Partner v. investor

Mar 21, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- Guyana is a partner, not an investor, in that oil bonanza out there.  Is somebody kidding me?  Who is the superstar in Guyana and Exxon that came up with that ugly beauty?  What follows is not for contrarianism or argument, but how I see the issue, stakeout a position.  It may not qualify for radical, out-of-the box thinking.

But it is unorthodox, what is different from Mr. Routledge’s and Dr. Jagdeo’s respective positions, which are really one and the same.  I retrieve one of the lessons of history: slavery was good, unselfish, even Christian.  Until it wasn’t.  Because some people stood up and said: no way, Jose, it ain’t.  I say that Guyana is an investor and ain’t no mere partner.  The Americans can trot out their F-35 warhorses.

An investor takes something out of his cashbox and puts that same something into somebody else’s cashbox.  Eureka! There is Guyana.  A partner is an entity or a presence that has to be carried, sometimes on a stretcher.  ExxonMobil has put money, technology, and highly skilled people in Guyana’s oil venture.  No question that it is an investor, though I prefer co-venturer.  What has Guyana brought to this multibillion-dollar venture other that hopes and dreams?  That is according to Guyana’s Oil Vice Minister, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.  According to Exxon Guyana’s CEO, Alistair Routledge, that’s just it, and no more.  Hopes and dreams, and a country waiting with its hands stretched out.  To help matters farther down that slippery slope, Guyana’s Jagdeo came out on the side of the American oil company.  Guyana is not an investor in its oil sector, it is a partner.  This is one hell of a strange investor, and one unprecedented partner that is a non-investor.

The investor recovers his cash outlay, while making sure to grab a profit at the same time.  A little too peculiar, isn’t it?  Exxon is collecting the debt owed by Guyana, plus an unknown rate of interest on its invested equity (not loans), plus a handsome profit as an extra return.  Is Exxon truly an investor, or is it an insurance entity, maybe a loan shark in drag?  I have seen guarantees, but what Exxon has in Guyana goes way beyond.  To summarize: if Exxon can’t lose, where is its risk?  If no risk, then I must be the kind of giver no longer said publicly, and retrieve my point about the company being an investor.  Considering all that Exxon reaps in Guyana, it is past being an investor, qualifies as an authentic scalp hunter and bounty hunter.

Now I assert that an investor doesn’t have to be all about money.  Enter Guyana.  Its contribution to the investment kitty is real estate in lieu of a billion.  There’s that remarkable square of 6.6 million acres out there, fellow travelers.  Guyana ponied up more than a billion.  It gave a trillion in American.  Sure, it is an ocean, but look at the secret treasures that have been unlocked in those Middle Eastern oilfields, and in the middle of barren deserts.  I argue that forking over 6.6M acres to Exxon must count for something.  I argue further: 6.6 million acres of prime real estate makes Guyana more than an investor in the Guyana-Exxon oil crab dance.  Guyana is, therefore, senior investor, senior co-venturer and, for the saltfish in the bake, senior partner.  The latter should keep Dr. Jagdeo calm for the moment.  As chips go, that vast acreage, virtually a country, is worth more than a central bank -a fully loaded one.  Try this sidebar for spiciness: XOM had even worked out a side deal with Shell, which had to be worth something inconsiderable.  Offshore land converted to cash and carry by Exxon, and all for itself.  I contend that that is a part of Guyana’s investment capital plunged into the Stabroek Block.

I proceed to offer something that investment maestros Routledge and Jagdeo know very well.  An investor could be one with special skills, the owner of significant patents relative to a business, and time, but zero cash.  I substitute the seabed as Guyana’s investor proxy, with its coveted signature attached.  Disagreements should be sent to PO Box XOM, Duke Street, Kingston.  If nobody is at home, the US Embassy is nearby and handy, a good neighbor.  Watcher and protector, as well.  Because it was Exxon’s All-Pro, Mr. Routledge who said this in his 1^st press conference of 2024: “In essence the country is a co-investor, that’s the nature of our Production Sharing Agreement. You share in the upside of the investments that are being made. The good news is, the country doesn’t have to put any capital at risk, doesn’t have to find the capital to make the investment upfront.”  Guyana did better.  It parted willingly and trustingly with 6.6 million acres of the best thing since Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas, and the Permian Basin.  By the way, Mr. Routledge, thanks for that disclosure cum admission.  The drinks are on me.

Finally, if Drs. Routledge and Jagdeo insist that Guyana is a partner, and not an investor, this is where I stand.  As a partner of Exxon, Guyana has been reduced to a silent partner, a passive partner, and an abused partner.  Come to think of it, a nonexistent one, when all the cobwebs are dispersed.  Sorry folks, that’s the way I see it, call it.

(Partner v. investor)

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

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• Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, hard truths, out-of-the box thinking, radical

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