…say NGO has ulterior motives
…report labelled as “motivated attack piece” at players in the oil and gas industry

International media agencies, pointing to ill-motive in Global Witness’ recent report that Guyana stands to lose $55 billion in its contract with ExxonMobil, have said that the investigation company is traditionally focused on “halting natural resource extraction”.
In a Forbes article, ‘Global Witness Claims Guyana Is Losing Money, Urges It To Lose Much More’, the agency pointed out: “…upon closer examination, the allegations don’t really stand up. Global Witness states repeatedly and unequivocally that it found no evidence of any wrongdoing by ExxonMobil nor Guyana’s government ministers.”

Forbes also stated that the bases upon which Global Witness is urging Guyana to push for overall take of 69 per cent over its 52 per cent is left unclear in the report. With the investigative company known for having motives against natural resource extraction, the article pointed out that persons should question the true intention of company and whether it lies in Guyana’s best interest.

Global Witness’ recent report, ‘Signed Away’, had recommended that Guyana allow Exxon to extract oil from the 16 wells it has already drilled, but allow no additional drilling in the Stabroek license and cancel its nine other allocated licenses and not award any new licenses

“With dozens more viable well sites available to be drilled in the coming years within the Stabroek block, Guyana would stand to lose many billions in potential future revenues,” the Forbes article stated, adding:

“Global Witness bases this advice on climate change concerns, but provides no rationale supporting why this historically poor, developing nation should be forced to bear such a disproportionate share of the economic burden of meeting the Paris Climate Accord goals when the developed nations of Europe, along with China, India and other economic powerhouses across the globe are currently doing so little.”

Meanwhile, a detailed report from Norwegian-based Rystad Energy on Tuesday contradicted Global Witness’ position that Guyana signed a “bad deal” which would hinder the country significantly. Rystad Energy benchmarked the Stabroek Block fiscal regime against the fiscal regimes of other “frontier” and upcoming oil and gas producing countries. These included Brazil, the United States (deepwater Gulf of Mexico), Mozambique, Israel, Tanzania, Mauritania, Suriname and the Falkland Islands.

It ran its economic model analysis on the Liza Phase 1 project and compared the results against the fiscal regimes for the peer group countries. It showed that the average Guyana government take is 60 per cent, which in its benchmarking overview, places the country right between major producer Brazil at 63 per cent and fledgling producers Mozambique and Mauritania, at 57 per cent.

“We find the current fiscal regime in Guyana to be in line with other emerging oil and gas countries. As Guyana firms up its credentials as an attractive upstream destination, we expect that new awards of production sharing agreements will likely stipulate revised fiscal parameters, with the higher government take,” Vice President of Upstream Research at Rystad Energy, Sonya Boodoo commented in the report.

It also estimated that between 2015 and 2019, oil and gas companies invested around $8.1 billion in exploration and development activities in Guyana’s offshore sector while assuming all risks during the exploration phase. The Forbes article stated that with such an important election only weeks away for the country, the prospective oil wealth would “naturally become the focal point of political campaigns”

It also indicated that while some local voices have lobbied for Guyana to force a contract renegotiation, “the reality is that Guyana does not stand to ‘lose’ anything in its deal with the consortium.”

“Where the country would stand to actually lose billions would be if it were to follow Global Witness’s advice to not allow the Consortium to drill any more wells going forward, limiting the discovery process at Stabroek to the 16 wells already drilled to date,” the Forbes article stated. “In the end, just a few hours of analysis reveals the Global Witness report for what it is: An ideologically-motivated attack piece aimed at some of the biggest players in the oil and gas industry. Which, given the group’s history, comes as no surprise at all.”