Following several requests, City Hall has been able to secure a meeting tomorrow at ExxonMobil’s country headquarters.
Stabroek News has seen a letter written by Town Clerk Royston King which requested a meeting with ExxonMobil to discuss among other things working together “to secure the integrity and the interest of local communities and the city as a whole.”
The letter dated January 3, 2018 followed a series of letters which began in July 2016 and which also appealed to the company’s “demonstrated corporate social responsibility in many parts of the world.”
“The City Council has expressed an interest to meet with your executives and to engage your corporation in a number of environmental and public health concerns, which are necessary to promote the wellbeing of its citizens and to sustainably develop Georgetown,” the letter stated before suggesting mid-January, 2018 as a good time for to meet and discuss the proposed activities.
The letter ends with a note that the city is “fully persuaded by unfolding unprecedented environmental events and incidents that the Georgetown Municipality needs to meet with ExxonMobil as a matter of urgency to discuss and to begin a partnership for good environmental governance and the progress of the city.”
Stabroek News has since been able to confirm that King has received a response agreeing to a meeting on January 16.
The response came just as ExxonMobil was announcing its sixth oil discovery off Guyana’s coast.
Two Fridays ago, the corporation announced positive results from its Ranger-1 exploration well. In a release the company said that the Ranger-1 well discovery adds to previous world-class discoveries at Liza, Payara, Snoek, Liza Deep and Turbot, which are estimated to total more than 3.2 billion recoverable oil-equivalent barrels.
