Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat on Friday boasted of the projected 6.1% growth of the non-oil sectors in this year’s budget and said it will protect the country from the bane of new producers – the Dutch disease.
“Budget 2021 creates incentives for the traditional non-oil sectors. The APNU+AFC was taking us down the road that so many countries went – of the Dutch disease,” Bharrat asserted during his approximate 39-minute presentation.
“It is something we need to pay special emphasis on because what we have seen for the past five years was the non-oil economy was dying a long slow death, he stated, while adding that his government “will provide incentives to all the sectors…”
“Budget 2021 would lay the foundation for the economic transformation of our country”, he contended.
The Natural Resources Minister used the majority of his time to take aim at the opposition’s governance over the past five years.
About 20 minutes into his presentation, and after speaking about the Cummingsburg Accord, APNU+AFC’s failure to better the lives of hinterland residents, public servants’ pay raise under the past government, sugar workers being sacked and a series of other matters he felt were important, he then rebutted utterances made by opposition against his ministry.
Bharrat’s presentation was preceded by that of Shadow Minister of Energy, David Patterson who told the government that the opposition sees the oil and gas sector as critical, especially oversight of the environment. It is why, according to Patterson, that the opposition was putting aside politics and vowing to work with the PPP/C on oil and gas and the environment, even as he admitted that mistakes were made in the handling of the sector by the David Granger-led APNU+AFC.
Among issues such as flaring and the gas-to-shore project that Patterson highlighted should be looked at collectively, he told government that even the renegotiation of the Production Sharing Agreement saw errors.
“We are willing to offer our support on presenting a united position so that jointly we can address the alleged inadequacies in the contract and any other documents including the Environmental Permits…The lack of a unified front has allowed various parties to exploit the divisions which is not to the benefit of our country and its citizens. It is our position, that once we present a unified position to our international partners, the harder it will be for them to continue ignoring our concerns,” Patterson had said in his presentation.
Emphasized
Bharrat did not respond to whether government would accept the proposal or if it would even discuss any aspects of renegotiation, but again emphasized that the past government blundered.
“And now the honourable member is extending a hand it is an acceptance that the negotiation was poorly done and done in a hasty manner,” Bharrat said during his speech.
With five minutes left, after an extension of time given, the Minister of Natural Resources turned to the oil and gas sector and pointed to the issue of flaring which had been highlighted earlier by Patterson.
Bharrat repeated that ExxonMobil’s large volume of flaring was catered for in its Environmental Permit although he provided no evidence of this. The environmental permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not sanction this level of flaring.
“It is (a) fact that we inherited this issue. That we inherited this problem. The EPA permit under the APNU+AFC permits Exxon to flare 14b cubic feet of gas, Mr. Speaker. They signed that“, he said pointing to the opposition.
Taking a swipe at former Director of the EPA, Dr. Vincent Adams’ criticisms of how the flaring issue was being handled here, Bharrat said that Adams is critical on issues of environmental pollution but that he was head of the agency when it approved documents to allow the Environmental Permit to last for 20 years when the laws here clearly state five (years).”
He added: “The Attorney General will tell you, the same person who is running around like an environmental czar in the newspapers, had EPA give a 20-year permit and it is illegal,” he stressed while pointing out that from next year the five-year period would be up and his government will move forward to “correct their wrong”.
Following his presentation, Bharrat was asked by this newspaper to identify where in the environmental permit it is stated that ExxonMobil can flare 14B cf of natural gas and if he could point it out. He insisted that the provision is there and said that his assistants will make it public.
“That was an agreement between the last government and them. The Liza permit suggests that they should do studies to reduce flaring. In the Payara permit we stated we would fine them for excessive wastage of gas and the EPA will fine them for damage to the environment. You have the permit. We published the Liza permit,” he said.
And with Patterson’s recent filing of a motion in the House to have the issue of the large volume of flaring by ExxonMobil addressed, Bharrat did not state what plans government has but asserted that Patterson admitted that the Liza 1 Environmental permit was worse than that for Payara.
The Patterson motion seeks to have the EPA “take all reasonable measures to ensure compliance including, EEPGL achieving zero flaring at the Liza One Project through reduction of oil production rates; and suspension of same Liza One Permit if zero flaring is not met, until it is satisfied that all reasonable and lawful efforts are being made to ensure that there is no flaring of gas as has occurred over the past several weeks.”
“There is a motion that was brought by Patterson to be debated. And if I may go to the last part where it clearly states that it would like to see the Liza Permit coming up to speed with the Payara Permit, the Payara permit was signed by the PPP/C and the Liza-1 by APNU+AFC government, and that is the difference. So I am happy the honourable member recognizes that the Payara is better negotiated than the Liza permit,” he said.
He repeated that by 2024 this country will be producing at some 500,000 barrels of oil per day from three platforms and more revenue will be generated to make his government’s development plans a reality.
