Dear Editor,
I make allowance for mistakes from national leaders. They have a lot on their plate. Gold smuggling is one challenge, and how to distance from that bawling baby. They are only human, which means that temptations can lay them low. Happens more often than not in Guyana. Exxon whispered to Guyanese leaders: what about all that excess, free gas out there? What is to be done with it? Do something. They did. Wales gas-to-energy is the US$2 billion result (likely more). Exxon got its way, got the ego of leaders going, and got going with its US$1 billion pipeline. Exxon is done. It is advance planning. Exxon is owed another American billion. What to call such skunk works?
The charge from Exxon for that new billion is not cheap. It’s not free, either. But there is that 10th wonder of the Guyana-Exxon world glistening underwater like some endless prehistoric monster. Nice picture. Nice cash due to Exxon, be it in simple money or compound, and whatever the rate. Whatever the rate, that collection clock doesn’t wait. Exxon is owed. More cost recovery, however the company accounts for it, there will be less cash grant money for expectant Guyanese. One thing that should be settled here and now, is all Guyanese can agree that the US$1 billion for the pipeline is not on the house. But there it is, a year after completion, languishing like some gigantic submerged polar bear.
The pipeline is present, but there is nothing to connect it to, except the too soft and too perilous mud in the Wales area. If I am not believed, check with Lindsayca. Let’s all hope that the people at Exxon do not have a memory lapse and turn on the gas to check their systems. Exxon’s planners knew long before how to sell and trap the PPP Gov’t into that Wales gas-to-energy project. It used to be the Wales gas-to-shore, but since the pipeline is forced to hangout and can’t reach to shore for the hookup, then it is now the Wales gas-to-energy project. The pipeline is there, but where is the gas and where is the energy? Somebody is making a killing on this US$2 billion project, and it is not just Exxon alone. No supporting details, no measurement. Cute as a snapping, lunging crocodile, and just as adorable.
Something tells me that in that Wales gas-to-energy project, there will be lots of additions and surrounding conditions to remind Guyanese of that Chinese built Cheddi Jagan Airport Expansion Project. It was a project that kept expanding and expanding. Watch out for its partner over there in Wales. Lindsayca already checked-in with its extra US$100 million bill. When there is the kind of mad rush (and those leadership tangoes of the verbal kind), that have been like a second skin to the Wales GtE project, then these are the types of developments that expose what is happening. One set of Yanks likely to collect US$100 million to shore up soggy soil, and Exxon collecting charges for its US billion invested in that pipeline.
As always, half-priced electricity and a steady supply of it, is Xmas every day of the year for energy-famished locals. Cannot be beaten as a sales pitch. But what about the gaps that are showing up now? Prudent advance planning by the Thursday afternoon dance instructor turn policymaker? Or a mad rush to nowhere, with Guyanese getting the check every step of the way? If that is the best that the PPP Gov’t can offer as policymaking, I hope that Guyanese are taking the precaution of getting their health insurance and life insurance policies from other salesmen, with superior products. Just read the fine print.
The Wales electricity rescue startup has been delayed, but the Americans are getting paid. Know anybody who ever traveled 120 miles from shore and found billions of U.S. dollars on the seabed? Exxon got the hog; Guyanese got the hooves. The company knows the whole story, this country knows pieces of the story, from what’s stuffed into its craw. Take that and shut up. I’m humble pie itself. Sit down, slowdown, and come down hard on what is worrying. Like that old one -flaring. And another -environmental damaging. Fisherfolk crying. Like discovering new oil, but not disclosing new quantities. Visioning and planning. PPP masters went downhill. One big rush, like a mad gold rush a la North to Alaska, or California’s Sutter’s Mill. Pickaxe, shovel, and burro. Chits keep on increasing for Exxon (pipeline), Lindsayca (soil). Time is money. Chevron’s turn coming.