Introduction
Today’s column expands further on the reasoning behind the Guyana’s Petroleum Road Map’s finding that there is not sound economic reasoning behind calls to establish a state-owned oil refinery to process (and thereby add value) to its crude oil production at this stage of development of the country’s coming petroleum industry. As posited last week, such calls emanate from an autarkic economic paradigm. This paradigm argues to the effect that Guyana’s path for autonomous sustainable development requires the State (Government of Guyana, GoG), to pursue a “line of march” which ensures “Guyana produces all it can produce”. To do so it must, therefore, constrain (legally, administratively, and fiscally) “foreign, ownership, control of decision-making, and management” of its evolving oil and gas sector.
