Category: The Road to First Oil

Introduction

Events marking Emancipation Day saw two significant statements from two leading Afro-Guyanese leaders, President David Granger and Professor Clive Thomas. Speaking to different audiences, President Granger who is also leader of the PNCR, the APNU and the APNU+AFC Coalition, called on the Afro-Guyanese community to cease idling and depending on others for money. By contrast, in a Panel discussion in the politically significant East Coast Demerara village of Buxton, Professor Thomas, an economic adviser to the President and co-leader of the WPA, a member in the Coalition, called on his Party to lobby and support cash payments to every single household as their share of the benefits of oil and gas in terms of cash or cheque received in their accounts.

To add to an issue which might loom large in the politics of Guyana, former AFC Chairman Mr. Nigel Hughes, speaking at the same forum with Dr. Thomas, advised caution and called for “a discussion based on data rather than hot air”, asking rhetorically about the criteria and the assessment benchmarks to be used going forward, so that the issue is not reduced to discussions. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 54)”

Introduction

I will resume the piece on Getting the work done next week to allow me in today’s column to address the outpouring of anger and hurt expressed by politicians, columnists, letter writers and contributors in the print and social media over an article in the New York Times one week ago. The title of the article was “The $20 billion Question for Guyana”.

The writer Clifford Krauss was considered by many as condescending and superficial and even those who saw his style as parody thought it was inappropriate relative to the seriousness of the topic. One Minister went so far as to call for the rejection of the article while one blogger suggested that Krauss should not be allowed back in Guyana. So much for freedom of expression and forward thinking in Guyana.

No one has so far been able to dispute the principal thrust of the article and I found it amusing that while some have questioned the figure of US$20 billion in oil revenues, an article by the Government’s Department of Public Information (DPI) cites the same figure in almost identical context. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 52)”

Introduction

In the previous column in which I examined whether Guyana was prepared for First Oil in 2020, I wrote that the situation is not irretrievable but that “there need[ed] to be manpower changes and more leadership from the President.” I suggested that President Granger needed “to take charge before it is too late.”

As if on cue, the President was reported on the same day expressing a high level of confidence that “by the end of August or thereabouts the Guyanese people will see a Department of Energy with which they are satisfied”. This of course is not the first time that the President had set a timeline for the development of the sector and one recalls that very confidently on 11 April of this year the President had indicated that “by the first of May there will be some further announcement but right now the preparatory work is being done.”

Anyone familiar with management knows only too well of the consequences of deadlines and critical activities not met and the challenges which they later pose. At a talk I gave to an enthusiastic and engaged group of Guyanese in London last week, I identified some of the critical matters to be addressed and their current state.

Before engaging in elaborate details however, I think that a primary requirement is for the Government to formulate and articulate the objectives for the sector and hopefully to canvass views and comments on its preferred model. That exercise does not appear to have commenced.

Thereafter, some detailed and sometimes tedious work will have to be undertaken. Here are some of these. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 51)”

Introduction

Inspired by the May 20, 2015 announcement by ExxonMobil that it had made the largest discovery of petroleum resources for that year off the coast of Guyana, this column with the title Road to First Oil began, coincidentally, on May 26, 2017 and was expected to run for approximately twenty-five weeks. In fact, today’s column is the 50th in the series and there seems to be no reason why the Daily Editor would not wish to continue it indefinitely, albeit with a change in the contributor at some future date.

If for no other reason, the media and civil society need to guard against the seemingly single-minded pursuit of an oil economy to the exclusion of what President Granger has dubbed the six curses of Guyana – sugar, rice, bauxite, gold, diamonds, and timber – the essence of the Dutch Disease. In fact, there is little evidence of any conscious effort by the Government in the past three years to prevent the Dutch Disease from afflicting the country.

The purpose of today’s column is to assess the progress and preparation Guyana has made to being a petro-state following the first announcement made more than three years ago. The declared reserves at that stage of approximately eight hundred thousand barrels of oil has now jumped to at least four times that number. This is huge and puts Guyana among the world’s top oil producing countries measured by reserves per capita of population. But when it comes to petroleum, to use the language of Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Guyana seems to be twice blessed – as volume increased so has the price for crude oil which has increased by approximately 40% in the last three years. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 50)”