By GHK Lall- Guyanese are dreaming. Green not white. Not mistletoe green of Xmas. Think the green of this country finally getting its full half share of oil profits from Exxon. A full share that’s fair. Accounting pure. Arithmetic clean. No tricks. No gimmicks. I wish fellow Guyanese the best, though December is distant. They can dream. It’s free. Sometimes, dreams come true. Bad ones, good ones.
I draw a line in the sand. Make it stone. A full half share of oil profits isn’t happening. Dreaming, or slamming hand hard on the table, it’s not happening. Sorry, but that’s the hard life of a messenger: delivery of more bad news than good news. The bad news is that there will be no bona fide half share for Guyana. For good reason. Exxon will see to it. The PPP Govt of A, Jay, and N will endorse, when it comes out. Get ready, Guyanese dreamers! Here it comes! A sneak preview, not a leak.
Whoever never heard of more oil projects, just did. More wells, 35 planned. Those amphibians cost money. Millions of American; billions in Guyanese dollars. Whoever thought that those came compliments of the kindness of Messrs. Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge has much to learn about life.
And, American capitalism. It was why Dr. Cheddi Jagan was made to eat dust. With each new oil project, new hole drilled, massive amounts of nuts and bolts, hoses and wires, boats and seismic blasting (aka mapping), among the endless attachments and tools used in the oil trade will be needed. Plus, expert expats. Plus, fandango kinds of auditing. The cost bank that just ran dry will be replenished. New oil schemes, new oil activities.
C’mon, folks: dreaming Guyanese or hard-headed realists. Production is currently at 900k a day. Gearing up to go to 1.3 million, then 1.7 million, a day, in a year or few. More groundworks installed; more oil extracted. It’s the physics of oil, the biology of commerce. So, Guyanese must get real: what real half share of profits when there’s that beehive in feverish motion? To roll back the cost bank a billion or 20 more.
For once, Exxon showed its hand. Sometime ago. More projects assembled. Stationed under Dr. Jagdeo’s nose. Backing Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency against a wall. Poor chaps, they have an offer they can’t refuse. Capitalism 101 for dummies. Whoever thought that 2019-2020 election help was charity, get something straight. America is not the Red Cross. Nor were Excellencies Sarah Ann Lynch and Michael ‘the Archangel’ Pompeo reincarnations of Florence Nightingale. All white hat and pilgrims among peasants in Guyana. It was for Exxon, American Airlines, and Schlumberger, among other Yankee grandees.
From now, I can hear Exxon’s Routledge and the new guy, Mr. Colling, setting the table. More projects needed to keep the oil flowing. The oil drums floating to the surface. The oil tankers sailing away. The partnership prospering. For whom in the Exxon-Guyana partnership specifically, that’s my question? Hence, it’s a blast from the past: cost bank. Rebuilt to bursting. Cost recovery -necessary, so that the good times roll. Anybody in Exxon or the PPP hierarchy interested in IHS Markit for a real audit of the new billions? Ha-ha! Didn’t think so.
I can anticipate Drs. Ali and Jagdeo with their noble, patriotic contributions to a full, free, and fair half share for Guyana. Not it isn’t about elections. Only oil. Listen to dese bruddahs: it’s for continuity, stupid! Get with the program! Spend money to make money. Same question: for whom? Yeah, after all the billions invested by Exxon and repaid by Guyana, this is the closest I come to Sisyphus, that great tragic figure of Grecian mythology. He rolls a boulder uphill. Overnight it tumbling back down on him. Thus, he restarts from scratch daily.
Still dreaming of half share profits, Guyanese? Keep dreaming. When Exxon and the PPP finish with Guyana, this country will be a bigger, rowdier, poverty-infested lunatic asylum. A world-class one.
