Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 05, 2022 Editorial
Kaieteur News – Guyanese should listen to the Chief Executive Officer of Hess Corporation, Mr. John Hess, whenever he speaks about Guyana. Mr. Hess and his company, the Hess Corporation, are riding high and handsome. The CEO is ecstatic in his joy, gushing by the mouthful over the gifts that Guyana’s oil brings to his company’s coffers. Guyana’s high quality, cheap oil is both a large part of the oil cake, and all of the icing, in Hess Corporation’s oil portfolio. If only Guyanese could be made to feel the same way, possess the same joy, as John Hess, what a contented population this country would have.
What Mr. Hess had to share was beyond extraordinary, it is the stuff of imagination. The people who took a chance and invested millions into the Hess Corporation, its shareholders, are now superbly positioned to recover their money, and this is even before one barrel of oil is produced by the new projects awaiting approval. Isn’t that something for Hess’s investors, workers and managers to hear? A company that was a non-performer is now making headlines from Guyana’s oil. It would be equally inspiring to the 750,000 Guyanese, mostly poor, many struggling, to share the same news. The problem is that no such comfort is coming from our Leaders, our Government, our own numbers.
John Hess has been signing Christmas Carols all year, since he got his 30% in the incredibly rich Stabroek Block of the Guyana Oil Basin. While Mr. Hess sings love songs about Guyana’s oil to his investors, the Political CEOs of Guyana are singing one sad song after another on this same oil. The first song is that ‘Guyanese shouldn’t expect much’, the second is that Guyanese should not expect to get rich’, and the third is that ‘more money means more inflation.’ Foreigners are winning big and loudly bragging, but Guyanese are crying that the glittering numbers presented by Mr. Hess to his Bank of America interviewers will never reach to them, except in trickles.
The Hess CEO has every right to boast. As matters stand, Mr. Hess informed his shareholders that for each FPSO ship working in Guyana’s offshore oilfields, the company makes US$1B. For emphasis, for each FPSO or to be put in action in Guyana, Hess Corp makes a billion American dollars, and the company only has a 30% interest in the Stabroek Block. If that is the Hess Corporations’ share alone, then this means that for each FPSO Vessel operating in Guyana’s oilfields, the total earning/profits is around US$3.3B. Now compare that to the measly US$1B Guyana has been getting for a whole year. If this is not the worst high seas robbery in history, then nothing else is.
Certainly, as more oil is pumped, and as oil prices stay high, Guyana’s share would change accordingly. But it would be nowhere near to the US$3.3 billion per FPSO that the ExxonMobil-powered consortium is making from our oil. When production increases, (it is scheduled to double, then triple), and with more FPSOs, ExxonMobil, Hess Corporation, and CNOOC could together be raking in US$25-30 billion American dollars, while Guyana will just have to accept whatever is left for it, after it has been cheated some more via different camouflages. Using today’s oil prices, and projected future daily production numbers, Guyana would still end up with less than US$5B total annually, probably closer to the vicinity of US$3B. The foreigners are poised to make between 8 to 10 times more than what is deposited in the Guyana’s Oil Fund in New York.
Foreigners dance for joy, Guyanese lament and wring their hands. We can curse and kick the Coalition Government for the criminal 2016 oil contract, and it is deserving. But that doesn’t deliver any improvement for Guyanese. Targeting the new projects awaiting approval is what the PPPC Government must make its highest priority. President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Opposition Leader Norton must all manifest their patriotism, their Leadership competence, their united strength to get more for Guyana. They all owe a duty to all the Guyanese people to do their best to get the best for Guyana. Neither of the three has done so with this national endowment.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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