While many are in disagreement of the ExxonMobil Stabroek Block deal with Guyana and suggest it be renegotiated, both major political parties are defending the deal and advocating for it to remain.
According to a recent Forbes report published February 4, 2020 titled, ‘Oil Deal With Exxon Deprived South American Nation Of Billions, Report Says’ it was mentioned that “so far, neither the governing APNU-AFC coalition nor the opposition People’s Progressive Party has said that the Stabroek deal should be renegotiated.”
A report was published by Global Witness on February 3, 2020 claiming that Guyana will lose up to US$55 Billion under “Exxon’s lucrative oil deal” which the Government of Guyana has defended saying the report is a “cunning and calculated attack”.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, speaking at a rally on Monday evening at Enterprise, East Coast Demerara, said that “They found oil under the PPP and then this Government came into office and struck us with that contract where very little comes to our people now.”
The Stabroek terms were first signed in 1999 under the PPP/C government and amended in 2016. The APNU-AFC government made the agreement public in 2017 for examination and it has since been a controversial topic in Guyana.
On the contrary, a Reuters report published January 20, 2020 titled, ‘Guyana opposition candidate pledges to keep Exxon contract intact’ quoted Irfaan Ali as saying that “Exxon is a pioneering investment” and the contracts that came after the Exxon deal are not “pioneering” and those should be re-examined. “Exxon is a different case,” Ali posited.
The other contracts after ExxonMobil referred to by Ali, include France’s Total, Britain’s Tullow Oil and Spain’s Repsol SA.
According to Forbes, ExxonMobil’s response to the Global Witness’s report says that OpenOil’s analyses between Guyana’s offshore region and “mature” less risky regions are an unfair comparison.
