Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 04, 2020 News
Attorney-at-Law Christopher Ram says that Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sir Shridath Ramphal should, upon his own initiative, release the ‘Escrow letter’ he held for Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, and the oil companies holding stakes in the Stabroek licence.
ExxonMobil has a 45 percent stake in the Stabroek licence, for which it is the lead operator. Hess holds a 30 percent stake, while CNOOC holds the remaining 25 percent stake.
Kaieteur News only recently acquired a copy of the Deed. It is purposed to renew the oil contract which had reached its legal limit, and should have seen the large acreage relinquished in 2016.
The legality of the Deed is in question, and the letter could help find some of the answers.
The letter is a document mentioned in the Stabroek Block Bridging Deed that was only recently leaked to the media. The Deed lays out a bridging process, in which the letter and the ‘escrow agent’ are heavily involved.
While several supporting documents are attached to the Deed, the escrow letter is not. However, Sir Shridath Ramphal is mentioned as the ‘escrow agent’ tasked with holding the letter and other documents during the bridging process.
“It is unclear whether Sir Shridath Ramphal performed any other functions in connection with the Bridging Deed or the Petroleum Agreement and how he was compensated.
But if he was paid by the Government of Guyana, it is hoped that in the cause of transparency, particulars of that arrangement will be shared with the Guyanese public,” Ram wrote in a recent Stabroek News column.
Pressure is mounting on the government to make full disclosures about every occurrence and document, which constituted the negotiation process as well as the signing process, leading to the renewal of an expired agreement for ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC to operate the Stabroek Block.
A Global Witness report now urges the Government to probe the circumstances surrounding the signing, especially Trotman’s role in the process.
The ‘Escrow Letter’, according to the Deed, “means the escrow letter dated the same date as this Deed from the Escrow Agent to the Parties setting out the terms of the escrow arrangement, whereby the Escrow Agent agrees to hold the Documents on behalf of the Parties subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions”.
Other terms are listed in the Deed without a definition, save to say that they have been defined in the mysterious Escrow Letter. Those include ‘completion date’, ‘Contractor Parties’ Confirmation Notice’, ‘Escrow Termination Date’, and ‘Minister’s Confirmation Notice’.
The lack of definitions for these terms leaves blind spots that can only be clarified by the escrow letter.
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