Jesus Bronchalo

Aug 28, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It is a strange sound, indeed, coming out of the government.  Jesus is the one, Jesus is the best, Jesus will get the job done.  We encourage those who may have gotten carried away to slowdown: it is not the religious Jesus that we are speaking of, but the one that is all about business.

The business of money, the business of gas, the business of being the one man who will take Guyana to the head of the line. Jesus Bronchalo is his name and gas is his game.  At least, that is what Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is saying, and when he says so, then that is the end of all discussions on the issue. Jesus Bronchalo is the man to get the cash registers singing their music from gas money to come.

Mr. Bronchalo spent close to two decades at American supergiant ExxonMobil and when he left his title was Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of the company’s Guyana operations.  As far as climbing the corporate ladder and he being a stellar achiever go, Mr. Bronchalo seems to have been pedestrian, given where he reached after 19 years. This is not comforting for Guyanese and their interests. Even less impressive is this business that he set up, Fulcrum LNG, within the short span of five months after leaving ExxonMobil. It has one employee and operates out of Nevada, of all places. Mr. Bronchalo himself is Founder, CEO, Secretary, Treasurer, Director and President of Fulcrum. Though Fulcrum may boast of a ‘Technical Director’, from all indications it is a one-man operation, and that man is Jesus Bronchalo.

The startling thing about this is that Guyana’s oil czar, Vice President Jagdeo finds all this so reassuring that he even finds humor in the whole situation.  He himself had raved and ranted years ago about the bad deal that this country got from ExxonMobil (thanks to the APNU+AFC Coalition) and knows firsthand how ExxonMobil seeks every avenue to pull a fast one on Guyana (per audit findings).  He also knows, and has said so himself, that it is vital that Guyana is always on high alert so that it is not taken advantage of again and scammed again.  The gas asset is not a nickel and dime business, but one that could unlock a rich stream of revenue for Guyana. It is imperative, therefore, that the best be had from it, which means that it must be placed in the best hands.

To be frank, Mr. Bronchalo and his Fulcrum LNG business do not look like the combination that will do justice by Guyana’s gas and the monetizing of it. All things taken into consideration, Fulcrum looks and sounds like a one desk, one chair, and one phone operation.  In other words, the shell made official by an address that is part of a guest house. It would be interesting if the guests, should there be any, were not merely wheelers and dealers in the free-swinging world of gas monetizing, with nothing of a respected corporate element about them. To take matters higher, Nevada has a special place in US hearts.  One part of it is world famous for a certain kind of action. The last thing that Guyanese should hope for is that their government has placed them in the hands of those who are out to make a fast dollar for only themselves.  Huge mistakes and errors in judgment were made by the previous Coalition Government.  It would be the worst bad luck for there to be a repeat with this PPPC Government. All the evidence points to that former place of fault and failure. In some sense, it could be said that there is same lack of serious application of all faculties led to the disaster that is the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement, which is the Guyana-ExxonMobil oil contract.  Jagdeo is similarly glassy-eyed, where no advice is well-received, and today he is even frivolous with the nation’s gas, which involves hundreds of millions, if not billions in time, of American dollars. If he were in the opposition, Jagdeo’s voice would have been the loudest raised against Bronchalo as Guyana’s gas monetizing spearhead. He isn’t the one.

• Government, Guyana, Jesus Bronchalo, religious, slowdown