Guyana Oil and Gas News

Part 31   Introduction I must start this week’s column by publicly complimenting the painstaking and excellent work done by the technical staff of Ram & McRae in comparing, line by line and word by word, the 1999 Janet Jagan’s Agreement with Esso and the Raphael Trotman’s 2016 Agreement with Esso (not Exxon), Hess and CNOOC.

Today’s column continues a review of the Esso/Hess/Nexen Petroleum Agreement signed on June 27, 2016 and publicly released by the Government of Guyana on December 29, 2017.

Part 29  Introduction In keeping with a recent undertaking, the Government of Guyana yesterday released the Petroleum Agreement entered into on its behalf by Mr.

Introduction The final, belated and reluctant admission by the Government of Guyana that it received a signing bonus from ExxonMobil, seems to have caused increasing curiosity, not least because the amount disclosed is a rather odd-sounding US$18 million.

New Account On the day this column appeared last week, the press in Guyana, in an outstanding case of enterprising journalism, confirmed that Guyana had indeed received a signing bonus from ExxonMobil.

Introduction This Column touched earlier on what the Model Petroleum Contract describes as a Stability Clause, the objective of which is to provide assurance to international oil companies that they will be protected from any variation in fiscal or economic policies by governments for a period of as much as thirty years.

Kudos, Cabinet Notwithstanding its extreme reluctance to release the contract signed by Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman with Esso Exploration and Production (Guyana) Limited and two Joint Partners some eighteen months ago, Cabinet deserves credit for its decision to make the contract public in December.

In Part 23 this column noted that Indonesia which had taken a lead role in the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) had moved to the Gross Sharing Production Sharing Contract.

Indonesia explores new model  Indonesia, the country that is credited with giving the petroleum world the petroleum production sharing agreement (PSC) in the nineteen sixties, now seems to be walking away from the model.

Part 22   Oil and the Environment The title of this week’s column is borrowed from a presentation by Annette Arjoon-Martins, Mr.

Part 21   EITI Admission That troublesome confidentiality provision in the law and the Petroleum Agreement has once more attracted attention with the announcement that Guyana is now officially the 53rd candidate country of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

Introduction Column 19 last week summarised how petroleum produced is shared between the Contractor and Guyana represented by the Minister.

Part 19 Disposal of Production Recall that under a production sharing contract, costs are deducted from the value of production to arrive at profit oil to be shared between the contractor and the Government of Guyana in the proportion set out in the contract: Article 11.6.

Trotman and Turbot The good news This column keeps meeting distractions from week to week.

Introduction Today’s column looks at what is called Cost Oil, both in the petroleum industry around the world and in the Petroleum Agreements signed by Guyana with contractors.

Trotman’s new Agreement Today’s column seeks to address an issue which has largely gone under the radar because Mr.

There is a wide variety of petroleum contracts which countries, with the single exception of the USA, may choose to adopt.

The importance of royalty In the last column which appeared on August 17, I indicated that I would touch next on royalty in petroleum contracts.

Introduction Much is being made of the world class calibre of the advisers to the Granger Administration and Minister Raphael Trotman as they construct a path to First Oil in 2020.

The column today seeks to demystify the question of taxation and the oil companies.