After months of evasion, the government today released the production sharing agreement with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, EEGLP and the company’s local head, Rod Henson said that the the US$18m signing bonus was paid for the 10-year extension of the pact.
The agreement is available below:
[gview file=”https://www.stabroeknews.com/images/2017/12/Petroleum-Agreement.pdf”]
The government unveiled the agreement in a blaze of publicity in the Rupununi Room of the Ministry of the Presidency in the presence of President David Granger, his Cabinet and other officials but without any representative of the PPP/C whose leader, Bharrat Jagdeo also boycotted.
Representatives from civil society and the media were on hand to hear Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman defend the government’s decision to seek an extension of the agreement and make minor modifications to it.
While the agreement was made in October last year it had not been released. The government had issued various reasons for this including security concerns and sensitivities surrounding the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy.
Speaking this morning at the event, Trotman said the oil reserves to date from the Stabroek Block amount to 3.2 billion barrels. Using the IMF benchmark of US$50 per barrel he said that the resource would be worth US$160b with roughly US$80b being Guyana’s share.
He said when oil begins to flow from the Liza well, Guyana would be receiving roughly US$1m per day or US$300m per annum.
