Image: Waves batter a section of Guyana’s “Sea Wall” during a high-spring tide in 2019. Source: Loop News.
“Oil don’t ‘spoil!” So once declared Eric Williams, one-time long-standing Prime Minister of oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago. This assertion is undoubtedly true. But the distinguished scholar-statesman did not contemplate a circumstance where a dangerous mix of oil and water in the context of climate change dangers could spoil lives and livelihoods within the societies blessed with oil and gas resources.
Such is the situation with the two nations in the Guyana-Suriname Basin (GSB). Technically, the GSB includes the coastal plains of French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and eastern Venezuela.[1] However, the focus here is on Guyana and Suriname, the Caribbean’s emerging petro-powers. Continue reading →
Over time, the Guyanese environmentalist Arnette Arjoon grew to suspect Exxon was indifferent to the dangers of an oil spill to the coast and rivers of one of the best preserved parts of the Amazon biome. Composite: Fidal Bassier/Guardian/Reuters
Multibillion-dollar deal promising to lift country out of poverty may be false dawn with dire impact on climate, warn campaigners
Chris McGreal – The Guardian – Thu 12 May 2022 12.04 BST
Annette Arjoon is not anti-oil. The marine conservationist calls the vast new oilfields off Guyana’s coast a “blessing” that will earn billions of dollars for one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, even as she recognises that pulling yet more fossil fuel from the ground will deepen the climate crisis.
But Arjoon does have a problem with who is drilling the oil. She has seen firsthand what happens when the US’s largest petroleum company descends on a small country bearing the promise of riches. Continue reading →
The Government of Guyana has withdrawn US$200 million (or GY $41.7 billion) from the country’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF).
This is the first withdrawal that has been made from Guyana’s oil wealth fund.
The withdrawal was announced on Tuesday night via a press release from the Ministry of Finance, which indicated that this sum has been transferred to the Consolidated Fund to finance national development priorities.
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On the surface, the multi-billion dollar ‘Port of Vreed-en-Hoop’ may seem like it will be a regular shore base facility, but it’s intended for much more than that.
Three businessmen – Andron Alphonso of ZRN Investment Inc.,Nazar Mohammed of Hadi’s World Incorporated and Nicholas Deygoo-Boyer of National Hardware Guyana Limited – envisaged the creation of a commercial port and an industrial area that is consistent with the spirit of Guyana’s Local Content Policy to see Guyanese being at the forefront of benefitting from their national patrimony.
This idea birthed NRG Holdings Inc., a 100% Guyanese-owned consortium and the developer of the Port of Vreed-en-Hoop. Continue reading →
Since the PPP/C Government has not requested any disbursements from a US$20M loan Guyana took three years ago to help strengthen the nation’s capacity to manage the oil sector effectively, the World Bank said it has been forced to downgrade the country’s performance score on the loan.
The latest implementation status and results (ISR) report recalls that the money was approved on March 29, 2019 for the Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project (GPRGMP). The programme’s objective is to ensure the enhancement of legal and institutional frameworks and the strengthening of the capacity of key institutions to manage the oil and gas sector.
A Financing Agreement in the amount of US$20 million was signed and declared effective on April 11, 2019 under the David Granger administration. The ISR, which was reviewed by Kaieteur News presents the implementation status of GPRGMP as of March 2022. Continue reading →
…tells Guyana to improve oil contract terms for higher profit instead
– Apr 26, 2022 Kaieteur News – By Zena Henry
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised Guyana to secure a higher share of profit oil through its model Production Sharing Agreement, rather than actively participating in the task of petroleum development through a national oil company.
Another commentator opined that having a strategic investor in Guyana’s oil company would give that person or entity a permanent lien on all of Guyana’s oil resources. That means that the strategic investor would have the right to keep possession of property belonging to Guyana until it pays any potential debt that is owed. This is a recipe for cronyism and nepotism, it was suggested.In one of the institution’s 2019 documents providing technical support to the government, the Fund concluded that there is no strong business case to show that Guyana would receive more value from its oil endowments if it were to participate as a partner via a national oil company (NOC) in the development of the oil blocks. Continue reading →
ExxonMobil has made three new discoveries of oil in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana. With these discoveries, Guyana’s recoverable oil resources has now increased to nearly 11 billion barrels of oil.
See below full press release from ExxonMobil:
ExxonMobil has made three new discoveries offshore Guyana and increased its estimate of the recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block to nearly 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels.
The three discoveries are southeast of the Liza and Payara developments and bring to five the discoveries made by ExxonMobil in Guyana in 2022. Continue reading →
A few weeks ago, a regrettable faux pas pushed Guyana’s Local Content Policy (LCP) into news headlines across the region.
The Act seeks reasonable retention of benefits generated by activity in the oil sector for Guyanese companies, businesses and workers to a degree that optimizes use of existing and readily created local capacity. The policy encourages both training and transference of skills attainable by the local population — benchmark proportions of the workforce being local are indicated. These are admittedly, worthy objectives.
The awkward occurrence was a leaked e-mail from the CARICOM Private Sector Organisation (CPSO), the fledgling association of regional commercial interests, with four representatives from Trinidad and Tobago and only one from Guyana. The e-mail exposed the group’s dissatisfaction with the LCP. Careless handling of e-mail communication, in and of itself is not a good sign. The question though is, what happens next? Continue reading →
GUYANA: OIL: Read the latest edition of the ENERGY Magazine – Q1 2022 Edition
Read the latest edition of Guyana’s Energy Magazine – Q1 2022 – 52 pages
Read the latest edition of Guyana’s Energy Magazine – Q1 2022 – 52 pages
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