Although the government is adamant that it will not budge from the US$214.4 million figure of the 2017 HIS Markit cost oil audit, ExxonMobil yesterday said that it had asked for an extension on discussions and those are still ongoing simultaneously with the second audit conducted by Vitality Accounting, Haynes and Ramdihal and Eclisar Financial (VHE) consortium.
“The first two audits, there is really nothing new to report. We are working to respond to the GRA because they gave us a bit of extension… they asked us for some substantial amount of additional information. We are working to gather that. All of that is in the spirit that we want to be transparent, we want to answer the questions,” Country Manager Alistair Routledge said yesterday when asked by the Stabroek News for an update.
“Should we, as we reach conclusion, [find] there is something that [does] not align, then we would accept that, but at this point we are still in the information gathering and answering the questions and providing answers. When the first set of queries came in they were not particularly specific so it was hard to give a detailed response. With specific queries now raised we are able to provide additional documentation,” he added.