ore. In the case of Guyana’s cyanide spill, the highly poisonous material spilled out of a reservoir into the Essequibo River.
Guyana does not have to look far to see examples of the long-term effects of oil spills. Effects from an Exxon oil tanker spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Alaska in 1989 are still felt today on the environment. And cleaning up oil spills can costs billions of US dollars.
For instance, British Petroleum’s (BP) expended approximately $14 billion in clean-up costs after its Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in 2010. The disaster killed 11 persons on board and nearly five million barrels of oil were released underwater before the well was capped.
In 2016, President David Granger commissioned Guyana’s first oil spill response operation service at the Gaico Wharf at Nismes, West Bank Demerara. Gaico Oil Spill Response Operation Services, a name coined by Komal Singh, was set up as a pre-emptive measure against probable spillage once production commence in the future. The company has previous experience in construction.
At the commissioning, Singh had stated that he had noticed that there are a number of near misses of oil spills and decided to pursue the avenue of preparing for one in Guyana. He had said that the company has invested in a supply boat to work alongside rigs and supply them with fuel and cargo, while preparing for any occurrence of an oil spill. Its response time to an oil spill, Singh had said, would be within 24 hours.
