Guyana: Will changing the resource price on offer trigger a value transition for Americas newest Petrostate?

Introduction

As indicated thus far, in my long-running oil and gas series, within the short period of only three and a half years after its First Discovery in May 2015, Guyana’s First Oil began in December 2019. Following that happenstance, its operational crude oil prospects grew at a stellar rate. Indeed, by the following year, 2020, Guyana was being publicly branded by the extractivist / neo-extractivist school of political economy thought as, “the Americas newest and fastest emerging Petrostate” [see the earlier reference to Canterbury D and Clavijo W].

In real time the neo-liberal political economy school of thought was equally alert to the unfolding events in Guyana. However this school of thought labelled the happenstance as “Guyana’s exceptional oil opportunity”, as noted in the World Bank 2020  and IADB 2020 publications already reviewed.