—ExxonMobil Guyana President says

EXXONMOBIL Guyana President Alistair Routledge has rejected claims that the oil major has benefitted from US tax credits linked to its operations in Guyana, asserting that recent suggestions made to US lawmakers were both misleading and inaccurate.

During a press briefing at the company’s Ogle headquarters on Monday, Routledge stated that ExxonMobil Corporation’s 2023 and 2024 tax filings contain no Guyanese tax credits, directly refuting assertions raised by the Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN), a US-registered NGO comprising primarily Guyanese expatriates.

“It would appear that OGGN, perhaps, misled the senators somewhat. In ExxonMobil Corporation’s 2023 and 2024 tax filings, there were no Guyanese tax credits included in either of those filings,” Routledge said, adding: “And you would recall that prior to 2023, we were not making profits here in Guyana, so there were no tax credits from that.”

Routledge’s response was related to a September 23 letter from three US Senators, Sheldon Whitehouse, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley, addressed to ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods.

The senators had raised concerns that ExxonMobil might be claiming US foreign tax credits on payments made by the Guyana Government under the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), effectively allowing the company to reduce its US tax burden using funds it did not directly remit.

The letter suggested that such a practice, if occurring, would amount to an indirect subsidy from American taxpayers to ExxonMobil’s Guyana operations, but Routledge made it clear that this is not the case.

“Up until this point, there have been no Guyana tax credits used by ExxonMobil,” he stressed.

Routledge also highlighted that ExxonMobil Guyana remains in a negative cash-flow position, noting that the company is still recovering billions in up-front investments from the Stabroek Block’s development.

“We continue to be actually cash-flow negative on an accumulative basis… we are probably still around US$6 billion in negative cash flow as we look at the cumulative expenditures and cumulative revenues that we’ve seen from the Stabroek Block,” he said.

The ExxonMobil Guyana head reaffirmed that the company operates under the terms of its 2016 agreement with the Government of Guyana.

Routledge’s clarification effectively rebuts the narrative that American taxpayers are subsidising ExxonMobil’s Guyana operations.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

ExxonMobil has invested over US$40 billion in Guyana’s offshore sector since 2015 and continues to expand production capacity, currently surpassing 740,000 barrels of oil per day across three Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels.

Despite consistent scrutiny from critics abroad, the company maintains that its Guyana operations are transparent and fully compliant with both Guyanese and US regulations.

As the October 23 response deadline approaches, ExxonMobil is expected to formally address the US senators’ queries.