Last week, President Nicolás Maduro was in Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin. According to Telesur, the Venezuelan head of state said that he and his Russian counterpart, “have agreed on a new road map of cooperation focused on new investments and Russian support for our country.”
Guyanese may be forgiven for wondering why this item of news should be of more than just peripheral interest to us. But it might. It would all depend on what these new investments involved.
Three months ago, the international oil and gas websites reported on a legal filing by the Russian government of an accord between Venezuela and Russia which will give the latter’s state oil company (Rosneft) major tax breaks to produce and export gas from the Patao and Mejillones fields off our western neighbour’s east coast. The new agreement amends a bilateral treaty of 2009, and in the view of commentators, Rosneft is trying to enter the offshore gas market on the cheap, which could afford Russia new entry points into both Asia and Europe, something which would hardly be welcome news in either the US or the EU. One of the sites captioned the story as “Venezuela offers Rosneft path to amplify natural gas dominance.”
It has to be remembered, of course, that according to Bloomberg, Rosneft has loaned about US$6.5 billion to Venezuela in exchange for oil, and there was an outstanding debt of about US$1.8 billion in the first quarter.
The two fields are estimated to hold twice the proven gas reserves of Colombia, and are close to Trinidad, where domestic output has declined and there is spare capacity which could be utilised by Venezuela. It would be an option, therefore, for Russia to build a pipeline to T&T, rather than build LNG facilities in Venezuela itself, which currently doesn’t have any. A consultant at the firm Gas Energy Latin America was reported as commenting that Russia may push to have a bigger presence in Trinidad in the future, which, one might observe, is an idea which would certainly not be embraced by Washington.
But there is something else, potentially far more sinister that affects us directly. All the websites reporting on the agreement between the Venezue-lans and the Russians also adverted to the fact that Rosneft is, in addition, “considering” entering another natural gas block, known as Deltana 5 or, in the words of another of them, had been “granted access” to it. It is variously described as “much closer to a border that’s been hotly contested,” or that is “hotly contested,” or that is “located in contested waters with Guyana.” They also repeat each other by saying that President Maduro has vowed to block Exxon from exploring in the “contested area.”
The issue is that from a map in Petroleum-world, and reproduced on various websites, the larger part of Deltana 5 – a Venezuelan block – falls within our EEZ. There is a sliver of it on the Venezuelan side. Prima facie, at least, therefore, it looks as if our covetous neighbour has, first of all, created a maritime block for hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation most of which is on our side of the line, and that it is now offering a concession there to the Russians. As far as can be gleaned from the international websites relating to oil, there has been no actual contract signed as yet, or if there has been, information about it has not emerged into the public domain. One can only hope that this is not one of the new investments referred to above which Presidents Putin and Maduro have agreed.
It has to be said, of course, that the Russians are old players at the geopolitical game, and will operate, one would have thought, with a measure of caution in the US ‘backyard’. Apart from anything else, while some of their interests converge with those of Caracas, their geostrategic concerns are not identical. Which brings us to the bizarre statement issued by the Kremlin last month about the UK constructing a base on an island in the Essequibo River to train refugees to undermine the Maduro government.
This landed in Georgetown with about as much advance notice as a meteorite from deep space, but even then, certain things were clear: firstly, that the Russians were going to prop up Maduro’s government, even if not the president himself; secondly, that in order to do this, they would probably expect him to rekindle nationalist sentiment in relation to Essequibo among Venezuelans; and thirdly, Britain’s perceived weakness made that nation an easier target than the unpredictable United States, which Moscow, at least, might not seek to take on by reviling its proxy, ExxonMobil, whatever Miraflores might wish in that regard. The Kremlin would hardly want an aggravated Washington to impose sanctions on Rosneft for selling Venezuelan oil, a possibility which is not off the cards.
Certainly, there has been a renewed assertiveness about the border in Venezuela, with a reaffirmation of that nation’s spurious claim to Essequibo being inserted in an agreement between the government and minor factions of the opposition. Then there was the clearly fictitious allegation against Juan Guaidó about which much was made, viz. that he had proposed withdrawing the claim in exchange for Britain’s support. Unfortunately, it can be said with some assurance that Guyana is not going to be so favoured.
Perhaps, as might now appear, the Kremlin statement was a testing of the temperature of the waters if the Russians really are indeed ‘considering’ the Deltana 5 offer. The naming of Britain in this absurd statement may have less to do with the Tullow find, as had been suggested in an earlier editorial, than it has with the fact that the 1899 Award dates from the time that Britain was the colonial authority here. The Kremlin will be acutely aware of the border implications of this block, and will also know that the ICJ will be considering jurisdiction in the controversy next March.
Guyana’s EEZ limit is drawn according to international principles based on the fact that the coast up to Point Playa is our territory, not Venezuela’s. President Maduro made some absurd claims to our waters (and those of some other territories) following ExxonMobil’s discovery of oil offshore Demerara. Venezuela is aware that if the ICJ does decide it has jurisdiction to hear the controversy case, and then hears it, there is a great likelihood that the Award will be upheld. Russia too will be well aware of this.
In any case, Caracas has changed its tactics in recent times, concentrating on our maritime space rather than the land frontier, and in addition to its nonsensical decrees about our waters, has argued that no maritime boundary has ever been negotiated. Venezuela has never signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but as indicated earlier, that does not make her actions any more legal. International law is simply not on her side, which is why she has recourse to bullying tactics.
It might be noted that the natural gas Plataforma Deltana blocks were awarded to seven foreign companies by a “selective tender” process as far back as 2002, when the late Hugo Chávez was in office. At that time, Block 5 was offered ironically enough to ExxonMobil, which declined it owing, it was believed, to the fact that it would be a challenge since the waters were so deep there. One would have thought that the Guyana government of the time would have known that the perimeter of much of Deltana 5 fell within Guyana’s EEZ (presuming of course that its boundaries haven’t changed), although if they didn’t, it does them no credit. Perhaps they didn’t bother about it, since as far as they knew perhaps, the block was not being exploited. If so, that was, in principle, the wrong stance.
How the current government is proceeding on the matter is not something which anyone knows, because they have never made it public. On Friday, however, we reported on a statement from the Commonwealth Ministerial Group on Guyana, which, among other things, said this country had requested that the UN Secretary-General place the border controversy on the agenda of the General Assembly under the item ‘Peace Building and Sustaining Peace’, and that it also be brought to the attention of the Security Council, where Russia is a heavyweight player, it might be noted.
Furthermore, it added, Mr Carl Greenidge had also briefed the Group of reported developments of concern to Guyana in the maritime area of controversy, and Guyana’s request for it to be added to the agenda of the Assembly. Did this include the issue of the Deltana 5 block? If so, Guyanese would like to know.
There is nothing to be gained by not making a matter of this kind public. At the very least, the international oil journals and sites should be apprised of the fact that the waters within the limits of our EEZ are not contested, and that ‘access’ to the portion of Deltana 5 falling on our side of the line can only be granted by Guyana, not Venezuela.
