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ExxonMobil yet to respond to final report in first audit – Oil Minister
Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat.
Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana has written ExxonMobil for its response to the final audit report for the first audit which shows charges amounting to some US$214M that were not used for activities directly related to exploration and production in the Stabroek Block offshore.
However, Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat at his mid-year press conference revealed that the oil company has not responded as yet to the enquiries, but there is a timeframe attached for them to do so which he did not specify. The first audit examined expenses incurred by the oil company from 1999-2014.Addressing the media Minister Bharrat said that “In terms of the audits the first audit as you know that has been well…very much ventilated in the media and elsewhere, we have closed that at the $214 figure, I would have…based on advice we would have written Exxon saying that this is the final report.”
He explained that while the government is awaiting the oil company’s response to know the next step there is a timeframe attached for them to provide the answers. “We are awaiting the response. I think there is a time period for that response and then we will take it forward from there, but from the government’s perspective and our position is that the final report is being closed off at the $214 I think $214.6M,” he said.
He further stated that, “Now let me stress too that not only for the media because I know you know but for the viewers because we are live as well, let me stress too that there was this perception and allegation, against myself, the Vice President staff members that there is some kind of sinister behind the whole issue of that first audit.”
The minister explained that in an audit there is no liquid cash involved, it is basically looking through receipts and invoices to ensure that the expenses and the monies spent are accounted for. “So when we say it is $214M it don’t mean in anyway $214M will be transferred from Exxon to the Ministry or Natural Resources. It don’t work like that, that’s not how audits work. It simply means that $214M once we agree $214M will be removed from the cost bank. It means that the country don’t have to pay back that $214M,” the minister further explained.
Clearing up the misconception the minister said, “I wanted to say that because there is this misconception that its $214M US in cash. There is no such thing like that. It’s just writing off the amount from the cost bank. That is the only transaction involved there. Where once the government say this is the final amount Exxon agrees and we don’t go to arbitration, then the $214M comes out of the cost bank. So we don’t have to pay that back the cost bank is reduced in other words. That is the process.”
Meanwhile, Vice President Jagdeo had previously said that, “They still are in a back and forth; they still have been writing Exxon and awaiting response on a lot of the issues that you have serialized in the Kaieteur News.”
The first audit into ExxonMobil’s expenses incurred during the period 1999-2017 which amounted to US $1.6B was conducted by the international firm IHS Markit and revised in the year 2021. In this audit the auditors highlighted in the introduction that there was some “$214.4 million plus overhead adjustments of the costs currently included by EEPGL in the Cost Bank” that the Government of Guyana “has reasonable grounds to dispute.”
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