Mr Bernard’s letter on the oil sector was misdirected — Christopher Ram — Opinion

Mr Bernard’s letter on the oil sector was misdirected

September 5, 2026·1 min read

Dear Editor,

I have found Keith Bernard’s earlier letters illuminating and helpful. His latest (KW 02-09), however, is mistimed and misdirected. True, at a time when he can do nothing about it, Aubrey Norton has suddenly discovered the warts of the 2016 Petroleum Agreement^[1]. He and the APNU+AFC have dirty oil on their hands.

But Mr. Bernard manages the remarkable feat of attacking Norton while shifting attention from those who have controlled the petroleum sector for the past six years and who alone have had the power to do something about those warts. The PPP/C came to office condemning the Agreement and promising better. Yet it has refused even to invite ExxonMobil and its partners – under the terms of the Agreement – to discuss making its provisions more equitable.

More surprising is Mr. Bernard’s praise for officials supposedly “scaling their regulatory infrastructure in real time”. I clearly have missed much to do with oil. The Ministry of Natural Resources has never seriously sought to allay public concerns over poor auditing, weak contract administration or misconduct by the oil companies. It has failed to manage relinquishment properly and has been timid in imposing conditions in petroleum licences.

These are powers the Government already possesses. They require neither renegotiation nor Exxon’s consent. Yet the Ministry behaves less like a regulator than an adjunct of the companies it is supposed to regulate. Secrecy and passivity have become the default. Perhaps Mr. Bernard can identify one occasion on which the Ministry voluntarily confronted these concerns, published its analysis and explained to the public what corrective action it had taken.

The APNU+AFC must answer for signing the 2016 Agreement. Norton is about a decade late in recognising its defects. But the PPP/C must answer for six years of knowing those defects, condemning them, and deliberately refusing even to seek their correction.

Sincerely,
Christopher Ram

References

IEEFA report findings: 2016 petroleum agreement between Guyana, ExxonMobil, et al. | IEEFA — ieefa.org ↩

IEEFA report findings: 2016 petroleum agreement between Guyana, ExxonMobil, et al. | IEEFA

ieefa.org · 2022-05-23

# IEEFA report findings: 2016 petroleum agreement between Guyana, ExxonMobil, et al. May 23, 2022 ... Guyana government officials face a decision on a request to renew an environmental permit for offshore oil operations. ExxonMobil has requested that the government weaken the environmental protections contained in the prior permit. ... If Guyana grants this new concession to ExxonMobil, it will become part of a long line of one-sided decisions that have given ExxonMobil substantial financial benefits at the expense of Guyana’s taxpayers. ... Recent reports show that the existing agreement is already a bad deal for Guyana. The oil companies receive an unfair revenue split, and Guyana is having to borrow money to pay for new spending, Executive Summary ... Guyana government officials face an upcoming decision on a request to renew an environmental permit for offshore oil operations in the Liza 1 field, an extensive area of seabed owned by Guyana. ExxonMobil has requested that the government weaken the environmental protections contained in the prior permit. Although Guyana and ExxonMobil had previously agreed to a policy of zero routine air emissions, the company is now asking Guyana to approve a system of “incremental non-routine” flaring. The change, if adopted, would effectively allow the company to rely on faulty equipment for natural gas emissions management and to provide a backup system in case of further system failure. ... If Guyana grants this new concession to ExxonMobil, it will become part of a long line of one-sided decisions that have given ExxonMobil substantial financial benefits at the expense of Guyana’s taxpayers. ... Recent reports show that the existing agreement is already a bad deal for Guyana. The oil companies receive an unfair revenue split, and Guyana is having to borrow money to pay for new spending. Guyana cannot close its budget deficits because it is receiving too little revenue from the Liza project. At the same time, Guyana has provided substantial tax giveaways to the oil companies and handed them a lucrative decommissioning deal that allows the companies to pocket $3.2 billion. ... - ExxonMobil, Hess and the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) have received approximately G$752.4 billion (USD$3.6 billion) from the project, while Guyana has received G$127 billion (USD$607 million) through 2021—a 6-to-1 revenue gap that gives the oil companies an 85.5 percent split of revenue and only 14.5 percent to Guyana. ... - Guyana will have to increase borrowing over the next five years. Since December 2019 the commencement of commercial operations Guyana’s total public debt has increased. In its first year of using its G$127 billion (USD$607 million) in revenues, the country borrowed G$87.8 billion ($420 million). ... - Guyana will give away additional tax breaks to the ... companies amounting to approximately G$335.3 billion (USD$1.7 billion) over the next five years. ... - Guyana will advance more than G$666.1 billion (USD$3.2 billion) in additional cash to the oil companies, purportedly to cover future costs of decommissioning. The government does not require the companies to set the money aside to make sure it is there when needed. ... - IEEFA has ... least four more areas of ... which the contract ... . Those areas include project costs related to insurance, interest rates and borrowing, parent company charges and potential ... due to contract

Source

Mr Bernard’s letter on the oil sector was misdirected in Kiskadee Watch, September 5, 2026