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T&T Oil Minister willing to help renegotiate ExxonMobil contract to benefit all Guyanese – oil conference told
Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Stuart Young sharing remarks at the Guyana Energy Conference
…‘We have renegotiated many deals and no investors left’
Kaieteur News – Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, Stuart Young is willing to help Guyana renegotiate the lopsided ExxonMobil contract to ensure all Guyanese benefit.
The Minister was a key speaker on the second day of the Guyana’s Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo, being hosted at the Marriott Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown, under the theme ‘Fuelling Transformation and Modernization’.
The conference hall was in silence as Young’s remarks took a steep turn to address the subject that has now become a taboo for government officials.
The Minister told the conference, “We in Trinidad and Tobago have spent the last seven years, after dealing with decades of contracts, renegotiating almost all of our contracts in the gas industry.”
He also pointed out that the twin island in December last year achieved another significant milestone by becoming the first country in the world to restructure its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities, following five years of discussions across the table with BP and Shell.
To this end, Young said, “It can be done, so our ability to sit down right across the aisle and to share with those who are now entering into the negotiations of their PSCs (Production Sharing Contracts), their E&P (Exploration and Production) Licenses etcetera should not be underestimated because we have done the same thing in our gas supply contracts for the upstream.”
The Minister added, “Very often I hear those who have no access to the information whatsoever talking about the energy sector and what should be done, similar to what Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo was speaking about this morning. But the point is, we in Trinidad and Tobago have spent the last seven years of our term successfully negotiating, and I can say here without fear of contradiction, every contract that we negotiated augurs better in direct revenue for the people of Trinidad and Tobago and the multinational oil and gas companies have not got up and run off.”
Young reasoned that those companies are continuing to invest since “respect and fairness” are key pillars in business.
“They continue to invest because it is all about respect and fairness of relationships and I offer that here to Guyana and to Suriname in a collaborative approach because you see I am convinced that [we can] work together to change the dynamics…” he said.
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has been persistent in renegotiating its oil and gas deals to benefit the country as conditions evolve.
For his part, Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley believes that no contract is set in stone. “There is a willingness not to treat contracts as cast in stone (so) that while contracts bind us to terms and conditions, if the conditions have changed so dramatically and so detrimentally, then the reopening and renegotiation of contracts is a reasonable demand of the people of Trinidad and Tobago and we anticipate that our partners in this business will see our claim as a fair and just one and we anticipate that there will be some reopening of contracts so that at the end of the day, we can all sustainably benefit from the God-given riches of Trinidad and Tobago,” the Prime Minister previously said.
Here in Guyana, the leaders have taken the position that the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) the country has with oil giant ExxonMobil and its partners will not be changed to maintain “sanctity of contract”.
President Irfaan Ali, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat have all dismissed the need for renegotiation, insisting that such a move can chase investors from the country.
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