AFC Leader has no regrets about highly criticized Stabroek Block deal 

Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC) Khemraj Ramjattan says he has no regrets about the highly criticized Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). That deal which provides Guyana a two percent royalty and a 50/50 split of profit oil was renegotiated and signed in 2016 with an ExxonMobil-led consortium.

During AFC’s weekly press conference yesterday, Ramjattan explained that several factors were taken into consideration. He noted that among other things, the APNU-AFC regime looked at the billions of dollars that would have been pumped into the economy, which according to him, would have addressed key issues including investments and poverty.

“The fact that we managed to get the signing up of that Petroleum Production Agreement going and then they (ExxonMobil) came to Guyana, and we are now getting about two billion dollars a year, is one of the finest economic decisions ever made for the benefit of this country,” Ramjattan said.

The AFC Leader further noted that had the decision not been made to sign the PSA with Exxon, the country would have faced major backlash and possibly stood the risk of losing millions of dollars in investment from other affiliates in the oil and gas industry.

“At the time (2016), we did what we did knowing that we were going to get millions of dollars from this decision. If we did not do that everyone would have been cussing us down about why you did not sign the agreement, that at least we could have gotten a billion dollars or two billion dollars because the people were going to walk away,” Ramjattan said.

He told the press that companies such as Exxon Mobil, Hess, and CNOOC, “were not easy companies to deal with” before the agreement was signed. “So, I’m not going to retract my original position that indeed the contract was a good one,” Ramjattan said.

The AFC Leader further outlined that before the contract was signed with Exxon, international consultants had agreed with the administration at the time that the contract with the US oil giant was reasonable to begin the process of oil exploration. He however advised the administration to renegotiate royalties and taxes in all other projects.

“When we signed it was about four-five billion barrels, it is eleven billion barrels now and we had signed up in relation to that one Liza arrangement and said that we are going to change certain [things] as we go along,” Ramjattan said.