Dear Editor,
In a letter published in Stabroek News on November 17th 2022 and captioned “Contradiction between the President and the VP may scuttle a critical opportunity” , I wrote that according to the VP the Minister of Natural resources received about ten proposals for the construction of a refinery
According to the VP they have a “few serious and a lot of carpet bagging companies” I asked in the letter if the VP, the oil czar, has written to any of the serious companies advising them to go through the protocols via Go-Invest etc.
It seems he has not done so.
Later the VP, ignoring the “serious proposals” put out a call for companies to submit proposals for a thirty thousand barrels per day (BPD) refinery and that he would sell only 30,000 BPD to the refinery and not a drop more. He promised this would be in a short pace of time. This apparently fell through also.
Then we heard an MOU was signed between our government for a 50,000 BPD or more refinery with Dominican Republic way past the statement not more than 30,000 BPD. Later there was an appeal for any company in any country. I guess by then investors would have realised that the VP does not know what he wants. Others believe that he is fooling the Guyanese people when the reality is the PPP was instructed by EXXON not to build a refinery.
I am of this opinion because when a company whose CEO and President is highly qualified as a Civil and Structural engineer and with tremendous experience in oil put out a press release stating that he was successful in obtaining financing for the construction of the refinery Bharat Jagdeo blocked the project. The CEO is a Guyanese American who wanted to do something for the Berbicians as he is from Berbice and of cource the entire country and Caribbean would have benefitted.
The company is definitely a serious one as this company invested a lot over the years and already obtained a provisional environment permit, allocation of 200 acres of land in the Palmyra area and was working to obtain the final Permit and had done what was necessary. The company was not issued the final Permit by the EPA because the “independent body” requested a no objection from OP by the VP although it obtained a no objection from Go-Invest. Note how Permits for EXXON is fast tracked at hypersonic speed.
The VP in a video response to the press release said “this is all nonsense” the VP said companies are coming every day and asking for an MOU and to this I must say that the Company DEPCO has an MOU signed by the PPP prime minister and the then head of Go-Invest. Based on this MOU the company expended a lot of resources.
Our VP just dismissed this company and even though the President was written to and supplied with all documentation, he did nothing so we lost a US$5B project that would have transformed Guyana. Down stream product of the refinery are fertilisers, bitumen Gease etc to name a few.
One billion to resuscitate Skeldon Factory to produce ethanol to supply the refinery and four billion USD to build the refinery. The President did not even meet the president of this company but rolls out the red carpet for the Qataris and would wear the Arabic traditional clothing and fawn on the Arabs.
In a subsequent letter dated April 22nd 2025 and captioned “An oil refinery would ensure energy security for US and the Caribbean”. I wrote “when one looks at the potential for war in the Middle East one would realise the need to ensure energy security for us and the Caribbean”.
Even Bharat mentioned the need to ensure energy security and a need for a refinery, but while he and the President ran around the Globe seeking investors they rejected our own Guyanese who obtained 5 Billion USD to accomplish same.
Bharat said that he is tired of Guyana exporting raw materials and recognised the need for value-added but failed miserably for 12 years as president and 8 years as defacto to bring this about. We know of his failure re. Skeldon Estate and it seems that the gas to shore and promise to reduce energy cost by half by the President is in limbo.
To date they still refuse to meet with the above mentioned investor and EPA still refuses to issue the Environmental permit. As I predicted war has broken out in the Middle East- Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz through which 21 % of the oil and gas passes and it is also bombing oil and gas facilities in the Gulf Region.
So, the ridiculous position of the VP and President has prevented us from enjoying energy security. Had they not blocked the above mentioned project by now we would have had a functioning refinery, low cost energy , cheap fertiliser and bitumen and a lot of foreign exchange savings and earnings.
Ofcourse at the time of writing oil has hit US$100 Per barrel and is predicted to reach 200 so we would get a windfall from this, however as usual the top % would benefit while it would fail to trickle down to the 58% in poverty according to the World Bank. I would also add here that the Coalition Government also gave this company a hard time. This is another area in which the VP failed us miserably. Your Excellency the President, Irfaan Ali, you need to fire the VP.