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“No Secret Meetings With ExxonMobil”, Claims Guyana’s Natural Resources Minister

Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman.

“No Secret Meetings With ExxonMobil”, Claims Guyana’s Natural Resources Minister

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, August 17, 2017 (CMC) – Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, has sought to assure the public that there is no secrecy in meetings with US energy giant ExxonMobil.

According to Trotman, meetings held, earlier this month, were part of a continuing series of engagements that are held here and in Houston, Texas, yearly.

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.

“These meetings, held in early August, were considered to be very important, very timely. There’s nothing secretive about them,” Minister Trotman told the Department of Public Information (DPI).

He further explained that the government and Exxon and its partners have been in “close collaboration to bring production on stream by 2020”, since the 2015 oil discovery.

On August 10 and 11, Minister Trotman, along with the Minister of Infrastructure, David Patterson; Finance Minister, Winston Jordan; Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin; Foreign Affairs Minister, 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.

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 500 million barrels of oil at a rate of 120,000 barrels per day, while phase two is expected to recover the remaining resource in the Lisa field in 2023 and beyond.

Trotman said discussions at the meetings were more of a policy nature, and the discussions revolved around local content development, foreign relations, maritime space and fiscal matters.

“It was a very high level meeting,” said Trotman, who added that the government will do its best to meet the expectations of its citizens, 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 advancement of the proposed project to utilise available natural gas for energy generation by Guyana Power and Light (GPL).

Trotman said 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.

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