A Cabinet-sanctioned review of the circumstances leading to the signing of a new Petroleum Agreement with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) in 2016 has concluded that the agreement was negotiated and executed in accordance with the law though a lot of pressure was placed on government for a speedy signing prior to the scale of the “world class” Liza-2 discovery becoming fully known and understood.
“Overall, the 2016 Agreement contained some improvements in comparison with the 1999 Agreement. The Contractor Consortium was not receptive to any changes and fought hard to retain the same terms as in the 1999 Agreement. There were also changes that were of benefit to the Contractor Consortium,” the review, undertaken by the United Kingdom-based law firm Clyde and Company and paid for by the Government of Guyana, stated. The Contractor Consortium refers to EEGPL, Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited, the partners in the 26,800 square kilometres Stabroek Block.