OPINION: Was the US$2 billion parent guarantee ever in Exxon’s cards?

Last Updated on Friday, 19 January 2024, 8:11 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

Let us not quibble over legal maneuvers of the Government of Guyana.  I refrain from criticizing the lawyer speak involved in the production of that piece of paper, the document evidencing the US$2 billion coverage for Guyana in the event of an oil spill.  I avoid making any comment about this patriotic group that is the national government-the PPP Government of Guyana-elected by the Guyanese people to be the champion of said Guyanese people.  I let pass any position about who is waging war against the interests of the citizens of this country, and how this is evolving.  Not PNC citizens, not disagreeable citizens found to be parasitic and pestilential and exposing.  But all citizens that claim the honor of Guyanese by birth, sons and daughters of this sacred soil.  I forego all of that, and set my sights on Exxon, this now twisted and deformed American corporate oil supergiant.

It is my belief that the more appropriate approach is to take aim at Exxon in this matter of the US$2 billion parent guarantee, and its lodgment.  First, there was a problem, the greatest resistance from Exxon on a full parent company guarantee, as such provides the quality and level of coverage that may be needed should a cataclysmic oil spill occur at its offshore operations.  Possibly at Exxon’s unspoken behest, there came about the circumstances in the National Assembly of Guyana, where Guyanese were battling Guyanese over what was and is clearly Exxon’s interests.  It was to the exposure and expense of Guyanese.  There was the spectacle of some Guyanese lawmakers reduced to the demented in parading their dubious wisdoms about defining the unknown, and dabbling in quantification of what is not measurable, and so forth.  As difficult as it is for me to say this, there was and is some reluctant appreciation of Exxon’s rigid resistance to a full parent company guarantee.  It is too open-ended in monetary terms.  It is what could cripple the company, notwithstanding its majestic perch at the apex of the corporate oil hill.  In the tightest terms, a full parent company guarantee could break the bank.  The absence of it could break the back of Guyana, but clearly breaking Exxon’s bank took precedence.  This was what Guyanese parliamentarians were standing resolutely for, and of which I promised no condemnation today.

But now resistance and objection by Exxon using Guyanese agencies over the production of a document encompassing, encapsulating, and evidencing the US$2 billion parent company guarantee?  Not a full parent company guarantee, but the miniscule and minimal protection of a mere US$2 billion binding commitment?  But that which could mean much for Guyanese, should something go terribly wrong out there.  If any Guyanese-PPP or PNC supporter, pro-Exxon or other thinkers and assessors of Exxon-still think of this American orca as a genuine partner, one that could be believed, trusted, and depended upon, then this country is in more trouble than it knows, than can ever be imagined.  But I digress.

It was Exxon itself that was broadcasting and hailing the US$2 billion protection level/amount for Guyana.  It was from the likes of Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge, both men of honor, who were at one time or another talking up the US$2 billion number, what came across as the maximum of their tolerance for this peculiar creature called full parent company guarantee.  The latter was clearly off the charts, and off the table.  But what about this US$2 billion guarantee that came out of Exxon’s own mind and mouth, but which is such a showstopper now?  Why is there this difficulty with delivering the papers related to even that monetary midget?  Notwithstanding arguments and postures about authority and jurisdiction of the Guyana Court of Appeal on this furnishing of proof issue, I would think that Exxon would be the first out of the gates to handover the binding underpinnings (supporting documents) of this now suddenly slippery and tricky US$2 billion parent company undertaking.

I am probing for a possible reason, any rationale, that Exxon may have that inhibits it from producing and lodging this now incendiary mystery document.  I find none, other than this one, and then another.  The first is that there is no such document that ties the company irreversibly to that maximum amount should there be a development of material proportions 120 miles from Guyana’s shoreline.  The second is even more hair-raising: it is that Exxon never had any intention of committing US$2 billion for some impoverished colored people in a backward country over some molehill oil spill that is being made into a mountain.  If it did, then where is it?  Just produce the damn thing.

What Guyanese are left for psychic comfort from its partner ExxonMobil of America is both clear and a present danger; an existential one.  Two words of Exxon suffice: Trust us.  I gave my word earlier that not a condemnatory syllable will be said today about Guyanese politicians or Guyanese lawyers who stand for Exxon.  But this is our partner, our cricket sponsor, our billboard cheerleader.  In many respects this is Guyana’s Gaza moment.