Dear Editor,
I take a real-life look at the seven oil discoveries of Exxon that are now Hardy Boys and Harry Potter mysteries. I approach what makes no sense, compliments of Vice President Jagdeo, and make it into basic commonsense. Seven new oil discoveries are not the product of Guyanese imagination. Exxon said so. Seven oil discoveries should mean seven years of some speck of something better for Guyanese. It is coming on to two years and it ain’t so. Not a cow’s moo, not even a kookaburra’s boo. Because Exxon’s Alistair Routledge and Guyana’s Exxon Jagdeo said so. Far too frequently now, Guyana’s Jagdeo comports himself as though he is Exxon’s chief shareholder, chief director, and chief operator than he is this nation’s chief policymaker.
Here is the real-life part. As young children, we all wanted to know with fevered, impatient interest how much we scored on an end-of-term exam. Or any of them. As adults, in foreign universities for me, the habit had not changed, and the interest was there for both native born and other students. The anticipation is never outgrown, regardless of the nonchalance, or the burning desire to know. A quality grade impacts GPA, which influences scholarship money, career cash. Now we talkin…. Money. As in how many barrels from those oil discoveries. It has to do with money. How much Exxon wants to hold onto most of it. How much Exxon is determined that Guyanese only get little from it. And how much Bharrat works in tandem with Exxon to get as much money out of this oil for it, and throwaway droplets for Guyanese.
Some say money is the root of all evil. WRONG!!!!! The text says that the love of money is. Look at how the PPP and PNC rollover, and how it ties them like helpless ducks at the marketplace waiting for a buyer. Oil is money and more money may mean the necessity of trickery. My oil geometry angles this way: oil is money, money is trickery, therefore, oil is trickery. At least, this is Guyana’s oil story. It is not differential calculus, but simple oil geometry. Darren Woods, Alistair Routledge are masters of this game, and they have Jagdeo watching their backs and covering their tracks in Guyana. It looks little crooked to a dumbo like me.
What’s going on with those new discoveries, all seven of them? They should be growing teeth by now. Why does this have to be a mystery, as though some cardsharp’s game is in place? Knowing how many barrels of oil are involved, a reasonable estimate, is part of Exxon’s corporate DNA. So why this puzzle over the numbers? What’s going on, Mister Routledge? How about a straight answer, Bharrat? Please don’t forget roots, stock came from, and don’t think that these people at Exxon think highly of presence. No man should allow himself to be used like this, especially for what looks to me like highly nefarious objectives. The trouble with prizing a compact, straightforward answer on anything that has to do with oil out of Exxon, is that Jagdeo must go through his motions.
Ask about oil discoveries, and Jagdeo lectures about how the earth revolves around its axis, delivers a dissertation on the origins of cockroaches, and their future. Conspicuously, he still has not provided anything remotely resembling a credible response on how much oil Exxon has found in those seven Guyanese oil angels. Meanwhile, Exxon has progressed from revenue smoothing (expense hedging) to discovery data smoothing (how many barrels, damn it), with public relations smoothing to match (silence reigning, raining). The most embarrassing aspect of this is that Woods and Routledge have persuaded Jagdeo to abandon his people and elope with them. It is a threesome that makes for many permutations and combinations. The children of Guyana pay a terrible price when their own jilts them.
Why is it that the new numbers are such a mystery? Why is there a mystery for something like this? My thinking is that Exxon would have been the first to gush with excitement and announce how many new billions of oil were discovered. Think of its share price, the company cementing its place at the pinnacle. OGGN estimates the seven new discoveries to be in the three-billion-barrel range, with mathematics to back. With respect to these patriotic Guyanese, that is on the low side, what Guyanese would call chickenfeed levels, or ‘fine change.’ It is a start, though. Now try this shoe and see if it fits: if Exxon (Routledge and Woods) and Jagdeo could collaborate for three billion of the stuff, then how much more committed they would be in concealing the true numbers if multiples of that amount was found….
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
