To this end, Dr. Jailall reasoned, “Regardless of whether you think the PNC are corrupt cheats and riggers, they do represent half of the country. All Lives Matter! If you shut out and shut up parliamentary debate and ignore good suggestions from the other side, it seems as if you are forcing the Opposition to ultimately resort to street action.”

Govt negotiating US$2B insurance policy with ExxonMobil – AG Nandlall

Attorney General & Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall SC

The Guyana Government is currently negotiating an insurance coverage of up to US$2 billion with ExxonMobil in the case of any oil spill or disaster event offshore, where the United States oil giant and its co-venturers are producing oil and conducting exploration activities.

This is according to Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall SC, during his weekly programme – Issues in the News.

“We are currently negotiating with the parent company for a US$2 billion coverage. So that is the framework that we currently have as per the licences,” he disclosed.

This revelation comes on the heels of the National Assembly last week dismissing a motion tabled by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition, proposing “full unlimited coverage for oil spills and other disasters related to the petroleum sector”.

Speaking about the motion, which was tabled by Opposition Member of Parliament David Patterson, the Attorney General pointed out that the concept of unlimited insurance can only be a theoretical construct, and does not exist in the real world.

Unpragmatic

While the motion was eventually thrown out by a majority vote from the Government’s side against it, Nandlall noted that such a proposal is unpragmatic.

“Practicality and pragmatism do not support this concept of an unlimited insurance. The concept is repulsive to reality… No insurance company would issue a policy that has no limit. What is the ceiling? How much are they going to pay?”

“An insurance policy is grounded in the law of contract; contract, by its very nature, must be precise. It must have terms and conditions that are precise, so that people can know what they are agreeing to. Who will agree to a contract that has limitless liability? Which insurance company will agree to a contract that has no ceiling on the limit?” he argued.

Misconceived and flawed

According to the Attorney General, even if such a concept existed, it still would not have worked, since insurance policies are based on a value attached to what is being insured.
“It doesn’t make sense, but this guy puts in a motion and then argues on it… So, the entire concept of his motion, the entire basis of his motion, was misconceived and flawed,” he contended.

The Legal Affairs Minister further called out the Opposition for pushing the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government on this issue, when they failed to include insurance conditions on the Liza Phase 1 Permit – something the current administration has since fixed.

“From 2017 to 2019, the Liza 1 Permit did not have any insurance policy. They issued Liza 1 Permit and they did not put any insurance at all. But he comes to our Government now and he wants limitless insurance, he wants unlimited insurance… So, the Liza 1 that they issued had no insurance whatsoever, we amended Liza 1 and we put insurance. We also put insurance on Liza 2, and we put insurance also in Yellowtail,” Nandlall posited.

These insurance clauses each include a policy of US$600 million per event. That means that if an event is to occur today, and another tomorrow, then each event will have a US$600 million coverage.

Moreover, during the negotiations of the policy for the Yellowtail Permit, there was an agreement that was put forward to limit the liability to certain areas of damage. However, he disclosed that this was rejected by the PPP/C Administration.

Employing the causation principle in the law of negligence and the principle of polluter pays, the Minister explained, the insurance policy applied would run wherever the damage flows.

According to AG Nandlall, this may not be perfect insurance scheme or policy, but it is far better than what the Coalition did, which is nothing.

In fact, he noted that all the APNU/AFC regime did was create the framework for the type of insurance that can be applied in the oil contract.

“What Mr Patterson doesn’t understand is that the contract…has a clause in it that speaks to insurance, and regulates the issues of insurance between the parties. And the four corners of that clause in that contract is what [is] governing the insurance in relation to that sector, at least the operators who have signed that contract. You can’t come outside the four corners of that clause, and they signed that contract in 2016,” the Attorney General outlined.

Guyana has US$600M insurance coverage for every oil spill; APNU+AFC gave out two licences with nothing in place- AG Nandlall

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall S.C believes due credit must be given to the PPP/C Administration for taking prompt action to have all four Stabroek Block projects armed with “industry leading” insurance coverage since its predecessor had nothing in place.

During an interview with Guyana Standard today, Nandlall said he believes the foregoing point is critical since the political opposition seems to be on a mission to fool citizens that it cares about oil sector management.

Nandlall said, “The matter is one that was raised in the National Assembly when (Opposition Shadow Minister for Petroleum, David) Patterson brought a motion for full liability coverage. I was not one of the speakers on the motion but I believe my colleagues raised a pertinent point which ought to grip the masses.”

The Attorney General said it was exposed by several government officials that the APNU+AFC regime had issued two permits to ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) without having any insurance in place. “It was this government, after we assumed office, we inserted robust provisions on this matter.”

Nandlall said all of Exxon’s projects, from Liza Phase One to Yellowtail, are now equipped with a US$600M per occurrence insurance policy. Negotiations, which started since last year, are ongoing for a US$2B provision by EEPGL’s parent.

As for the merits of Patterson’s motion, Nandlall said in his view, it should not have made its way to the floor.

“His motion called for unlimited liability coverage. But that is contrary to the principles of contract and insurance law…It was so repulsive in nature. Imagine an elected MP is coming to House to ask for and debate something which does not exist. Clearly, Patterson is demonstrating a diabolical sense of recklessness with his ignorance by venturing outside of his technical competence. He has no expertise in this area,” argued the Attorney General.

Nandlall said citizens ought to be extremely mindful of every word that is spewed by the opposition as almost everything it says emerges from a putrid pool of untruth.

Govt. exposing future generations to untold danger as ExxonMobil allowed to pay ‘next-to-nothing’ fines for flaring- Patterson  

Jul 30, 2022 News -- Source -- https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...r-flaring-patterson/

Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana (GoG) often boasts of the fine ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) is subjected to for flaring of natural gas offshore Guyana. However Shadow Oil and Gas Minister, David Patterson believes this paltry fee—US$50 per metric tonne of flaring— does nothing to prevent future generations from being exposed to untold danger.

Shadow Oil and Gas Minister, David Patterson

As pointed out in his presentation during a debate in the National Assembly last Thursday, the oil company has been given the licence to flare as much gas as it requires and release harmful emissions into the environment, as long as the government is paid for the damage being done.

To this end, Patterson in defending a Motion on full liability coverage for petroleum related disasters argued, “He (Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat) makes a claim that they have introduced a fee for flaring and he says it as though it’s a good thing. Sir, you would allow someone to pollute your environment, cause untold damage- I explained all the toxins you find in the flaring of natural gas in a previous presentation- but here is what they are excited about, that they charge a paltry US$50 per metric tonne of flaring.”

As such, the Member of Parliament reasoned,  “So what they are saying is that it’s quite okay that you can destroy our environment, condemn our future- because of course climate change is a big issue- they can condemn our future generations (expose them) to untold environmental hazards once he collects his paltry government fees. It’s quite okay for the companies to flare.”

Currently, the operator of the Stabroek Block, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL)- the subsidiary of ExxonMobil- is pumping oil from two projects within the Stabroek Block. Operations at the Liza One Field for example started up since December 2019. Soon after, the oil giant encountered issues with its gas compressor, leading to constant flaring since then.

It was only this week that Exxon announced it was finally able to bring an end to the gas compressor woes that plagued the Liza Destiny floating, production, storage and operating (FPSO) vessel.

Production Manager at ExxonMobil Guyana, Mike Ryan told members of the media fraternity on Tuesday that the Exxon team was able to successfully install a new compressor from Germany and was even open to sharing that over US$10M in flaring fees had been paid over to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

More importantly however, Ryan dodged all the questions relating to the total amount of gas flared while its equipment was down. The Production Manager would only repeat that the company maintained full compliance with the EPA’s permitted parametres for flaring which was between15-7 million cubic feet of gas per day.

At its second project site, the Liza Two operation in Stabroek Block- being manned by the Liza Unity FPSO-  he said it has achieved background flare within a record 60 days. “We have also hit our capacity range of about 220,000 barrels of oil per day,” expressed the official.

Extensive research conducted by Kaieteur News shows that gas flaring contributes to climate change, which has serious implications for the human security and wellbeing globally. In fact, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, outlined in one of its studies, that gas flaring is actually a major source of greenhouse gases, which accelerates global warming.

It was noted that flaring releases Carbon Dioxide and Methane, the two major greenhouse gases.

Furthermore, there have been over 250 identified toxins released from flaring including carcinogens such as benzopyrene, benzene, carbon disulphide (CS2), carbonyl sulphide (COS) and toluene; metals such as mercury, arsenic and chromium; sour gas with Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) and Sulfur Dioxide (SO2); Nitrogen oxides (NOx); Carbon dioxide (CO2); and methane (CH4) which contributes to the greenhouse gases.