Meetings with Exxon of policy nature –Min Trotman

DPI, GUYANA, Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Recent discussions between government ministers and ExxonMobil officials are of a policy nature Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman revealed.

In an interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI), Minister Trotman assured there is no secrecy in meeting with Exxon, who along with Hess and CNOOC Nexen will produce Guyana’s oil.

Guyana is a 50 percent partner with ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC Nexen for the development of the off-shore Stabroek Block in which oil has been discovered.

On August 10-11 Minister Trotman, along with Ministers of Infrastructure David Patterson, Finance Winston Jordan, Business Dominic Gaskin and Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge and Presidential Advisor on Petroleum Dr. Jan Mangal participated in meetings and briefings with officials of the ExxonMobil Development Company and ExxonMobil Gas and Power Marketing Company at the ExxonMobil Campus in Houston, Texas, USA.

“These meetings held in early August were considered to be very important, very timely. There’s nothing secretive about them,” Minister Trotman told DPI. He further explained that the government and Exxon and its partners have been in “close collaboration to bring production on stream by 202o” since the 2015 oil discovery.

The consultation between the government and the oil producers “are part of a continuing series of engagements which are held both in Guyana and in Huston on a yearly basis” Minister Trotman said, he noted that Cabinet had approved this recent visit.

At the briefings the Ministers were provided with updates on developments with the Liza field. Phase one is scheduled to commence in 2020 and will recover approximately 500m barrels of oil at a rate of 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) while  phase two is expected to recover the remaining resource in the Lisa field in 2023 and beyond.

Discussions at the meetings were more of a policy nature Minister Trotman explained. He pointed out that discussions revolved around local content development, foreign relations, maritime space and fiscal matters all of which bear relevance to the Ministers who attended the meeting.

“It was a very high level meeting,” Minister Trotmanpointed out . The Minister said that the government will do its best to meet the expectations of its citizen who “have the right to want to know” what is happening in the industry’s development.

Meanwhile, the Ministers were also briefed on, and engaged in, discussions on the advancements of the proposed project to utilise available natural gas for energy generation by Guyana Power and Light (GPL).

Minister Trotman said that Exxon will facilitate a workshop in September where energy experts from Texas will engage GPL officials to explore bringing the natural gas to shore at a cost that is less that the country’s current energy bill.

By: Tiffny Rhodius