Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded – Column 135
Introduction
This is the final part of an adaptation of a talk I gave last July at a forum sponsored by the US NGO Oil and Gas Guyana Network (OGGN). The thrust of my contribution was that the Government’s excuse for reneging on its commitment to “review and renegotiate” the 2016 Petroleum Agreement is specious and opportunistic. Even more significantly, the Government ignores the sovereignty issue addressed in Column #134 and more devastatingly, the constitutional question which of course is related to sovereignty.
Today’s column looks at what is described as the Stability Article in the 2016 Agreement, generally referred to as a stability clause. In essence, this Article serves as a protective shield for the oil companies and is designed to maintain a stable legal and economic environment for their investment in Guyana. In effect, the clause freezes the law as it stood in 2016, ensuring that the conditions prevailing at the time the Agreement was signed, would endure until 2056 when the period of exploration and production ends.