ExxonMobil’s new pipeline

Feb 26, 2025 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- Guyanese are being given insights on strategic vision and forward planning by ExxonMobil. There are six offshore oil projects already approved by the Government of Guyana, with some in constant operational mode, a seventh is in line for approval.

And, believe it or not, Guyana’s oil partner has already given its first indications of an eighth one coming up. Rapid fire, these projects have been, with the senior executives and country managers of ExxonMobil all in lockstep with one objective in mind.

It is how to surpass, or at least to maintain, recent and current profit levels. But this American oil and gas behemoth is not on top of the oil by accident or good luck. ExxonMobil works hard, challenges itself to perform at higher and higher levels, and that is why it is king of the global oil kingdom. The ever-opportunistic ExxonMobil has studied Guyana more than many of this country’s leaders, and so it now unveils its latest brainchild. A pipeline to transport gas from its offshore fields to Berbice.

The longer and costlier and more demanding it is, the more likely it is that ExxonMobil will reap another sweet bonanza, from passive Guyana. It is a country with a government that seemingly blindly accepts most developments coming out of ExxonMobil’s fertile brain. More oil projects are in the best interests of ExxonMobil, so they can be considered done, already in the bag. Despite the public posturing of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, with his dodges and his cunning words, if it is a new oil project, it is over even before Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge raise the issue with him.

It is a portrait of a docile government and an even more docile oil leader. Jagdeo finds every excuse in the book not to employ a little commonsense bargaining with these oil projects being lined up for approval. Shaky and shabby he has been, when the call is for him to fight for more for Guyana from its oil patrimony. It has been the same with Guyana’s own meters at ExxonMobil’s production sites to monitor what is going on with the nation’s oil, if only to ensure that what the company reports as being produced is, in fact, so.

Now the planners at the company, who are always on the lookout on ways to leverage the Guyana investment, have set their eyes on a gas pipeline to transport gas to citizens living in Berbice. What is best for the bottom line of ExxonMobil is what is guaranteed to be. How much gas could the Berbice market consume, and which would justify the money to be spent on such a pipeline? According to ExxonMobil’s Guyana President, Alistair Routledge, an alumina plant, a fertilizer plant, and a Data Center (with AI featuring heavily) will all be significant users of the gas to be piped to Berbice. The supporting onshore facilities, when completed, will need 120-million-cubic feet of gas daily. Also, alumina and fertilizer plants require a constant supply of considerable volumes of gas to manage their operations, plus there’s an export component. Those are good selling points, and most likely music to the ears of those who flocked to the Guyana Energy Conference at the Marriott Hotel.

ExxonMobil is setting up itself with what looks like another US billion-dollar project. Profits from laying the pipeline, potential profits from maintaining or acting as consultants on the associated facilities, and a cut for itself from monetising the gas. It is how business works, how corporate executives are never at a standstill, are always on the hunt for a new income stream. In contrast, there is Guyana’s PPPC government that is in control of the people’s wealth, but is as contented as an overfed cat. It is too pleased with itself over hidden truths (expenses, Wales gas-to-shore, and more), and not doing anything to earn the disfavor of the American company. In such circumstances, the US State Department, even the White House, may have a say, which would be the last thing that government leaders wish to hear. ExxonMobil is on a roll, with project after project initiated. Guyana is stuck in the same place, waiting to collect pittances with a happy face.

(ExxonMobil’s new pipeline)

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Editorial, ExxonMobil, Government of Guyana, operational mode, pipeline

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