Sunday June 06, 2021
Dear Reader, in light of the economic impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, our publisher, with you in mind, has taken the decision to extend our weekly review of some of our major stories in their entirety. SUNDAY EXXON CONTRACT HAS CLAUSE TO RENEGOTIATE …BUT PROVISION MANDATES ‘ONLY WITH WRITTENAGREEMENT’ BYALL PARTIES “GOVT. STILL OWES THE PEOPLE OF GUYANATHE OBLIGATION TO RENEGOTIATE THAT CONTRACT AND DON’T LETANYBODYTELLYOU THAT CONTRACT IS NOT RENEGOTIABLE.” The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with the lead operator of the Stabroek Block — ExxonMobil — and their partners, Hess Corporation Inc. and China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), provides that the heavily criticised agreement can in fact be renegotiated. The provision obtains at Article 13.2 of the PSA but comes with the caveat — the renegotiations and happens only with a signed written agreement between all of the parties involved. According to that provision in the PSA, commonly referred to as the contract, “This Agreement shall not be amended or modified in respect except by written agreement entered into by all the parties which shall state the date upon which the amendment or modifications shall become effective.” Former Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams, during a radio interview on Friday, pointed to the provisions and suggested the fact it exists in the PSA, is indicative of the fact it can be renegotiated. According to Dr. Adams, “since way back in 2016, I was on the front page of the newspapers calling for a renegotiation of the contract.” He was adamant, “nothing has changed my mind.” In fact, he posits, “to me anyway the government still owes the people of Guyana the obligation to renegotiate that contract and don’t let anybody tell you that contract is not renegotiable.”The former EPA Director insists the contract spells out provision for renegotiations and said, “If it was not the intention that it can’t be renegotiated, that
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clause would not be there. He reminded nonetheless of the caveat calling for a written agreement by all parties involved to say, “…the parties must have to agree to renegotiate, I would love to see government tell Exxon(Mobil) we want renegotiation.” The matter of renegotiating the agreement with ExxonMobil has been available by the David Granger administration on the advice of his then Petroleum Advisor, Dr. Jan Mangal, much to the consternation of many within his fold. According to Dr. Adams, “when I hear people say we can’t renegotiate, that’s absolute nonsense.” He was adamant, “it’s in there, the clause was put in there because there’s a possibility that it could be renegotiated, don’t let anybody fool you and tell you that it can’t be renegotiated because we sign it.” A number of key political figureheads from across the administrations have in the past-adumbrated varying positions when it comes to the renegotiation of the PSA with ExxonMobil’s Guyana Subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), and its partners. In February last year, the Former Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, under whose auspices the 2016 PSA was inked, said “The Government of Guyana believes in the sanctity of contracts and given all circumstances, sees no justification to the suggestion that the 2016 Petroleum Agreement is an improper contract.” At the time, former President, David Granger, was of t h e v i e w “ o n c e international contracts have been engaged in, there is no question of removal or renegotiation of those contracts.” He had adumbrated the position, “we will move forward and ensure that we continue to get the best advice before we engage in any other negotiations.” His second in command at the time, Joseph Harmon—now opposition leader—had told the local press “let me say from the outset that when we came into office, we made it clear that we respect the sanctity of contracts.” Former President now Vi c e P r e s i d e n t o f t h e P e o p l e ’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in the Irfaan Ali administration, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, is on record saying contracts are sacrosanct, must be
respected and that the US Oil Exploration Company, ExxonMobil, has a right to make money on its investment. On the sidelines of a January 2020 campaign rally at Anna Regina in Essequibo, Region Three, Reuters had reported that President Ali informed that an Ali-led PPP/ C government would “keep the Exxon contract intact” but review and push for renegotiation of others signed after 2015. The article quoted Ali as saying that Exxon was a pioneer investor here and “a different case” which he would not look at for a renegotiation, should he become president. “Exxon was a pioneering investment,” Reuters quoted Ali as saying. “But those that came after that time they were not pioneering, so they have to be examined in totality,” he added. Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Attorney-at-law Charles Ramson Jnr., who had taken a break as a parliamentarian to pursue oil and gas studies, had also voiced the position he will not advise his party to renegotiate the Stabroek PSA because of “contract sanctity.” Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, has in the past skirted the question of whether Guyana was getting a fair share of its revenue from its oil deals, to instead say, that what Guyana gets is already dictated by the contract and that, “We have to work with them and to make the best of them.”
MONDAY 10 YEARS AFTER US OIL SPILL…SCIENTISTS FIND OIL & CHEMICALS IN 91 SPECIES OF FISH; US$71B SPENT ON CLEAN UP; GUYANA IS STILL TO HAVE FULL INSURANCE A decade after BP and its partners spent US$71B to clean up the catastrophic 2010 oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a study was conducted by marine scientists with the University of South Florida (UFS) to ascertain the effect of the spill on the marine life in the area. The scientists sampled more than 2,500 individual fish representing 91 species from 359 locations across the Gulf of Mexico. Interestingly, their study found evidence of oil exposure in all of them, including some of the most popular types of seafood. According to the study done in 2020, the highest levels were detected in yellow fin tuna, golden tilefish and red drum. The study that was published in “Nature Scientific Reports,” represents the first comprehensive, Gulf-wide survey of oil pollution launched in response to the Deepwater Horizon spill. It was funded by a nearly US$37 million grant from the independent Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to establish the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE), an international consortium of professors,
post-doctoral scholars and students from 19 collaborating institutions. Over the last decade, USF scientists conducted a dozen research expeditions to locations off the United States, Mexico and Cuba examining levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the most toxic chemical component of crude oil, in the bile of the fish. Bile is produced by the liver to aid in digestion, but it also acts as storage for waste products. “We were quite surprised that among the most contaminated species was the fast-swimming yellowfin tuna as they are not found at the bottom of the ocean where most oil pollution in the Gulf occurs,” said lead author Erin Pulster, a researcher in USF’s College of Marine Science. “Although water concentrations of PAHs can vary considerably, they are generally found at trace levels or below detection limits in the water column. So where is the oil pollution we detected in tunas coming from?” Pulster says it makes sense that tilefish have higher concentrations of PAH because they live their entire adult lives in and around burrows that they excavate on the seafloor and PAHs are routinely found in Gulf sediment. However, their exposure has been increasing over time, as well as in other species, including groupers, some of Florida’s most economically important fish. In a separate USF-led study, her team measured the concentration of PAHs in the
liver tissue and bile of 10 popular grouper species. The yellowedge grouper had a concentration that increased more than 800 percent from 2011 to 2017. Fish with the highest concentrations of PAH were found in the northern Gulf of Mexico, a region of increased oil and gas activity and in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon spill that gushed nearly four million barrels of oil over the course of three months in 2010. Oil-rich sediments at the bottom where much of the oil settled are resuspended by storms and currents, re-exposing bottom-dwelling fish. Oil pollution hot spots were also found off major population centers, such as Tampa Bay, suggesting that runoff from urbanized coasts may play a role in the higher concentrations of PAHs. Other sources include chronic low-level releases from oil and gas platforms, fuel from boats and airplanes and even natural oil seeps— fractures on the seafloor that can ooze the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil per year. “This was the first baseline study of its kind, and it’s shocking that we haven’t done this before given the economic value of fisheries and petroleum extraction in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Steven Murawksi, professor of fisheries biology at USF, who led the international research effort. Despite the detected trends of oil contamination in fish bile and liver, fish from the Gulf of Mexico are tested (Continued on page 26)