Dear Editor,

IT pains me to see people like Sean Ramcharan given the opportunity to write such misguided pieces. For a country with our history and ideology; for a country which has been forgotten in terms of foreign interest and investment, it is deeply disturbing to see people like him write pieces like this. To start with, who is he to call out Exxon on their sponsorship of the Guyanese sports teams? As a business owner, I understand the pressure that Exxon is under to sponsor teams, activities and other things; it upsets me to see him given space to spew nonsense.

How does a sponsor become the owner, benefactor and saviour of the country and its peoples? I commend Exxon for sponsoring the team, and for not only allowing it to have the money needed to participate, but for contributing to Guyana indirectly in the areas of sport tourism and even further (I bet Mr. Ramcharan did not know) CSR activities and capacity-building efforts for youth through the sponsorship. The idea that the money Exxon is spending will most likely be cost-recovered from Guyanese oil is absolutely inaccurate; the money that Exxon is spending on sponsorship is as every other business owner in this country, they are not getting that back and if you have evidence of otherwise, please share Mr. Ramcharan before you blatantly mislead people.

Who are you Mr. Ramcharan, to comment on a fair deal for Guyana, are you an energy expert? An expert on contracts? Exxon has done a fair job at clarifying their position and many international experts such as Wood Mackenzie and Rystad have indicated that based on similar frontier contracts around the world, it is in the middle spectrum. You need to understand that when this contract was signed in 1999, there was no interest in Guyana; the government did what it had to do to attract investment and I commend them. Any business owner knows if you have a product that no one knows about you have to incentivise people to try and like it before they purchase. In Guyana’s case, there was no discovered oil, so the government gave attractive, yet fair terms to contractors to incentivise them to explore. Now when Exxon finds oil you want to switch all the terms in your favour; how is that fair? Indeed, if Guyana insisted on renegotiating its international reputation would be ruined, foreign companies would note its instability and its inability to honour signed contracts and they would not want to invest in the country. This is not myopic, it is a fact and a real possibility.

How can you compare Trinidad to Guyana? Trinidad has had companies operating in an oil industry for over 100 years. Guyana has not even started production and you want to start renegotiating. You refer to an exit being suicidal for them, not for us. May I remind you that without Exxon’s discovery or investment, we would not be having this conversation; without their discovery and them expressing confidence in developing the resource offshore, there would be no other foreign oil interest as seen prior to the Liza 1 discovery in 2015. So I’d task you with restructuring your arguments to support your comment. With Guyana honouring this contract not only shows stability, but gives other companies the confidence to express interest; when they express interest you have better grounds to ask for more. You are very short-sighted, Exxon’s contract is not the only one and will not last forever. If you renegotiate now, then Exxon will only confirm that Guyana does not know what the hell it wants and will just be less encouraged to make future investments. Further of course, in the case of a breach in contract, then the parties have to pay damages. So I ask you what has Exxon done to breach the contract? What have they done to warrant changes in the terms that incentivised them to explore when there was none?

Your final statement is what is wrong with the thinking in Guyana. You want to hold an international oil company hostage, but I ask you, who does this benefit? Do you think that Guyana is all Exxon has? No, but right now Exxon is all Guyana has. Let’s face it: Exxon found what they did offshore and are entitled not by the contract, but the Petroleum Act to develop the resource and quite frankly, to do this at no cost to the government is great. I think we would be having a greatly different conversation if Exxon had told Guyana to put up half the development cost (which they would be entitled to cost recovery). So don’t refer to the sponsorship of national activities and activities for our country’s youth as a public relations exercise, be cognisant that they are not obligated to spend anything in this area and that they are doing it to show their commitment to Guyana. You should help yourself understand what your business is and leave the oil and gas business alone.

Regards
Yogendra Singh