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LatAmOil GUYANA LatAmOil

Caracas has said before that it does not believe the coast of Essequibo. In 2013, the Venezuelan
the court has jurisdiction over the border dis- navy seized a research ship deployed by one of
pute, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the companies that held an exploration permit.
reiterated that point in a letter that was read Then in late 2018, a naval vessel approached the
aloud during the hearings. Maduro wrote in Ramform Tethys, a ship owned by Norway’s
the letter that his government was not partici- PGS that was collecting seismic data for Exxon-
pating in the hearings because of its stance on Mobil, the US company that is leading develop-
jurisdiction. ment at the Stabroek block.
Ramphal, for his part, argued that the ICJ The western section of Stabroek – which
was the proper venue for consideration of the includes Liza, Guyana’s only producing oilfield
case. Guyana has exhausted all other options, – lies within disputed territory. So far, the bor-
including those provided for in the Geneva der dispute has not had any major impact on the
Agreement of 1966. That agreement gives the project. ExxonMobil did briefly suspend seismic
Secretary-General of the UN the right to choose work after its run-in with the Venezuelan naval
a means of resolution when other avenues ship in 2018, but it was able to bring the first
have proved fruitless, he said, and UN Secre- stage of the Liza field on stream in December
tary-General António Guterres decided in 2018 2019. ™
to refer the case to the ICJ. As such, he asserted,
the court does have jurisdiction.
Venezuela and Guyana are sparring over the
terms of a boundary accord that is more than
120 years old. That deal, which was hammered
out through arbitration in 1899, awards the dis-
puted Essequibo province to Guyana, which was
still a colony of Great Britain at the time. Ven-
ezuela has never fully accepted this agreement
but has mostly confined itself to verbal protests,
and as a result Guyana has been able to establish
a de facto border.
Caracas began raising stronger objections
to the 1899 accord after Guyana began per-
mitting foreign firms to explore for oil in its
offshore zone, the western part of which lay off The Stabroek block lies within the zone claimed by Venezuela (Image: ONSA)

Guyana shortlists 19 firms

for oil marketing contract

THE government of Guyana has shortlisted a oil extracted from the offshore Liza field, which
total of 19 companies for a contract to market a consortium led by the US super-major Exx-
its share of oil from the Liza offshore field. The onMobil brought online last December. It has
nineteen were chosen from a list of 35 compa- decided to use marketing agents to help it export
nies that submitted expressions of interest (EoIs) the crude, since the country has no domestic
in May in the tender for the contract. refining capacity.
“This activity has now been completed suc-
cessfully and the shortlist of companies, 19
in total, will progress at the next phase of the
procurement process and exclusively and at
the same time receive the request for proposal
[RfP],” Guyana’s Ministry of the Presidency said
in a statement.
As of press time, full details were not availa-
ble of the shortlisted firms. It has been reported,
though, that two Chinese firms, Sinochem and
PetroChina, were among those authorised to
proceed to the next stage, along with three com-
modity trading firms: Mercuria (Switzerland),
Glencore (UK) and Vitol (Netherlands).
The government is entitled to a share of the Liza is part of the Stabroek offshore block (Image: Hess)

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 25 25•June•2020