Introduction
Last week’s column wrapped-up my effort to overcome the failure after seven consecutive years of weekly assessment of Guyana’s emerging oil and gas sector to devote even a single column each to Hess Corporation or CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Limited, which share a working interest of 30 percent and 25 percent respectively in the Exxon Mobil-led Consortium operating under the Stabroek Block’s PSA, the only crude oil producing exporting entity to date. As it turns out, two considerations make this fortuitous.
One of these is contingent in nature; and, the other is likely a logical/structural imperative intrinsic to the ongoing analysis. The contingent consideration is that over the past seven years I have reported on the treatment of oil and gas in the National Budget as close to its annual release as feasible. Secondly, the landscape of Guyana’s political economy has changed dramatically; and I have a professional responsibility to 1] match analysis with reality, and 2] eschew disinformation and misinformation. The National Budget must therefore be framed in its correct form.