Business

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 870’s trading results showed consideration of $1,524,037 from 16,604 shares traded in 8 transactions as compared to session 869’s trading results which showed consideration of $225,429 from 2,709 shares traded in 4 transactions.

Continued focus by the US super major, ExxonMobil, on further developing oil production offshore Guyana is one of the priority pursuits of the company’s immediate-term investment plans, against the backdrop of its recent disclosure of plans to sustain capital expenditure levels of between US$30 billion and US$35 billion through to 2025.

Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean are hunkering down as best they can in response to the arrival of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the region.

At 20, Alexandra Willabus concedes that where her future is concerned she is still straddling fences.

Even after having made it clear that its multi-billion dollar budget for the next five years takes high-priority based on its ongoing oil recovery operations offshore Guyana, the US oil company ExxonMobil is seemingly rethinking its operating strategy, going forward, on account of the raging coronavirus pandemic that is now menacing key sections of the global economy.

Pronouncements as to just where Guyana’s oil and gas industry is heading and just how long it will take for the country to leave a significant footprint on the sector as big as at least some of the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continue to flow thick and fast even as ExxonMobil continues to ramp up the country’s oil production levels.

Bizarre stories of thousands of tourists marooned on cruise ships in various parts of the world, prevented from disembarking at various ports on account of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus could be just the tip of the iceberg insofar as the longer-term impact of the virus on the global tourism sector is concerned if World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)-envisaged longer-term impact of the virus on the sector is even remotely realistic.

Kitco Market Data Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday March 19, 2020

*Prices only represent the average Wholesale Farmgate and Retail Prices at the above mentioned markets and are NOT prices set by the Guyana Marketing Corporation or Ministry of Agriculture.

Not even the keen national attention which, at this moment, is focussed on Guyana’s political circumstances, has been able to cause the nation to overlook the fact that having ‘done its rounds’ elsewhere, the coronavirus has paid us a decidedly unwelcome visit.

GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone Nº 223-6175/6) reports that session 869’s trading results showed consideration of $225,429 from 2,709 shares traded in 4 transactions as compared to session 868’s trading results which showed consideration of $9,065,090 from 68,198 shares traded in 19 transactions.

Despite the recent collapse in oil prices and a dim medium-term outlook, there appears to be no end to the intoxicating superlatives which knowledgeable international industry analysts are employing to quantify the extent of Guyana’s oil reserves and potential wealth.

Seeking, it seems, to mount a response to the increasing criticism being levelled at the global oil & gas sector in response to the linkage between fossil fuels and what the global environmental lobby says continues to be an alarmingly degraded environment, a high profile associate in SCF Partners, a US-based energy service company, had been seeking to mount a pushback against what he says has been the “demonizing of oil and gas,” contending that it could take up to three decades for alternatives to be developed to replace the product.

There appears to be no end to the number of Guyanese women who, belatedly in many instances, are taking purposeful strides down entrepreneurial roads.

The Sonia Noel Foundation, the organization responsible for the planning and Execution of the annual Women in Business event has announced that this year’s event will now be staged on Saturday April 4th and Sunday April 5th, effectively a postponement from the March 21-22 period that had been set.

• Guyana, Latin America oil earnings will take a hit too The international oil and gas industry, the life-blood of business and commerce globally has bowed to the impact of the dreaded Coronavirus by announcing earlier this week that it was calling off a number of its key networking events, including its various technical and academic meetings and resorting instead to virtual conferences, a decision which a Reuters report which appeared earlier this week said was taken in response to mounting concern about the virus and what the report said was now its “fast-growing toll”. 

Our story in this issue of the Stabroek Business arising out of some of what is currently being reported on the impact so far of the globally worrying Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the manner in which it has been impacting globally in the region and in neighbouring countries, is timed to raise awareness of the malady and to help alert the authorities as much as the general populace to the fact that we too are vulnerable. 

Kitco Market Data Gold Prices for the three day period ending Thursday March 12, 2020

*Prices only represent the average Wholesale Farmgate and Retail Prices at the above mentioned markets and are NOT prices set by the Guyana Marketing Corporation or Ministry of Agriculture.