Introduction
To conclude my evaluation of Guyana’s emerging oil and gas sector in its first year, I will report in the upcoming columns on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Technical Note, IDB-TN- 1994, published in August, 2020 and entitled, ‘Crossing a Slippery Slope: A Guyana Oil Opportunity.’ The Summary of the Note states that it has four focus areas: 1) the country context; 2) the petroleum sector fiscal mechanism and projected revenue; 3) barriers to effective governance of the sector; and 4) “new” policy perspectives on using oil revenues for sustainable development.
I encourage all readers to take a look at this well-built Note close by themselves. My focus here is primarily on item 2 listed above, as this is the area of my Sunday columns that are immediately concerned with assessing the impact of the general 2020 crisis on Guyana’s emerging petroleum sector. Today, I report on the fiscal mechanism; and, in the upcoming columns, I report on the modeling of the Note of prospective Government (revenue).