Auditors could not check expenses for over 1000 travel records for Exxon

Nov 01, 2023 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

– found oil giant’s accounting extremely tedious, requiring intensive concentration and diligence to understand

Kaieteur News – A team of local and international auditors which examined ExxonMobil Guyana Limited’s expenses incurred in the Stabroek Block totalling US$7.3B have made it clear that they were not able to examine every record of expenditure.

As an example of this, auditors attached to Ramdihal & Haynes Inc., Eclisar Financial, and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc with backing from Martindale Consultants said there were more than 1,000 travel expense reports by ExxonMobil. Those records are for the period 2018 to 2020.

The report with the finding of the auditing team said, “We requested and reviewed the larger dollar ones as well as smaller dollar amounts expense reports where the contractor’s information may have suggested a non-Petroleum Operations nature of the expense.”

The report added, “We identified many travel expenses that were not for Petroleum Operations.” The auditors said many of these expenses it found were for corporate activities and had nothing to do with the petroleum operations in the Stabroek Block.

Auditors also outlined the complex nature of auditing Exxon’s books as they said the company’s accounting “is extremely tedious, requiring intensive concentration and diligence to understand.” Auditors outlined for example that Exxon has more than 180 files that costs are booked into, with many of those costs then flowing into a second set of folders and then further broken down into other tiers. There are even cases where a cost booked into one file must be traced through five other features to see the eventual charge or full allocation.

Be that as it may, the auditors said they were able to understand a lot of Exxon’s accounting which they believe will be invaluable when applied in future audits.

It should be noted that this audit report prepared by Ramdihal & Haynes Inc., Eclisar Financial, and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc is yet to be released to the public.

Kaieteur News had previously reported that the audit contract that was awarded to Haynes and his team back in 2022 for US$751,000 had a strict four-month deadline for completion. Notably, the US$7.3B costs which the auditors examined pertain to the investments for the Liza Phase One and Liza Phase Two Projects which are currently producing approximately 400,000 barrels of oil per day.

• auditors, expenditure, Exxon, ExxonMobil, Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc.