The 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), gave the company generous terms of relinquishment for the massive Stabroek Block that would see it holding on to key acreages until 2023 and costing the country billions of dollars, according to attorney-at-law and civil society activist Christopher Ram.
As he blasted de facto Minister of Natural Resources (MoNR) Raphael Trotman, whose ministry led negotiations and who signed the 2016 agreement, Ram says this country would have been better off keeping the old 1999 PSA as it provides for the most beneficial relinquishment terms when compared to both a 2012 contract template created by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) and the agreement signed by the APNU+AFC government in 2016.