Please allow me to respond to ExxonMobil Guyana’s Media Advisor, Kwesi Isles, who you quoted in your article ‘Surveys in Demerara River approved by EPA for pipeline works – Exxon’ in KN on March 01, 2023. I appreciate that the capital-intensive nature of the petroleum sector forces a ‘hurry, hurry’ approach, exacerbated in Guyana by the insistent call by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for even faster exploitation of the non-renewable offshore resource. The riskiness of this approach makes even more serious the continued illegality of the operations because of the absence of the full liability coverage required in the environmental permits issued by Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency.