…working on installing CCTV cameras

THE Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) will be in a full state of readiness as ExxonMobil extracts the second lift of Guyana’s light sweet Liza crude, expected on February 3 – 4, 2020.

This is according to Deputy Commissioner General, Customs, Excise and Trade Administration, Lancelot Wills, during a press conference at the GRA’s Camp Street, Georgetown headquarters on Friday.

ExxonMobil and its partners began oil production on December 20, 2019, on the Liza 1 project in the Stabroek Block, where the company has so far made 16 successful discoveries.

Wills said: “We have, additionally, declared the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) a sufferance wharf and warehouse… this is essential, essential in as far as a monitoring presence; we reserve the right to be fully embedded with the crew and staff of the FPSO so we can exercise the kind of surveillance that is required for which the Guyanese public has been clamoring.”

He said GRA will partner with oil companies in collecting revenues along with various components in which revenue computation is premised.

Further, he said the GRA will soon roll out various modules with regards to oil and gas production and lift processing while a petroleum revenue audit unit and a customs petroleum unit will be established.

Wills said the operations are governed by the Revenue Authority Act which confers upon the agency a fiduciary duty to exercise the care and diligence required to optimize revenue collection.

“So we operate within specific confines of the law, in this case the Revenue Authority Act instructs and advises that in accordance with section 10, we charge, assess and levy taxes based on orders specified by the minister, in laws. So we set out to do what the laws prescribe; we do not concern ourselves with what ratios accrue to whom,” he explained.
Underscoring that he heads the Customs Petroleum Unit, Wills said there is an interim petroleum unit which was approved and sanctioned by the IMF since it is new to Guyana and a sectorial approach is needed to scale and fit the unit for its necessary purpose.
He explained that by April, 1, 2020, it will officially be constituted a Customs Petroleum Unit, since it would have benefitted from the necessary experiences.

“We have a corps of customs boarding officers who attend to the procedures and processes on the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, Liza Destiny. We have had our first lift from January 17-19, 2020 and our pioneering staff is Ms. Fayon Johnson,” he said.

He explained that she is a member of a team of lifter boarding officers who are required to do the volumetric measurement corroboration aboard the FPSO to ensure accuracy in reading while it is ticketed on a custody transfer meter.

Wills said a report will also be done on all offshore activities and customs clearance, landing of goods, warehousing in tandem with onshore colleagues.

“There is a full gamut of activities that we are required to monitor and evaluate as time progresses,” he noted.

Underscoring that the GRA is looking to have a permanent presence on the vessel, Wills said, “what we intend to do is to have a CCTV feed as soon as it becomes practicable, so that we will be livestreaming video as to what transpires out there offshore.”
In the absence of the livestream, officers are transported offshore and as a result, GRA also relies heavily on self-declaration by filling various forms according to regulations.
Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia said the agency, in its initial stage, has asked for at least four persons to be offshore at all times.

“There are five agencies tasked with being there: the Department of Energy, the EPA, GNBS and the GGMC with GRA,” he noted.

The company to whom the lift is entitled is responsible for transporting the personnel offshore.

According to the agreement, the operators ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC are each entitled to a lift before Guyana receives its first million barrels. The Department of Energy has selected Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited of the Royal Dutch Shell group of companies to buy its first three lifts.

Production from the Liza Phase 1 project, located in the Stabroek Block, is expected to reach full capacity of 120,000 barrels of oil per day in coming months.