Introduction
Today’s column begins the review of Raphael Trotman’s book From Destiny to Prosperity – the names of two of the first three Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessels (FPSO) in the petroleum operations conducted by the Contractors in the Stabroek Block, the other being Unity. The book explains that the choice of names was intended to reflect Trotman’s assessment of Guyana’s trajectory as a petrostate.
The book has 10 chapters and six appendices over 187 pages, each chapter representing an “individual episode in time and circumstance”. Appendix C is a report submitted to Trotman by Mr. Newell Dennison, the head of the GGMC, of a meeting he and his deputy attended in Texas at Exxon ‘s offices, a couple months before the signing of the 2016 Agreement. While the meeting was intended to be a technical meeting, Exxon not only raised contractual matters, but it also resisted reasonable points raised by the Guyana team. Whether or not it had any instructions to do so, the report by the GGMC team suggests that the team did not clarify that contractual matters were not part of the team’s remit.
