Fourth oil ship

Apr 20, 2025 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- One Guyana is the fourth Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) ship in this country’s territorial waters. One Guyana is set to represent one big leap, another one, in the daily output of the newest entrant into the small circle of oil-producing countries. The One Guyana FPSO, upon initiation of its operation in the latter part of this year, is estimated to raise daily oil production here to an astounding 900,000 barrels of oil equivalents. Guyana has certainly come a long way from its days of rice and sugar, commodities once among its top bread and butter products, to that of being a member of one of the world’s most envied groups, i.e., an oil-producing country, a petrostate. But as daily oil production has risen and risen, have Guyanese risen along with it?

In terms of the best statistics of oil economics, Guyana is in a race to the top, with better and better numbers boosting its upward trajectory. But are Guyanese of today, rising to the top also? Are those Guyanese in the ranks of the regular lower-level worker, the citizen that is a pensioner, the family and community that could be considered impoverished by any standard, rising with the splashy and exciting economic statistics? Rising from where they have been stuck for generations, to being the new generation, one that can assert, from the improvements in their circumstances, that they are better off and can live with dignity?

Overnight, Guyana’s reputation has soared from that of a backwards country to one where money can be made, because the beauty of oil is all over. Guyana is now the country that the world wants to wrap its arms around, which has been the reality from the first announcement of oil discovered to the news of the first barrel of oil lifted. Amid all this plenty, the reputation of the ordinary citizen, the largest segment in the population, is still that of people who are poor, without enough food. They don’t know if this oil wealth, their wealth, will ever be experienced in a manner that keeps pace with more FPSOs, more daily barrels of oil produced, and more profits made by the oil companies that are partners. The news is good for those partners, whose top executives raise their own pay, due to the rich returns from increasing quantities of Guyana’s cheap, high-quality oil produced. So why is the condition of most Guyanese so stagnant, stuck close to where their grandparents were?

The shipbuilders, the partners and vendors of ExxonMobil profit handsomely from Guyana’s oil. The shareholders and other stakeholders of ExxonMobil reap and rise from the gush of profits coming out of Guyana and its oil. ExxonMobil itself has been flying high from Guyana’s oil, adding to its income statements from its harvests here, making it the envy of the oil world. Meanwhile, Guyanese remain the laughingstock and doormat of the world. ExxonMobil is always lining up new projects, circling in search of new ones, to keep its Guyana profit machine churning. ExxonMobil is living the corporate equivalent of a buccaneer and plunderer whose brightest dreams have not just come true, but are surpassed.

At the side of all this are Guyanese. They are assured that Guyanese are partners. But, as in life, there are brothers: the one who is older, or smarter, or stronger, is the one who gets to count the money and the land and the other assets, then decide who will share and how much. As in life, so it is this oil inheritance that belongs to all Guyanese. The bigger brother, the cleverer sibling, is the one who usually walks away with the biggest slice of the pie, be it oil or anything else.

Oil, like gold, brings out the worst in men. The history of oil over time confirms this deformity. Oil vessels and oil production rates, and the distribution of oil profits between explorers and discoverers on the one side, and the oil owners on the other, identify the lopsided nature of the sharing. Guyana gets its pittances, with more FPSOs and more barrels of oil produced not translating to the level of rewards that are strengthening, inspiring, and enduring.

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Fourth oil ship

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