2024 profit, Exxon, Hess – How so, what formula?

Jun 14, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truth…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Recently, it was the King Cobra, Exxon.  Before the Guyana offshore oil consortium leader, there was senior of the two lesser partners, Hess Corporation with its 30% share in the Stabroek Block investment.  Is this middling to bottom feeding US oil company getting a new lease on life in Guyana!

To dream of a return on capital of 30-40% is just that, dreaming, so mindboggling it is.  To achieve a return on capital of 68.5% is mouthwatering and jaw dropping, to put it mildly.  But this is what ExxonMobil’s 30% partner in Guyana’s Stabroek Block, Hess Corporation, just did.  It is worth repeating: 68 and a half cents on every dollar of capital invested.  Even money laundering does not yield that kind of return on capital.  Maybe the drug trade, but oil, nah!  But Hess did just so.  According to the company’s own financials lodged at Guyana’s registry, it made a profit of GY$877.34 billion in 2024.  Using an exchange rate of GY$215 to US$1, Hess’s profit from its 30% oil stake in Guyana for 2024 was slightly over US$4 billion.  When this came out on May 25, 2025, my thinking was that if Hess Corporation did so well with its 30% share, what about ExxonMobil with a share of the Stabroek Block that is almost 50% bigger at 45%?  But, of still more importance, how is it that Guyana’s 50% share of profits and 2% royalty adds up to a mere US$2.6B?

Something is challenging about the math.  Hess’s share of the oil producing Stabroek Block is 30%, while Guyana’s profit percentage is 50% and another 2% in royalties.  The company collected US$4B (World Energy News reports US$3.1 billion), Guyana’s total receipts from its oil topped out at US$2.6B.  The oil money accounting is not comforting, not when the corporation’s 30% portion beats the 50 percent + 2 percent of this country.  To make matters still more baffling, Hess’s 30% is its part, what comes to it, is from ExxonMobil’s half (50%) with Guyana getting the other 50%.  There is more than a standard formula in operation here.  There is what gives off strong whiffs of yet another secret in Guyana’s oil sector, in which just about everybody benefits more than the owner of the oil.  I am kind of ashamed to say Guyana.  My bottom-line question is this: what is the profit calculation, the formula, used by Exxon to derive its half share and Guyana’s half share?  I don’t think that is something that should be a secret to Guyanese.  On this particular issue, I am sure that the Exxon Guyana Country Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge would have neither objection, nor disagreement.  I am waiting.  So are all other Guyanese; those who are honest, those who still love this motherland.

I am not holding my breath, though.  Because Exxon has everything going in its favour.  One little something that perplexes is the practice of the ExxonMobil-led consortium of presenting separate financials, instead of a consolidated set of documents.  This would facilitate the presentation of the clearest picture of revenue and expenses, and the total profit, for a start.  Thereafter, there is clean and clear reporting of how the total profit from Guyana’s oil is divided up with this country’s 50% in one column, and that of the three oil companies, in the next.  The problem with calling for this is that ExxonMobil has struck more than an oil bonanza.  It has discovered another one in the leeway that it is given with accounting for it, and presenting it in the straightest manner.  It is given considerable leeway with its tens of US billions in expenses (they are not shared with Guyanese).  Another leeway given to the consortium by a crass and captive PPP Government is that it can and has blocked scrutineers from accessing certain areas at its offshore operations.  Why is that so, even necessary?  What is there to hide, or is there that Guyana shouldn’t see and know?  How come all of this is happening, without so much as a whimper from the likes of VP Jagdeo, HE Ali?

This is the conduct of a government that either doesn’t know or which doesn’t want to know.  The secrecies of the PPPC Government only add another layer of mystery to the management of this oil.  What more could an ExxonMobil ask for, when the host country’s government is so negligent with its responsibilities to its citizens.  Or colludes with it, probably to deceive all Guyanese, who are the true owners of this wealth.  Why should Exxon conduct itself any differently?  Why given that accounting for the billions in oil collections is shrouded in darkness, crudely kept away from locals, likely deliberately?  Remember!  the question about that profit formula still stands.  What about it, Messrs. Routledge, Ali, Jagdeo?

(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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• Exxon, GHK Lall, Guyana Oil Profits, Hard Truth, Hess

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