Introduction
Today’s column shifts focus from determining direct impacts on oil production, price, government revenue and their consequential effects on GDP arising from the 2020 general crisis (as I have portrayed this process) on Guyana’s infant oil and gas sector towards gauging impacts, going forward, on the leading transnational producer grouping in this sector: ExxonMobil and partners.
The primary reason for pursuing this topic is to acknowledge that Guyana’s oil and gas resources ownership and their operational control lie in two separate hands. Indeed, the resources are regulated under a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). That PSA enshrines within the sector the recognition of the aims and objectives of the Parties to it, differing. This allows for incongruent responses to the crisis.