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Guyanese President David Granger speaks with the press.

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES - 2016/02/19: Guyanese President David Granger speaks ... [+] LightRocket via Getty Images

December 26 2019

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December 20th marks a historic milestone for Guyana, the small South American country that is soon to become the fastest growing economy in the Caribbean. Late in the evening, ExxonMobil and its partners announced that it had produced the first commercial crude from the Liza field, located in Guyana’s offshore Stabroek Block. The output from the first phase is expected to reach capacity of 120,000 gross barrels of oil per day (bdp), utilizing the Liza Destiny floating production storage and offloading (FPSO), and the first cargo is set to be sold within several weeks. Stabroek Block is expected to produce 750,000 bpd by 2025.

Guyana President David Granger declared December 20 as “National Petroleum Day” and said that the revenues from oil would be “transformative” for the Guyanese economy. The international community agrees – the International Monetary Fund has predicted the country’s GDP could grow 86 percent next year. “That’s 14 times the projected pace of China,” according to Bloomberg. The IMF further projects that the country’s current $4 billion annual gross domestic product will grow to $15 billion by 2024.

Granger took the occasion to announce the government’s “National Decade of Development” plan, which will prioritize reforming the public education system and providing free schooling for all Guyanese. The “Petroleum production has brought the prospects of a higher quality of life closer to our households and neighbourhoods. It is a momentous event,” Granger said. “Every Guyanese will benefit from petroleum production. No one will be left behind.”

Recent months have seen a flurry of activity as the government takes steps to prepare for the first oil production. As I noted in September, The Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Energy has been established to manage the country’s resources and build the institutional, legislative and regulatory architecture to manage the sector effectively.

Head of the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Energy Dr. Mark Bynoe cautioned that “Guyana’s future is bright, but we can only secure that future by strengthening legislation, conducting due diligence, emphasizing education, following a balanced development paradigm and utilizing the best skills in the industry through partnerships.”

According to the government, local content policy is in its final stages of being reviewed by experts with the Local Content Unit to be set up by the end of the year. The draft has received mixed reviews, and will likely be a crucial issue in the lead up to Guyana’s next general elections in March 2020. The Guyanese government is also conducting a process to find buyers for the first three cargoes of the oil it is entitled to under the contract with the consortium, which is led by ExxonMobil with Hess Corp and China’s CNOCC.

But first oil was not all that December had in store for Guyana. Just three days later, ExxonMobil announced that it had made a new oil discovery at the Mako-1 well southeast of the Liza field, marking the 15th discovery on the Stabroek Block. The successful Mako-1 adds to the previously estimated recoverable resource of more than 6 billion oil-equivalent barrels in the Stabroek Block.

Amid the excitement surrounding the first oil milestone, the discovery at Mako-1 emphasizes the long-term nature of production in Guyana. With discoveries continuing to mount, ExxonMobil and its partners have sought to maintain a steady pace of development and approvals for future phases of production. Liza Phase 2 is already well underway, and the third phase, Payara, is expected for early 2020.

The 800,000 or so citizens of Guyana are about to experience a very significant change in their standard of living due to the ongoing development of their nation’s offshore mineral resources. The crucial challenge for the government there will come in properly managing the new wealth. Granger’s government has taken several key initial steps towards that goal, and March’s national elections will help determine what that management will look like heading into the future.

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Exxon is clearly on the side of the PNC!  They announced the massive discovery one week after the PNC won.  Then they announced first oil on the anniversary of the NCV!  Watch the PNC will announce some big financial benefit realization just before March 2!

The PNC will kick into high gear campaigning in a matter of weeks!  They intend to do a blitz Krieg!

Baseman

We keep hearing the same thing over and over again about the potential to transform Guyana's economy.  That's great!  What we want to hear is that the international community along with oil companies will not condone nor encourage corruption by supporting rigged elections. 

Billy Ram Balgobin
Billy Ram Balgobin posted:

We keep hearing the same thing over and over again about the potential to transform Guyana's economy.  That's great!  What we want to hear is that the international community along with oil companies will not condone nor encourage corruption by supporting rigged elections. 

Ayuh still deh in La La land!!

Baseman

Like de slopster miss dis wan!

Govt. strikes deal to sell Guyana’s oil with company involved in world’s biggest corruption scandal

 

By Kiana Wilburg

With the Government of Guyana due to collect its first three cargoes of oil from the Stabroek Block in two months’ time, a process was initiated last week for a company to purchase the crude. Out of nine companies invited for face-to-face bidding, the Energy Department announced yesterday that Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited (SWSTL), which is based in Barbados, has emerged the winner.
According to the Energy Department, the subsidiary of Shell, which is the third-largest company in the world based o

Sale of Guyana’s oil…
Govt. strikes deal with company involved in world’s biggest corruption scandal

n 2018 revenues, won the bid on account of a number of factors. These include a competitive pricing that limits the Government’s exposure to market uncertainty; the size, scale and global reach of its trading operations; the company’s high level of integration between Upstream, Trading and Downstream; Shell’s strong foothold in the Latin American markets and the size and scale of their shipping and storage operations in the region, allowing for multiple options on the Liza crude commercialization; and the range of new grades Shell recently introduced into the market.
The Department also took into consideration Shell’s willingness to share critical refinery information which it asserts Guyana needs in order to understand the Liza crude behaviour. Kaieteur News was also informed via a statement from the department that Shell’s readiness to support it in operating these cargoes, while it is strengthening its structures and in-house crude commercialization human resources, was also a determining factor.
To the rest of the world, and perhaps, even to the Energy Department, Shell portrays itself as an upstanding company with strong anti-corruption values. But research conducted by Kaieteur News shows that this very company Guyana has now struck a deal with, is embroiled in the industry’s “biggest corruption scandal” and is currently on trial for the said matter.
GLOBAL WITNESS EXPOSES
Armed with some damning pieces of evidence, international Non-Governmental Organization, the Global Witness was able to reveal to the rest of the world how Shell participated in a vast bribery scheme for one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks, known as OPL 245.
In 2011, the Global Witness reported that Shell and Italian Oil Company Eni paid over US$1.1 billion in a murky deal for this lucrative asset located off the coast of Nigeria. Following a lengthy investigation by the NGO it was able to access documents showing that this money for the rights to exploit the country’s natural resources did not go to benefit the Nigerian people as it should have done.
Instead, it went to convicted money launderer and former oil Minister, Dan Etete, who had awarded himself ownership of the block in 1998 via a company he secretly owned, Malabu Oil and Gas. Global Witness in a special report said that for six years, Shell has denied it did anything wrong, and said it only paid the Nigerian government in securing rights to the block.
In 2015, Shell’s CEO Ben Van Beurden responded to the allegations by stating the payments were “morally OK” and “in accordance with the law of Nigeria and international practice”. However what this carefully worded statement does not say is that Shell executives knew the money would go to Malabu and Etete, and was then likely to flow to some of the most powerful people in the country.
In February 2016 as well, Global Witness reported that Shell’s headquarters were raided by 50 police in a joint Dutch–Italian investigation into the deal. Global Witness was able to document the details of a phone call between Shell CEO Van Beurden and the then Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry soon after the raid, as their phone lines were wiretapped by Dutch authorities.
Van Beurden suggested that Shell should not disclose the raid to shareholders, saying to Henry: “The last thing you want of course is some sort of request to issue a stock exchange release when there is nothing to be said other than that we are being asked to provide information.” He also told Henry: “don’t volunteer any information that is not requested” to police investigating the OPL 245 deal.
The Global Witness stated that the money paid for the block equals more than the African nation’s 2016 health care budget. It is also one and a half times what the United Nations says is now needed to respond to the current famine crisis. Research indicates that approximately 8.5 million people in Nigeria are in need of humanitarian assistance while 5.1 million Nigerians are malnourished.
The deal which allegedly paved the way for billions to be siphoned off to agents and middlemen in corrupt payments has also sparked law enforcement inquiries in six other countries.

 

 
FM

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