…now denies knowledge of oil find prior to 2015 polls

AS pressure mounts on the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration to justify the issuance of Petroleum Prospecting Licenses for key oil blocks to inexperienced operators in 2015, former President Donald Ramotar is now claiming that he had no knowledge that Guyana had oil before awarding the blocks.

By now, it is public knowledge that, just days before the 2015 General and Regional Elections, the PPP/C Administration signed over awards for the Kaieteur and Canje blocks.
Some of the blocks were awarded to junior exploration companies which have since been criticised as having little knowledge in deep water exploration.

Last Tuesday, news broke in the international media outlet, Bloomberg, that the local State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) is currently conducting an investigation in this regard.
The report indicated that the Stabroek, Kaieteur, Orinduik and Canje Blocks will be part of the inquiry.

While SARA’s head, Dr. Clive Thomas indicated that the investigation is still in its initial stage, he said there is currently enough evidence for the agency to advance the investigation.

Ramotar has long been criticised for stating that he had no knowledge that ExxonMobil found oil at the time of the signing of the contracts for the Kaieteur and Canje Blocks when a political ad published on May 8, 2015 by his party indicated otherwise.
While urging Guyanese to ‘vote PPP/C’ the ad ended by stating: “This breaking news of the oil discovery in Guyana is yet another timely reminder why your support is best placed with the PPP/C.”

In a release on Friday, the former President once again denied having knowledge of oil in Guyana prior to the questionable signings.

“At the time of application, processing, approval and signing of the Petroleum Prospecting Licenses for the Kaieteur and Canje Blocks in Guyana’s offshore there was no confirmed commercial petroleum discovery in the area by ExxonMobil or any other company,” Ramotar stated.

Nonetheless, news of an investigation has since spread widely in Guyana causing the likes of Oil and Gas Consultant, Dr. Jan Mangal, who has been pushing for the same since 2017, to laud such an investigation.

“The award of these two blocks has all the signs of corrupt awards. Deep-water oil blocks should never be awarded to unknown companies or individuals who have no assets or track record of producing oil in deep-water,” Mangal told Guyana Chronicle.
“The former Minister Robert Persaud in effect hired contractors [such as] Mid-Atlantic, Ratio, JHI, Cateleya, etcetera, who had zero assets or capacity to produce oil in the blocks. This type of fraud robs countries like Guyana of billions of USD and is seen time and again in West Africa,” he added.

Thus far, ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies, is the only company which has found oil in Guyana and progressed towards development.

ExxonMobil holds 35 per cent of the rights in the Kaieteur Block; Ratio Guyana holds 25 per cent; Cateleya holds 25 per cent and HESS holds 15 per cent.
In the Canje Block, ExxonMobil holds 35 per cent; Total holds 35 per cent; JHI holds 17.5 per cent and Mid-Atlantic Oil & Gas 12.5 per cent.

Speaking of the process by which the two blocks were eventually awarded, Ramotar stated that applications for exploration in the Kaieteur Block came in 2012 while applications for the Canje Block came the following year.
He said that they were processed and approved by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations around late 2013.

In 2013, GGMC’s acting commissioner was Rickford Vieira.
According to Ramotar, all required fees were paid not to private accounts but to the GGMC.
It is unlikely that Ramotar’s public statement will spare his former administration scrutiny as Mangal, like many others, wants matters related to the payments to be more thoroughly investigated.

In a recent letter to Stabroek News he listed five brief questions he believes all Guyanese should want answered publicly and promptly.
These were: how much was paid for the acreage; to whom was it paid; when was it paid; who are the beneficial individual equity owners of all of the involved entities and how were they chosen to receive the property.

Meanwhile, in the release, Ramotar also stated that the delay experienced in the signing of the agreements was due to matters resulting from Venezuela’s navy seizure of Anadarko contracted seismic vessel Teknik Perdana in late 2013.
“Dates of signing and sequence of subsequent discoveries are all in the public domain and were published in the Official Gazette for the public’s information. There was full transparency on this,” he said.
Ramotar has referred to the officials operating at SARA as “puppets” of the government even as he called for the investigations to be conducted by an “independent and impartial international firm”.

Similar calls came from Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo who stated on Thursday: “If you want to do the investigation we will support the hire of an impartial body… the PPP/C has nothing to hide.”

Ramotar later echoed the same, stating: “…we in the PPP/C have nothing to fear from an independent and impartial investigation.”
Meanwhile, with or without the investigations being conducted by SARA, local economist Ramon Gaskin is also in favour of such an investigation and wants the “digging” to date back as far as 1999.

“If they want to do an investigation, they have to go back to the granting of block… they have to go back to 1999 when ExxonMobil got 600 blocks when Janet Jagan was President. The awarding of blocks was handled very badly because if you go back to 1999 when Janet Jagan was President, Sam Hinds and Jagdeo gave Exxon 600 blocks you will see,” he said.
And, irrespective of the outcome, Mangal believes that the President should rescind the awards of the Kaieteur and Canje Blocks.

He stated that this is within the Presidents right and should be done in the case that SARA is incapable of “coming up with the correct and obvious recommendations.”