More than five years after bursting into the global oil and gas magnifier following a discovery by US oil giant ExxonMobil’s consortium of more than 8 billion barrels of oil off the country’s coast, Guyanese popularity is gaining in popularity integrity still knows a little bit surprisingly about the industry as a whole or about when or how the gains from a sector we are told the country will be affected will take the country from the state of the poor it was held in fast for more than half a century.
The initial euphoria and spread of pipe dreams that predicted miraculous economic transitions and even distribution of lump sums of liquid money to the entire population have sensibly shifted to the back burner, the focus of attention is now settling on issues ranging from oil. and large foreign investment related to gas and local by-products for Guyanese enterprises, to speculate on whether, after all, we are supposed to be held on lease for some time longer, before the unexpected comes.
Since the removal of Dr Mark Bynoe’s Head of the Department of Energy in early December, a development projected by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo a few days before, Jagdeo himself appears to have been running the oil and the ‘show’ gas.
The article Does the ‘resource curse’ resonate for our oil and gas sector? first appeared on Stabroek News.