Alistair Routledge on reasonableness and ministry’s readiness

Oct 25, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It is good for Guyanese to get a glimpse of how oil companies operate, how their generals conduct themselves. When men like Hess Corporation’s CEO, John Hess speak, oil pearls come out, especially about the lucrative financial aspects of the oil business. In what is being billed as a press engagement recently held by Alistair Routledge, CEO of ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd (EMGL), the more he spoke, the more Guyanese learned about lopsided thinking of oil companies. It is how self-serving they are.

Take the new Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), which has the condition that the “exploration period shall not exceed five years. Within the first three years of the licence, companies will have to conduct a work programme approved by government” with “the option to renew its licence to complete the remaining two years of exploration. The consequence of this renewal is that the company would have to return 50 percent of the block to the State.”

When asked to comment, Mr. questioned the ‘reasonableness’ of these periods: “So there are extremely short periods, and unusually short for our industry so we think that that is challenging,” and “we would not sign it as it was.” This is incredible coming from Mr. Routledge on behalf of EMGL. This is the shameless behemoth of a company that foisted what is arguably the most one-sided deals in the history of oil (2% royalty, no taxes, no parent company guarantee, no ringfencing of projects, and so forth), but which now has the audacity to speak of ‘reasonableness’ and “that that is challenging.” An undermanned and out of its depth and overwhelmed Guyana signed an oil contract with EMGL that is barbarism itself, and this Country Head dares to speak of what is reasonable and what is seen as “challenging.”

Welcome to the world of Guyanese, Mr. Routledge, for the unreasonable and inhuman and challenging are what they live with in the EMGL contract that blind sides and broadsides them in their every waking hour. EMGL or Esso Guyana or ExxonMobil USA does not sit well nor goes along well with what is reasonable, but most powerfully with what is squalid and rottenly deficient in its every pore, the 2016 oil contract. Mr. Routledge may think that he is entertaining or convincing about tight time periods in the new PSA, when all he is about is the puke inducing. Spare Guyanese the platitudes and the sermons, Mr. Routledge, for they know EMGL all too well after all this time, and after all the monstrosities and the hemorrhages borne by citizens of this country.

In addition, the EMGL Country Head apparently has concerns about the readiness of the Ministry of Natural Resources and its capabilities to oversee its vast responsibilities in the soaring oil sector. “I think there were others who commented that the minister has an awful lot of control in the new PSAs. There are a lot of approvals required under the new PSAs and quite honestly, to date, I don’t think the ministry is set up to process, review and exercise those, even if they were the right authority to do that,”said Mr. Routledge. Though Mr. Routledge speaks accurately about the ministry’s readiness (and with a subtle jab at the minister himself), he is sticking his nose too much into Guyana’s business. It is not his place to pronounce on the readiness of any institution in this country. This galling instance of meddling and interfering in Guyana’s internal affairs is the height of irony. Because it is Mr. Routledge that is racing ahead and pushing his cooperating partner, Vice President Jagdeo, to fast track the approval of one huge new oil project following the other.

The new oil projects lined up in impatient single file only add to the burdens and unready state of the ministry. It makes the same processing on which he weighed-in so pointedly, even more rushed and prone to errors, if not outright failures. The capacity that the ministry and this country should be building is heavily constrained by the rampaging actions of EMGL, which does not give any breathing room. Mr. Routledge is best advised to stick to EMGL’s business, and leave Guyana to manage its challenges.

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Alistair Routledge, business, Esso Guyana, ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd, programme

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