Category: The Road to First Oil

Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Column 175

Introduction

Today’s column concludes a two-part piece arising from comments made by ExxonMobil’s Chief Executive Officer during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. When Darren Woods spoke of force majeure “pausing the clock,” he was addressing shareholders and the wider investment community, not the Government of Guyana, a regulator, or an arbitral tribunal.

That context matters. In describing Guyana’s offshore acreage as something Exxon can count on “in the short term and in the longer term,” Woods was signaling future opportunity and growth. Guyana’s petroleum resources were being presented as deferred value — assets temporarily unavailable but nonetheless expected to be realised. In practical terms, Guyana’s natural resources were being used to support ExxonMobil’s forward-looking narrative to American and international shareholders.

What makes that possible is not bravado. It is experience.

Poor history

Guyana’s past treatment of force majeure has been notably permissive. On previous occasions, force majeure has been accepted by the Guyana authorities under expansive and accommodating conditions, with little public explanation and no visible demonstration of strict scrutiny. The practical effect has been repeated extensions of time, prolonged retention of acreage, and the suspension of contractual obligations without a corresponding showing that performance was genuinely prevented.

Over time, that practice shapes expectations. When force majeure is treated as something that can be obtained by request rather than established by proof, it ceases to be exceptional. It becomes routine. Contractors learn that delay carries limited cost and that contractual clocks can be paused with minimal resistance. In such an environment, it is hardly surprising that force majeure is spoken of as an advantage rather than an excuse.

But as we said last week, force majeure is not self-proving, and it is not unilateral. The determination lies with the Government of Guyana, subject to the dispute-resolution and arbitration mechanisms provided for in the Agreement. Where that determination is approached loosely or informally, the legal balance of the contract shifts from the Government.

But Woods is clever. He knows that statements made on international earnings calls shape analyst reports, investor expectations, and perceptions of future reserves. When Guyana’s petroleum acreage is publicly framed as future opportunity awaiting activation, it implicitly assumes State acquiescence. Silence or passivity by the Government in such circumstances risks being interpreted as confirmation.

Government must act

This is why the Government should not treat force majeure as a purely technical footnote. Once it is publicly invoked in a manner that carries market implications, the Government has a duty to engage. Engagement does not require confrontation, but it does require clarity: clarity that force majeure is not automatic; clarity that it is not indefinite; and clarity that it does not confer a future option over national resources.

That duty to engage is heightened by the Government’s own repeated reliance on sanctity of contract as the reason for refusing renegotiation of the 2016 Agreement. That principle cannot operate selectively. If the Agreement is to be respected, it must be enforced in full – including the limits it places on force majeure. Liberal accommodation today undermines contractual discipline tomorrow.

It also weakens Guyana’s position over time. Each unexamined extension – or non-relinquishment or partial relinquishment – becomes precedent in practice, even if not in law. Each accommodation reinforces the perception that even simply asking is more than sufficient. That perception, once entrenched, is difficult to reverse.

None of this is to deny that force majeure may arise in genuine cases. It can. But the history of permissive application explains why force majeure is now spoken of as a benefit to be managed rather than a disruption to be overcome. That is not where Guyana’s petroleum governance should be.

Conclusion

This issue now sits squarely with Cabinet. Continued silence or routine accommodation is no longer neutral; it carries legal and governance consequences. Once force majeure is asserted, the Government’s response becomes an administrative decision affecting public resources and is therefore subject to scrutiny. A history of permissive treatment does not protect such decisions; it weakens them. Cabinet cannot credibly invoke sanctity of contract while allowing force majeure to function as a default extension mechanism.

The choice is between reasserting contractual discipline now, or defending it later under judicial review.

Every man, woman and child must become oil-minded

Introduction

On 31 January 2026, Stabroek News carried a story that exposes how surreptitiously Exxon seeks to draw every drop of blood – sorry, oil – from Guyana. The report once again brings the issue of force majeure sharply into focus.

Force majeure is a contractual mechanism intended to grant additional time where performance has been genuinely and adversely affected by defined events beyond a contractor’s control. Speaking during ExxonMobil’s fourth-quarter earnings call, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Darren Woods, stated that portions of the Stabroek Block remain under force majeure because of the Guyana–Venezuela border controversy, adding that one of its advantages is that it “pauses the clock” until the affected acreage becomes accessible.

Force majeure 

In recasting force majeure not as an inability to perform, but as a benefit derived from delay, the formulation matters. But the statement is even more dangerous. First, it ignores Guyana’s permanent sovereignty over its own resources. Second, it treats force majeure not as a temporary legal cause for non-performance, but as a mechanism for preserving future access to Guyana’s petroleum acreage. The language assumes continuity of entitlement, subject only to timing. The sheer arrogance of Exxon and its disregard of the 2016 Petroleum Agreement, of which force majeure is an integral part. 

This concept which traces its origin to the law of contract, is narrow and exceptional, applying only where an event is beyond the reasonable control of one party to an agreement is unable to meet his performance obligations because of an event – an “act of God” – not reasonably foreseen at the time the agreement was signed which genuinely prevents the performance of contractual obligations. It is not designed to suspend contractual time while a contractor waits for more favourable political or legal conditions. That is part of the risk of contracting.

Force majeure is not self-proving and is certainly not unilateral. While one party may assert it, that party does not determine force majeure. Neither Exxon nor its Chief Executive Officer is the arbiter. The determination lies with the Government of Guyana, subject to the Agreement’s dispute-resolution and arbitration provisions.

Questions

Measured against that standard, Exxon’s own account raises questions. The controversy over Guyana’s western border is neither new nor unexpected. It predates the 2016 Agreement by two centuries and was widely known internationally long before Exxon applied for the blocks which it now claims are subject to force majeure. Those blocks formed part of the geopolitical risk environment against which the investment decision was made. Let us not forget that Texas bullied the GGMC team into signing the Agreement. 

Foreseeability matters. A risk that is long-standing and openly acknowledged at the time of the contract cannot later be repackaged as force majeure simply because its resolution has been delayed or its consequences have become inconvenient. Remember too, that devious Exxon partly financed the ICJ case in the matter, in the form of a signing bonus which they and the Coalition sought to conceal.  

Conclusion

Under Guyana’s constitutional and international law framework, including the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, access to petroleum acreage is not suspended property awaiting reactivation by any private contractor. It remains subject at all times to contractual compliance and lawful State decision-making. Force majeure does not confer a future option over national resources; it merely exempts performance where strict conditions are proved to have been met.

Having chosen sanctity of contract over sovereignty, the Government will have to explain why it would now not enforce the Agreement. That principle cannot now be applied selectively. Sanctity of contract means enforcing the Agreement as written, including the limits placed on when performance may be excused.

Whether those limits have been met in the present case is a question that cannot be answered by assertion or optimism of Exxon. It requires careful, independent scrutiny by the State.

Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Column 171)

Introduction

Readers will recall Column # 170 dealing with the request by three U.S. senators to ExxonMobil seeking information on the company’s tax arrangements under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. Their direct concern is whether the U.S. treasury is subsidising Exxon’s operations in Guyana to the benefit of CNOOC, one of Exxon’s Chinese partners in the Stabroek Block.

Ever since that letter was made public, interest in the issue has intensified – both abroad and in Guyana. At a press conference held at the Exxon’s new Guyana Headquarters in suburban Ogle, hosted by ExxonMobil Guyana’s President Alistair Routledge – sporting the Guyana Arrowhead – the local media, sensing a story that finally had a Washington connection, pressed for answers.

To a question whether Exxon would provide the information sought by the senators – and long sought by the media in Guyana – Routledge was his typical evasive self. “We haven’t applied any tax credits. We are working with the GRA on paperwork on taxes,” Routledge said – an insult to the intelligence of every Guyanese or person of any intellect. That single sentence has opened a window into what may be the most brazen accounting fiction in the country’s history. Unless there is an intent to cook up something, the claim is neither accurate nor credible. It masks a structure so distorted that even its defenders cannot explain.

Before we analyse his response however, let us look at another statement that is blatantly misleading – that the company continues to be cash flow negative on a cumulative basis. Was Routledge unaware that in 2024, the branch distributed some $674,454 Million and still ended the year with more funds than at the beginning of the year? 

No credit

Back to the press conference and Exxon’s and its tax practices. Unsurprisingly, Routledge tried to dismiss the drawn-out controversy as the product of paperwork. But what paperwork, he did not say. The Agreement could not be clearer. The Minister pays. The GRA issues the receipt. The obligation is discharged. That is the entire mechanism. There is no “working on paperwork.”

There is only doing it or concealing it. If, six years after first oil, the parties are still fumbling with “paperwork,” it means either the Agreement has not been executed as written or it has been executed but hidden. Either way, it is a national embarrassment.

Accounting credit

While Routledge performs confusion in public, the financial statements of ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd., Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd., and CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Ltd. tell a different story – they are all taking the credit.

ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd. (2024) reports: “Revenue includes non-customer revenue of G$260,155.7 million … relating to Article 15.4 of the Petroleum Agreement,” and recognises a matching income-tax expense. That is the classic gross-up accounting technique: record fake revenue and fake tax so the books look balanced.

As for Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. (2024), its financial statements disclose that “A portion of gross production … is used to satisfy the branch’s income-tax liability and is recognised as sales revenue.” The Government’s oil becomes the company’s “revenue” and its “tax.”

As for the junior, non-American Chinese partner, CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Ltd.’s financial statements go even further, stating that “The Minister accepts the appropriate portion of the Government’s share of profit oil as payment in full of the Contractor’s income-tax liability.” That language does not reflect Article 15, which requires the Minister to pay the tax to the Commissioner-General of the GRA – not merely to “accept” oil.

Amazingly, in a matter as important as this, none of the companies thought it useful, let alone necessary, to disclose this little inconvenient fact.

The black hole

In all three cases the same pattern appears: the companies book the tax as paid, recognise it as revenue, and enjoy the credit. What happens thereafter is the black hole where Mr. Routledge wants to take us, despite the clear language of Article 15 of the Agreement: The Minister must pay to the GRA the tax charge of the oil companies out of Guyana’s share of oil, is said to pay, the GRA is to issue receipts and deliver “proper tax certificates in the Contractor’s name”.

Article 15 states that the tax must be paid from the Government’s share of oil revenue. Where, then, is the evidence of that payment? The Natural Resource Fund shows no deduction, no debit, no outflow. But no one – including the NRF investment committee and the auditors – seem to care a hoot.

In effect, the tax exists only in the companies’ ledgers — not in Guyana’s public accounts. A phantom transaction generates a real benefit to the contractors, while the Government works on a certificate for a payment it never made.

Confusion

This confusion is not accidental. The Government’s failure to manage the Agreement – or even to understand its workings – has produced a system in which no audit has been completed, no receipts have been verified, and no public officer can explain the basic arithmetic of the contract.

The Commissioner of Information, who falls under the Office of the President, has ignored lawful requests for disclosure. The Minister of Natural Resources has neither published the tax receipts nor accounted for the debits from the Government’s share of profit oil. And nothing coming out from the Guyana Revenue Authority, to suggest that it has received the taxes “paid on behalf of the contractor”. This is the contract that is so sacred that it even trumps the country’s sovereignty, public officials’ integrity and most of all, the President’s thundering commitment to review and renegotiate”.

Even a cake shop, run on a basic exercise book and a lead pencil, would manage its accounts with more care than this trillion-dollar industry. The result is a charade: a government pretending to pay, companies pretending to be taxed, and auditors pretending not to notice.

Next week we will leave Georgetown for Houston, Texas and New York, where the parent companies of Hess and Exxon grapple with the accounting equivalent of the three-card trick outside of Demico House.

Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Column 172

Introduction

Last week’s column described a statement made by Alistair Routledge, President of Exxon’s local subsidiary, as “blatantly misleading.” As I begin today’s column, let me quote another statement he made at the same press conference: “…you will recall that, prior to 2023, we were not making profits here in Guyana.”

It genuinely pains me to demonstrate – by the company’s own audited figures – how inaccurate that “factual” statement is. In truth, Exxon recorded profits of G$132 billion (2021) and G$637 billion (2022). See below the cropped screenshot of the Income page issued by the company’s local statutory auditors.

It is the same income statement which directs readers to a note about the provision in the Agreement regarding the inclusion of the tax charge in revenue and a below the line equivalent deduction made purely to balance the books and to conceal the true nature of the fictitious transaction.

My anguish at the sell-out of Guyana’s patrimony under the 2016 Petroleum Agree-ment – worsened by the secretive Bridging Deed that extended Exxon’s rights without parliamentary scrutiny and by the padding of over US$92 million in pre-contract costs – explains my low opinion of Exxon as a corporate citizen. After the repeated distortions and evasions of its Vice-President for Finance, Mr. John Colling, and now Mr. Routledge, I can only conclude that Exxon’s corporate culture has been corroded.

For his serial misrepresentations to the Fourth Estate, Mr. Routledge has lost the confidence and respect of his hosts. Under his watch, ExxonMobil Guyana has resisted transparency, delayed relinquishment, and overseen the improper reduction of US$211 million in disallowed audit costs. In the United States, an executive facing such mistrust would have been summoned before Congress or shown the door. In Guyana, he remains a guest of honour.

Both American contractors in the Stabroek Block claim income-tax deductions while grossing up revenue to balance their accounts – a fact clear from their own financial statements. Yet Mr. Routledge insists, “We haven’t applied any tax credits. We are working with the GRA on paperwork on taxes.” What does that even mean? And is it true? Are these not the same statements used in Exxon’s consolidated accounts? 

From Guyana to the USA – via Europe 

In Column 171, we promised to trace those tax certificates to Houston and New York, where Exxon and Hess file their stock exchange reports. Like Banks DIH’s payments to Europe routed through Miami, tax considerations make Exxon’s journey far longer than necessary. Let us now begin with the understanding of a process which starts with the preparation of the oil company’s tax return, followed by the issue of a receipt and a proper certificate in the name of that company. These two contractual requirements are designed to enable Exxon and Hess to claim tax credits in their home country.  

Our next stop is The Bahamas, where Exxon keeps the Caribbean parent of its Guyana operations. The Bahamas, a tax haven with strict financial secrecy, serves as a safe harbour between Georgetown and Europe. From there, the paperwork crosses the Atlantic to Breda, in the Netherlands, home of ExxonMobil’s European headquarters. And that is when the journey gets choppy. 

According to independent investigative reporting, Exxon’s international tax structure is a master class in concealment. Profits from Guyana are booked through intermediate entities in The Bahamas, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg before reaching Texas. Each jurisdiction shields a layer of income, ensuring that neither Guyana nor the United States ever sees the full picture.

The voyage then continues to Luxem-bourg for further fiscal engineering via specialised vehicles. Through this narrow vein, the oil’s monetary value is metabolised until its tax content all but vanishes before crossing the pond westward to Irving, Texas, where ExxonMobil’s headquarters consolidate the accounts of hundreds of foreign affiliates.

This web of subsidiaries and partnerships is designed for one purpose: to feed Exxon’s insatiable appetite to get the last drop of blood – post profits – from what a former Chevron finance director and now a Columbia University lecturer, described as “the most favorable contract I’ve ever seen”. The fiscal transfusion that begins with an unsubstantiated GRA tax certificate ends with an IRS tax credit, reducing Exxon’s U.S. tax bill at Guyana’s expense.

Making rings around the fenceless Guyana

The supreme irony is that while Guyana refuses to require ringfencing of exploration from production activities – the most basic practice in the oil and gas industry and a staple in accounting – ExxonMobil engages in tax ringfencing in an elaborate lattice of subsidiaries across continents to protect the profits they extract from Guyana 24/7/365.

The tragedy for Guyana is that the talent pool controlling the oil sector refuses to learn, hiding behind the absurd claim that only elected officials can be trusted to manage it. This is the same Government that once promised an independent Petroleum Commission – another broken pledge. After five years, not one audit has been completed and relinquishment took a year to enforce, though both are clear obligations under the Agreement. In Parliament they even argued that a professional Commis-sion would cause duplication and delay – proof enough that these ‘elected members’ would be challenged to run a cake shop.

Their contempt for professional oversight shows in the farce of the ministerial audits, where handpicked auditors are valued more for loyalty than competence. That is not all. As one Minister told the National Assembly, “We decided at this point in time not to give this power to non-elected people in a commission… non-elected people are in a commission because you cannot hold them answerable.” The irony is lost on them: Guyana is in this unholy mess precisely because of elected members.

Exxon applies tax ring-fencing with surgical precision, while at home our officials reject operational ring-fencing altogether, allowing costs from one field to be charged to another and deferring higher profit oil for Guyana – even as rising output is offset by falling prices.

Conclusion

For all of Routledge’s verbal meanderings and misrepresentations, the resolution of the tax certificate mystery will harm and embarrass Guyana more than it does Exxon: properly applied, those certificates will drain the Natural Resource Fund, our inter-generation sovereign wealth fund.  

What appears to be a technical or accounting puzzle is, in fact, the product of misguided/non-existent policies, fragile institutions and misplaced loyalties. The asymmetry between the sharks of Exxon and the sardines of the PPP/C government – an analogy with which the ideologues are all too familiar – is profoundly striking.

Until Guyana recognises that sovereignty is the essence of nationhood, that professionals are bound to codes, standards and values, that competence will always trump loyalty and that politicians and elected officials are of no higher quality morally and intellectually than trained professionals, Exxon and their experts will continue to treat our leaders as no more than functionaries in a distant oil colony.

Every man, woman and child must become oil minded (Part 170)

Introduction

This column takes up from last week’s discussion on the September 23 letter from US Senators Whitehouse, Van Hollen and Merkley to Exxon’s Chairman, Darren Woods on tax credits claimed in his company’s tax returns in the USA. As a reminder, that letter arose out of some sterling efforts and representation by OGGN, a US NGO formed to promote a better deal for Guyana from the Stabroek Block. In their letter, the senators requested that Woods, by October 23, show whether Exxon has in fact paid income taxes in Guyana under the 2016 Agreement.

I have since reviewed Hess’ Standard Disclosure 4 filed in the USA. In it, Hess states:

“A portion of gross production from the Stabroek Block, separate from the joint venture partners’ cost recovery and profit share entitlement, is used to satisfy the joint venture partners’ income tax liability. Delivery of this production to the government in satisfaction of the joint venture partners’ income tax liability is administered by ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd. as the operator and therefore is not included in this report as a payment.”

That is not only gibberish. It is false and deliberately so. Hess and its accountants know how article 15.4 and 15.5 of the 2016 Petroleum Agreement are worded. Column 169 set out the process in a narrative chart. 

But now comes Exxon itself. On September 26 Exxon filed its own Form SD with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. And there, in black and white, Exxon reports for Guyana in 2024 under a column Taxes US1,236.2 Mn.  Beneath the table appears Exxon’s explanatory note:

“Production entitlement of 28,073,185 BBLs is valued at the realization price issued in the press by the Ministry of Natural Resources offset by EMNI Taxes.”

The message which Exxon sought to convey is that it paid US$1,236 Mn in taxes to the Guyana Revenue Authority in 2024. It is public knowledge that no such money was taken out from the NRF and that there is no payment of that amount into the GRA/Consolidated Fund. This shifts the onus to the GRA and the Minister of Natural Resources who is required by the Agreement to pay the money to the GRA on behalf of the Exxon. Neither the Government, the Minister of Natural Resources nor government appointee Charles Ramson Snr., Commissioner of Information, has provided any information that could settle this issue.

Provide the proof

If the money was actually paid, Guyana should be able to produce proof instantly. But if not, there seems to be a grand conspiracy in which Exxon has made a misleading, or false statement in a statutory SEC filing. Maybe OGGN should take this matter one step further: Make a complaint to the SEC for false or misleading information. 

To sum up then, there is not one but three alternative facts, a feat which not even Kellyanne Conway could achieve. Here they are:

Hess, with its incoherent, mythical talk of gross production and operator administration.

Exxon, with its “Taxes” column showing US$1,236 Mn.

The Government of Guyana, with its silence over certificates issued in its name for money never received.

Gibberish at Hess’ level in a public document signed by an official cannot be dismissed as ignorance. It is distortion. A billion-dollar column presented to the SEC by Exxon cannot be brushed aside. The non-description other than “Taxes” is no oversight. It is deliberate ambiguity designed to mislead.

Silence is not an option for Guyana when there is a formal request under the Access to Information Act.  It constitutes concealment, evasion in public office and a breach of a statutory duty.

Don’t cry for Exxon

The senators have given Exxon one month to provide the information. They also showed both prescience and frankness in their letter to Darren Woods. We should, however, manage our expectations. Three senators writing on their own, however senior, do not possess the authority of a Senate committee. Their letter to Darren Woods is not a subpoena. Exxon is therefore not legally compelled to respond in the way it would be to a congressional committee. But that does not mean the letter is without weight. Failure by Exxon to respond would entitle the senators to draw their own conclusions – and to say publicly that the company cannot produce proof of payments.

Hope for Guyana

Civil society in Guyana needs to take the lead from OGGN. Its members have no real skin in the game. We have seen in President Ali’s statement on the troubling foreign exchange situation in Guyana. If he reflects for one minute only, he will realise that his failure to “review and renegotiate” is a major cause of that situation.

 We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) and its leader Azruddin Mohamed can take the example of the three senators. They can play a leading role and earn further success in addressing what is the most significant economic issue facing Guyana. This is not a cause from which patriotic Guyanese should shirk.

Conclusion

The Senators have asked for proof. Hess has provided gibberish. Exxon has provided a column.  Guyana has provided silence. On October 23, Darren Woods must answer. And when he does, there will be two simple questions for Guyana: Were receipts issued by the GRA? And who issued the certificates to Exxon and Hess?