Govt. still to gazette applications for new oil blocks despite legal requirement

Sep 17, 2023 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s Petroleum Activities Act mandates that the details of oil block licence applications be disclosed. Notably, the government has not yet followed this requirement.

The bid deadline for Guyana’s first offshore licensing round culminated on September 12, 2023. A subsequent press conference led by Guyana’s Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, left unanswered questions.

Dr. Jagdeo refrained from revealing specific details about which blocks each bidder expressed interest in. When asked, he stated, “I think it’s premature now to reveal who bid for what before the evaluation is done, but we gave you a lot of information. You know which of the blocks have bids.”

He revealed that 14 offers were submitted from six key bidders. The bidders include ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies. The bids went to eight blocks, namely S3, S4, S5, S7, S8, S10, D1, and D2. The other six blocks were not applied for and will stay with the government.

Section 9 of the Petroleum Activities Act, recently ratified by Dr. Jagdeo’s government, explicitly requires all applications for petroleum-related licences to be made public in the Official Gazette. This provision, for transparency’s sake, applies to the bid round, and would also extend to direct applications for oil blocks through non-competitive processes. The provision states, “The Minister shall publish the details of an application for a licence by notice in the Gazette.”

Dr. Jagdeo is delaying this publication until after the evaluation and decision-making on the bids are completed. This delay appears to be in conflict with the law which mandates that once the decision to award a block has been made, the specifics of the granted or renewed licence, inclusive of the licence holder and the block coordinates, must be published in the Gazette. If the government does not gazette the application details soon, it would be in an apparent breach of the law it freshly put in place. Further, if the government waits until after the evaluations, the public would have to wait at least a month more before getting more information about the bids.

The evaluation of the bids is expected to go from September 18 to October 6. This provision would allow for the public to stay informed about who is entrusted with operating their prized assets. Post-evaluation, negotiations will ensue, with the award announcements anticipated by November 1.

According to the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), the firms bidding for the Ministry of Natural Resources project are Total Energies EP Guyana B.V, Qatar Energy International E&P LLC, & Petronas E&P Overseas Ventures SDN BHD (Malaysia); Delcorp Inc – Guyana, Watad Energy, Arabian Drillers (Saudi Arabia); ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, HESS New Ventures Exploration Limited, and CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited; Liberty Petroleum Corporation (USA) and Cybele Energy Limited (Ghana); Sispro Inc. (Guyana); and lastly International Group Investment Inc. (Guyana), in a joint venture with Montego Energy SA (London).

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& Petronas E&P Overseas Ventures SDN BHD (Malaysia), Arabian Drillers, Delcorp Inc – Guyana, Qatar Energy International E&P LLC, Total Energies EP Guyana B.V, Watad Energy

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Govt. still to gazette applications for new oil blocks despite legal requirement

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