Introduction
Today’s column completes the task I had set on August 20 of re-visiting four topics in the series that dealt with the now twice-delayed holding of public auctions for Guyana’s oil block rights. To recall, that series commenced on June 11, and in the course of my presentation, several readers had been urging my revisit of some of the themes addressed in that series. Three of the four topics have been re-visited in the previous three columns. These are 1] general auction theory 2] taking stock of three variables; the GoG Take ratio; Guyana’s estimated petroleum resources; and, the window of opportunity remaining for its crude oil exports and 3] the Fiscal Metrics of the PSA
For today’s column I revisit the lessons to be learnt from both theoretical analysis of mining auction rights and empirical evaluation of country experience with public auctions of oil block rights.