How Exxon Captured a Country Without Firing a Shot

Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration?

Guyana High Court: EPA and ExxonMobil Put Country At Grave Risk

 [00:00:00] Welcome back to Drilled, I'm Amy Westervelt. I know we're in the middle of a new season on the criminalization of protests, but I'm bringing you an update today on an earlier season, Light, Sweet, Crude, our season about the creation and expansion of a new oil and gas industry in Guyana. When we were working on that season, it was very hard to get any information at all about what was being called the Gas to Energy Project.

This was a plan to pump excess gas from the oil drilling offshore, onshore, to a facility and then use it either for export or for fuel in Guyana. A new report has come out from the Institute for Energy and Economic Analysis, IEFA and Tom Sanzillo, the author of that report, spoke to me [00:01:00] about what he has found about this project. In a nutshell. It seems to be a way for Exxon to turn what was a problem for them, excess gas that they couldn't flare without being fined, into a new revenue stream, gas that is technically free for Guyana, but that they're spending an awful lot of money paying Exxon to get to shore.

We'll be back with more details on that after this quick break.

 So, what we did is we took a look at the gas to energy project that's being proposed in in Guyana and a couple of things came out of the study. Maybe, maybe the most important one was that The need for the project is really questionable. It's kind of a risky bet. And that's [00:02:00] because the grid system in Guyana really doesn't need something of this size, 300 megawatt proposal.

As we reviewed the documentation and all, what we came up with was If they build this given the current capacity that they have and some other new things that they're planning to do in addition that they would wind up the best way to talk about oversupply is that.

The reserve margin would be enormous and the reserve margin is effectively what every utility has. If you need a hundred megawatts, you're going to build 115. Because that's basically how the systems work professionally. It's a professional standard. If they build in either scenario, we have a low and a high case scenario, the reserve margin will be 58 percent to 196 percent for the low load, which is if it is a sort of a slower [00:03:00] economy and then the high load, it would be 24 to 132 percent reserve. So no matter how you look at it, it's significantly oversupplied . that's. Unfortunate that they look to build a gas project or anything. But that wasn't the only thing that we found in that.

They historically get this wrong the estimation for electricity. And there, we basically looked at their past practice and they were consistently overestimating the amount of electricity they were going to use. That's pretty significant.

So for like a 10 year period, we would think sort of miss it every year.

 And this is, this is the government of Guyana, or This is Exxon.

 Okay. Guyana power and light. Okay. Okay.

 utility. And then the other problem that we, that we uncovered is that when they made the announcement, they were working with one assumption. They then [00:04:00] revised the analysis and then very shortly after that, and they revised it by a significant amount downward.

So the stuff that we're looking at, which is already, you know, an over assumption, they had was had it much higher. That justified the gas plant, then they reduced it afterwards and they didn't reduce the any sense of that they still needed a 300 megawatt plant. It's kind of like, it's a very awkwardly done resource plan.

And they don't have a kind of resource planning like we have in the U S that you might be familiar with. The other problem they have there, and I'm going into some length on this because I know they'll say, I don't know what I'm talking about. There's that they, they have about a hundred megawatts actually off the system of entities, mostly industrial and commercial, that are supplying their own energy right now because the system is so unreliable. They think that's coming back on when they put up this new plant, but it probably won't because they're not planning for any [00:05:00] new system upgrades,

 right. That's what I was gonna ask you about is like, you know, is there any kind of transmission and distribution

 the problem is that they don't have a planning process that gives you that comprehensive sense, but we went into it and don't see any numbers or any you know, thought of that. They are consistently working to improve their reliability, but it's like in the U. S. Averages 440 minutes a year of outages.

In Guyana it's 5, 100 minutes. So you get a sense of just how unreliable. And it's a, it's a major item in the newspapers there all the time. And a major item in people's daily existence. So they have a long way to go on that. And it's unlikely that the businesses are going to come back in simply because they buy a gas plant that they don't run.

particularly need. It doesn't improve the system delivery. So those are those are the kinds of things we're looking at in terms of necessity.

 Can [00:06:00] I ask you like if, if, if this has any impact on, because I know one of the big promises that the government and Exxon has made is that like this project is going to make electricity cheaper for people in Guyana.

 Well, the only way it's gonna do that I was gonna get to that next is that it is essentially a system that's unaffordable and not necessarily to the rate payer, but to the taxpayer. What they've decided to do is There's no rate information in any of this incidentally, and we're going to be calling for the commission to do their job but The the the plan is that they're going to provide a 50 percent subsidy for rates after this is done.

And that'll be obviously an annual disbursement from the Guyanese government to GPL. To offset the rate that'll be at a profit oil future profit oil offset essentially I'm going to get to a chart in a minute, which explains this and so the [00:07:00] affordability issue may be minimal to the rate payer, but it's going to be a significant burden on the budget every year so You know, you have an issue there as to as to whether or not it's affordable for the taxpayer Um The, the other thing that, as I said, you, the system remains unreliable , and then what they're proposing in terms of money being spent in the grid system is when you build a gas plant, particularly when you're going to borrow to build a gas plant you are, you're going to be first of all, using foreign labor for the most part because you're going to have all of these professional engineers and construction coming in.

The money is going to come from Exxon Lending as well as XM Bank. And so you're going to have a lot of the money in paying debt off. That's not going to stay in in Guyana. And then there may be, and I will get into that in a minute, there may be that the [00:08:00] government has to pay for the gas.

That's a contended matter right now. And if they do, then the fuel cost, of course, gets paid to Exxon, which is not money in Guyana. When you do solar, you're going to be employing because what we're proposing is a solar investment of significant nature. When you do solar, you're going to be hiring local people.

They're going to be building things in the neighborhoods and the communities in the towns and villages in the rural areas. And people will see that construction, you know, going on and it will be an economic benefit to each family who gets the panels, and we're trying to cover everybody and then that will lower utility costs, which allows them, of course, some extra money in their pocket.

So you have here a series of direct benefits to the Guyanese people and, and frankly, The Guyanese people haven't seen much benefit at all from this oil money yet. They see some [00:09:00] construction projects and all. But as for specific benefits, there really haven't been any like this. You know, Alaska, for instance, gives out cash to every citizen in Alaska because of their oil surpluses.

Here they're doing, you know, they're doing more generalized so called benefits. So those economic issues are also very important. And so we summarize it as... Being unnecessary, unaffordable, unreliable, and uneconomic. And and so we propose a solar plan, which would be probably cheaper. We're looking to get for the first part of this, a hundred percent of the residents in Guyana with solar panels.

We think that can be done probably by 2040. We find it to be probably around the same cost, but probably cheaper.

Obviously, it's a more predictable energy supply if you do it with batteries, which we're building into the system, you can probably have 24 7 service again, direct benefits with low [00:10:00] electricity bills and greater likelihood of employment. And greater likelihood of activity and, you know, local stores and what have you when you do the, when you do a solar investment.

 I wanted to ask you one thing about the the press release before we get into the chart, which is this, this line that says ExxonMobil would profit the most from the gas to energy

 yeah, and that's what I want to talk to you about.

 Oh, what you see in the left hand side of the chart is financial lender. Exxon will be one. of the lenders, and they will be lending the money to Guyana, I believe, for the pipeline, although this is unspecified, but Exxon has acknowledged that this, they will be making an investment and it will have to be paid back.

That's about the sum of it that I can see. Then they are going to build the pipeline, second source of profit for them.

 Then what we have here is two other [00:11:00] things that aren't necessarily on the chart, but I want to give you the idea. There is a contention Jagdeo, the vice president, has said that the gas is free. and that they will not be charged for it. And so, and if you read the contract, and we go into some length in the, in the report on this, if you read the contract, there's a specific way in which Guyana would get free gas. And no matter how we look at it, that would be a very limited amount, if any.

And what Exxon is saying is that they are going to be winding up selling the gas to Guyana. And they will also be producing surplus gas, and I don't know how that's going to be settled because there's no no public plan put out, no contracts put out. So there's a disagreement, you know, Guyana seems to be saying it's free, and Exxon says, no, no, no, we're selling it to Guyana, so, whereas if you assume that they pay for the [00:12:00] gas, then you're going to have that dotted line that says debt bailout, You should probably put in there, and I'm thinking of doing this when I release the report, debt bailout and potential gas sale.

Each of them are likely, but they're not certain, and we're trying to separate those things. When you look at risk, you sort of look at the levels of it, right? So this looks like Exxon would benefit if there was a gas sale. That would be three forms of profit. The fourth form of profit. They currently are in court, still, on a permit case on flaring.

And the essence of that case is Exxon had permit requirements. to do zero flaring. They failed to meet that. They've been fined already. But we have it in court. And what this does is it gets rid of that problem for Exxon because there's [00:13:00] not going to be flaring anymore. They're flaring because they're burning excess gas.

If they're going to be moving the gas into Guyana, then the flaring problem is no longer an issue and there's no longer any costs associated with attempts to comply with that permit term. And so they They benefit that way. So we see at least four forms of profit for Exxon and we're not seeing a whole lot of gain obviously for the taxpayers rate pay.

Because what will happen is they're going to have to pay it back. And the way the government has said they want to pay it back is with power subsidies. Now that would be, and that's the line that goes from the Guyanese government up. To over by the rate pays, that's a subsidy that would be annually. And we don't know, they say 50% . That, that potential subsidy and then the Utility Commission has warned GPL, Guyana Power and Light, that they're borrowing too much.

We [00:14:00] agree. And the likelihood that when they start adding on the debt that we're thinking about for this particular project, you're looking at a very serious financial situation, and the likelihood, again, it's a risk matter, there is a likelihood of a need for a debt bailout of some kind, in which case that would benefit Exxon again, because they would get paid immediately and in advance for the money that they've lent to the project.

Oh, we're, we're, we're looking at that and saying, well, there's sort of another way they, they get it coming and going. But the government is going to have a problem having to stand behind this deal, because if you overbuild on your power, then you're unlikely to use the facility at 100 percent or 95 percent capacity because you're going to have other things, other assets that you're going to be using.

So as we look at it, we say, well, how are they going to, you know, how's this going to work? And the answer is, you know, they [00:15:00] may wind up with a stranded asset where they're not. able to really use it beyond the 60%, 65 percent capacity. So, and so we're saying to ourselves, well, you know, that's another problem for that's, you know, power subsidy because that, that'll be more, that'll make it more expensive if they run it less.

 you have a real setup here for a high risk venture that is likely to you know, be a problem. And what happens then is a lot of the oil profits then have to go back into something that they don't need in the first place.

 Whereas if you take the oil profits and the the Guyanese government and you invest that and you provide solar panels to families.

 direct benefit. You don't have the borrowing. You know, you have a local economic activity. You have lower costs over time. You don't have to [00:16:00] worry about GPL turning the lights on and off. You know, you have definitely a better improvement here.

That's more efficient. And, and stable financially for Guyana. It's money that they can invest in Guyana and it stays in Guyana. So instead of the two billion or whatever it is that's another thing. That's a problem that we point out in the report. There's really no clear estimate of what this is going to cost.

Some are saying two billion and who knows what it is.

 I know that that Kiana, our reporter in Guyana was saying that, like, they've been asking over and over for some kind of transparency around the cost of this project. And it's just not, not coming.

 It's not coming. It's not. There's a lot of things in here that lack transparency. I mean, that's our, you know, an ongoing problem. So what we were able to do here, I think, and if you look at it from that angle, as we, we kind of piece together a really Poor disclosure system on the utility system and [00:17:00] an even worse disclosure system on the capital part of the the pipeline.

And then that weak disclosure of the utility makes it very hard to do a solar power analysis, although we did our best with some high level numbers and we are starting to see other places invest heavily in solar, and so we have a little feel for what a system of this size would actually cost And, you know, we're just seeing it in a very sort of different light, and we think that if they also, if they do this gas project the way they're talking about, given what they have, they don't need the solar then.

And so it's going to be unlikely that people are going to be you know, using it in any great numbers. So, you know, particularly you're going to have a subsidy in there. So the rates will be. You know, might be reasonable to the households, but the government in the meantime will have a lot of problems. So that's really kind of what [00:18:00] we're looking at. And we see, as I said, you know, we don't see a whole lot of benefit for the public, but we do see very clear articulated benefits for Exxon. This seems to be a recurring theme.

 Yeah. , I would imagine that, that the renewables thing would, would also have a, like a workforce training component too, right? That there would be some kind of local training and jobs and all that stuff as well. Mm-hmm.

 Where we've seen, where I've seen them try to do these mass renewable stuff renewable projects, that is what happens. You know, I live in upstate New York and a number of years ago, the state government put in place a a program for solar installations and energy efficiency for houses. And the local contractors many of them took a risk in doing it.

And one of the things they did was they put together a little group school , and that training center was was [00:19:00] put together by the merchants, by the contractors.

So I think we're pretty confident that if you did that in Guyana, you would have some form of training that would go on.

And, you know, and all the work is done locally. If you're looking at a, you know, this is a 10 or 15 year undertaking, if you do that, you might even get some kind of production, if not in Guyana, at least, you know, in closer proximity than than the U. S. mainland or China. But nevertheless, the parts and what have you are all serviceable locally. So you have a real, you have a local economic benefit here that this does not compare with what happens when you put it in a gas plant.

 Wasn't one of the things that Jagdeo promised about this partnership with Exxon was that basically the oil money was going to fund climate adaptation.

 Yeah. You know, in terms of the oil profits, there's no. observable, [00:20:00] publicly available capital plan that is laying out how they're going to do this. It looks to me like they have it, the money there, highly liquid as in it's just sitting in an account.

And it's like in the billions now, which is another question that you and I someday should talk about and then they're able to use that in any given budget year for whatever amount of money they want to pull out of it, you know, and and they've been doing that, you know, since 2019. So you don't have a plan as to how the money is going to be used.

And so I don't see any evidence of Of adaptation plans, you know, we see roads, I guess you could argue that it'll be faster to get out of Guyana if a, climate events and it's not, it's not an articulated use of the money. It seems to be more of a budget matter, and it's used as oil revenue for the annual budget, and it's enhancing those expenditures pretty [00:21:00] handsomely in the last couple of years.

 there any Concern that I mean, I know what we've seen in other places in the world when there is excess gas That's not being used for energy that the next step is building Petrochemical facilities. So, is there a sense that that might happen here?

 Well, you know, you hear little things as to what, you know, what might be next in terms of new building. It's tossed around that there's going to be opportunities for additional industrial activity and nothing's been articulated yet. But that seems to be a very, you know, logical possibility.

The the Pet Chem markets, I guess if they started now and they're going to build six or seven years from now there's a potential that there would be some market. Right now, all the markets in [00:22:00] the single use plastics are over, over supplied. And that's going to be like until pretty much 2029. And then, you know, hopefully we have some broader intervention into the economy so that it's more sternly regulated in that natural gas is not the only go to for the petrochemical business.

You might, you know, there's a lot of emphasis in Europe, for instance, on moving fossil fuels out of petrochemicals and looking to replace it with biofuels and other kinds of recyclables and what have you. There should be some ability to curb. The demand for gas, you know, in six or seven years. And so you may not have the kind of demand model that we're currently using.

And so that's a very, very risky proposition to think that this gas will be deployed and it will be significant. I think maybe we're saying [00:23:00] 50 to 60 percent of the gas would be used by this plant at maximum and that web's probably not going to be at maximum and then the rest of the cast, they have to figure out what to do with it.

Now, currently, I guess it could be sold into the market. The way I read it, the current contract might actually be applying, which case. You know, Guyana once again gets short changed. But if there's gonna be a new contract for the sale of that gas, that'll be another, you know, potential revenue stream for Guyana.

Which again, you know, why for If you're gonna do this, and I don't advocate it They'd be better off if they're going to sell gas to sell it all, and use the profits for a longer term, more stable component to their economy, which is solar.

I don't think anybody would disagree with that if you're looking at building the economics for the future.

 It sounds like this project is more [00:24:00] about Exxon dealing with a gas problem than Guyana looking for a way to, to fix its, its electricity. Is that like a fair

 Yeah, I think in terms of what the choices are, the choices for the electricity

I mean, they're claiming there's going to be a massive increase in the amount of electricity used in Guyana and we just can't see that. We're not seeing any particular need for this. And I mean, so that's kind of how we're just looking at the whole thing.

 Are they basing that on, like, the idea that, you know, business is booming in Guyana,

 Yeah, they're basing it on a GDP formula, which I don't think they have that right either. But and they're saying that because, of course, the GDP is expanding, you know, with the gas. But they're claiming that there's going to be a commensurate. You know, increase in the in the electricity [00:25:00] usage.

And there may be, and we've accounted for our, our view is that it's going to be somewhere between their low model and the high model, and it's not gonna be as high as they say. So you're gonna have some increase in demand. And we're looking at about a, oh, I don't know, five to 6% increase in demand.

They're looking at a 14 or 15% increase. And you know, the consultants even told them that it's three to 5%, you know, going forward even with everything. So, you know, I could, you know, if it really took off. I'm still not sure that they would need a gas plant, but I guess they could then shut down a lot of their current capacity, which of course would be just.

Lost assets there in order to make this thing a go. So, the planning is poor,

and the transparency is zero. And [00:26:00] so, whereas normally you would have hearings and what have you you don't have any of that. It's not mandated by law.

Transcription

A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) looks at the details of Guyana's planned "Gas to Energy" project and finds mostly benefits for ExxonMobil and more debt for Guyana.

https://ieefa.org/articles/guyana-gas-energy-project-unnecessary-and-financially-unsustainable

Guyana Documents

New Oil Colonialism