Drill, baby, drill – brick walls and politics

Jan 31, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Drill, baby, drill, is a phrase with wildfire heat to it.  On the surface, more production means more supply, which means lower prices.  Is that really so?

The first hang-up is that oil has to be found.  And in commercial quantities.  And that could take years.  And when found, if at all, released into the market when the price is right.  And there is also that delicate balance between demand and supply.  Ah, supply and oversupply, there is a little devil in the latter.

The mighty Saudis are no longer novices in the oil game, the hustles.  They would have to be foolish to stand to attention and salute while the oil market is flooded with drill, baby, drill results.  The record of recent history is of how adept the Saudis have become at calibrating and fine-tuning (and whatever else goes into the tightrope walking) of their own oil taps.  They turn them ever so slightly in the other direction.  If the Saudis want to get real nasty by opening their spigots wide, they can put some people out of business, or sent them running for the sidelines.  Those are Americans, the small, independent producers, who scream bloody murder when oil prices tumble below certain levels.

One level feared is about US$50 a barrel.  So, whether Alaska or the Gulf of America/Mexico, this drill, baby, drill is a good rap lyric, but has more of swing music to it.  It sounds good, invites dancing along, and then comes that bummer: whoever it is, he or she suddenly comes to the realization that they are dancing by themselves on an empty dance floor.

Into this lovely amphitheater jumped that wisest of wise Guyanese, one Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.  When he speaks, world oil market prices bow to his dictates.  Believe it or not, there are many people in Guyanese who are of that thinking.  Mr. Jagdeo took the position that money going into Guyana’s New York Oil Fund could be as scarce as snow in the Sahara during a drought.  How did the wise one of Guyana arrive at that rather precarious position and so rapidly?  Because it is my principled friend, Dr. Jagdeo, a man inseparable from Hippocratic and other oaths, my second question was what could he have up his sleeve at this time, at this early hour?  I will help my fellow citizens who know the score, but don’t want to say for fear of retribution.  Yeah, it is that kind of PPP Government, and that kind of Jagdeo.

Less money in the Oil Fund means less would be there to be eyed for taking out and holding close to the bosom.  What is more cherished in Guyana today by the likes of the illustrious Mohamed I. Ali and Ashni K. Singh than “national development priorities?”  Frankly, it is how all three words earned a terrible reputation in this city.  Naturally, Bharrat E. Jagdeo is an automatic addition to that luminous political leadership duet.  But those Guyanese who focus on money and national development priorities miss the boat.  Again.  Because when oil doctor Jagdeo speaks of the specter of less cash into the nation’s oil stash in New York, he is signaling something else.  Get ready, folks.

When Guyana’s leading oil authority, Dr. Petroleum Commission Jagdeo races to the front of the line and hollers that there is the ‘probability of less money into the Oil Fund next year’ he is doing the responsible thing by informing expectant Guyanese not to expect anything.  If someone said no cash grant in 2026, I recognize a student and an intellect.  No cash grants because not even bhai Bharrat would be so ignobly irresponsible (I could have said insidiously [but didn’t]) as borrow some more billions to facilitate payouts to needy citizens.  Admittedly, it is a hard decision for the PPP Government because cash grants enable some enriching self-help during the deliberately drawn out and complicated distribution process.  At least, I think so.

I will have to check with Attorney General Anil Nandlall (or Speaker Manzoor Nadir) to find out if that is still allowed.  That is, thinking on one’s own and for oneself.  The bottom line is that Guyanese could be out of luck and out of cash relief transfusions come 2026.  Note cash transfusions and not infusions.  It should relay how bad things are with almost half of the Guyanese population.

Candidly, I think that Mr. Jagdeo is a combination of Scrooge from Dickens, Shylock from Shakespeare, and Midas from wherever I forgot.  He is unhappy that Guyanese got the recent $100,000 cash grant (I give him a pass on the $25,000 COVID-19 setup).  So, he put his foot down: probably less oil money in 2026 due to drill, baby, drill.  Not only what the Oil Fund suffocate from lack of replenishing oxygen, so would pummeled Guyanese wondering if they are living in an oil rich country, or a leadership poor one.  Me, I figured out that riddle a while back.

(Drill, baby, drill – brick walls and politics)

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.)

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• Americans, baby, demand and supply, drill, drill results., independent producers, oil game

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