…of our oil
The discussion on our oil discoveries has tended to become quite polemical over the four years since we confirmed “there’s oil under them waters” off our shores. But as usual, with any discussion – polemical or otherwise – in our dear mud land – the polarisation and clashes produce more heat than light. But with the FPSO on the way from Singapore slated to arrive next month to deliver first oil by early next year as projected, we do need a perspective, don’t we??
The world renowned and credible “Bloomberg Business” just offered a “capitalistic” one: “The world’s newest petro-state isn’t ready for a tsunami of cash…Guyana is investigating oil leases at a rocky political moment”. While one might not expect the report to give too many column inches to the critics of the contract, to its credit, it doesn’t shy away.
Referring to the 1999 contract signed with the PPP government, the report said, “Given all the unsuccessful exploration, Exxon secured the rights to Stabroek under terms so generous that they would come back to haunt the country”. But it provided an interesting timeline to the Exxon Lisa Strike. Then it went on to say:
“In 2016, Exxon had a problem. Its deal with Guyana was 17 years old, and under the complex terms of the agreement, the super major was running out of time to find more oil. This was an opportunity for Guyana’s new government, now led by Granger, to update the 1999 contract and extract better terms…. Instead, in October 2016, the Government and Exxon modified the terms of the existing 1999 deal”. Why??
Looking ahead, the report laments: “Crucially, however, Guyana—a poor former colony, first of the Dutch, then of the British—is unprepared for what’s coming. Its petroleum laws were written in the 1980s. The Department of Energy has an annual budget of $2 million. Five years after Exxon’s discovery, the country still hasn’t finished crafting relevant new laws or even established a regulatory body to oversee exploration and production. Last year, the Government set up a sovereign wealth fund to soak up as much as $5 billion in oil revenue per year by 2025, but there are no plans for how to spend it”.
Why re-elect such a clueless Government?
…on Indian Independence
Today’s the 72nd anniversary of India’s Independence from the British empire. This event doesn’t resonate as much as it did when the “sun never set” on that empire and dozens of countries such as ours, remained under its thrall. But it’s truly said that “the past is never dead: it’s not even past”. Just as the departing British left the open sores of the partition of India that left more than a million dead, and that sore has just exploded in Kashmir, we’ve been left with our own sore to deal with.
Our “Independence” from Britain under the PNC came in the wake of instigated ethnic violence that took 176 lives and uprooted thousands of families as villages were ethnically cleansed. It facilitated the rigging of elections for 28 years by the PNC just to keep out the PPP and solidified the racial/ethnic cleavages that are presently roiling our politics and our country once again.
To its credit, India is at last starting to pull itself out of its British-fostered underdevelopment.
When will we?
…on US immigrant visas
There’s been some noise about the Trump administration insisting that potential wards of the State won’t be allowed in as immigrants. So why the simultaneous dog whistle that immigrants work and undercut American workers’ wages?
