Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday asserted that oil explorer, CGX will not `play’ the government of Guyana as he said that cabinet will be meeting on CGX Energy and Frontera Energy Corporation submission of Notice of Potential Commercial Interest for the Wei-1 discovery to the government.
Jagdeo at his press conference said that he was informed by Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat of the submission of the notice, noting, that he did not have time to go through the notice as yet.
He said, “I have not examined it as yet but we will do so and next week it will go to the cabinet but let me make it clear, CGX will not play the government of Guyana.”
The Vice President said that for a very long time “they have been jerking people’s strength, maybe their investors but no longer are we going to be tolerant of any ambiguity. If they are declaring commerciality now, they have to show in specific terms how they intend to develop a project and where the finances are.”
He stated, that he is “blunt” about this matter because “we have given them time as per the law to do all they had to do but this is the crunch time now, if they now are saying they are moving to a project they have to show us what this project and show up how they gonna finance the project.”
Asked about CGX’s “deep water port” at Palmyra, Region Six, Jagdeo clarified that it is actually not a deep water port but more of a shore based location given that it is built on the “river itself, the draft there would not allow you to have big vessels go in.”
He explained, “It was to service their operation, when CGX started they have about 55 acres of land to build this facility, we then reduced it to 25 acres and they made a commitment several years ago, two or three years ago, that they will complete this project, they have been unable to complete it so in light of the fact that they have now declared (interest of) commerciality we have to see whether they are prepared to move to a project.”
Jagdeo noted that if CGX is moving to a project they would still need that facility but “if there is no project we’d have to engage them on what happens there.”
“So we are going to be inviting them for a meeting but next week we will go to the cabinet to seek guidance on this matter.”
