Venezuela links Exxon presence in disputed Guyana zone to Obama executive order
Caracas, Venezuela- Venezuela’s government said a subsidiary of U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil
Venezuela Foreign Minister, Delcy Rodriguez
was carrying out “unauthorized” operations in disputed waters off Guyana and linked them to Washington’s recent diplomatic steps against Caracas. “The actions of (Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd.), with its intention to carry out unauthorized operations within the maritime territory adjoining Venezuela, contradict public international law and show its intent to subvert it,” Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released Wednesday and carried on the online news, www.laprensasa.com. The Ministry said it sent a letter to the head of that Exxon unit, Jeff Simon, reiterating its rejection of the company’s intentions and asserting that they violate bilateral obligations signed by Guyana and Venezuela. It added in that letter that Esso Exploration and Production and Guyana’s actions must be viewed in light of President Barack Obama’s executive order in March declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and handing down sanctions against seven officials. “Venezuela reaffirms that there is no demarcation of the marine and submarine areas of the territorial space of the reclamation zone, and that the existing agreement providing for non-incursion in these spaces remains fully valid,” the ministry said. An Exxon platform began exploratory drilling at the Stabroek Block off Guyana early last month under a US$200 million, 10-year agreement between the Oil Company and Georgetown. Guyana’s Foreign Ministry at that time requested that Venezuela not interfere in the exploration work at Stabroek, located in the Guyana-Suriname basin, which the U.S. Geological Survey says has the second-largest unexplored oil potential in the world after Greenland. That basin lies off the coast of a border region known as Essequibo, a 160,000-sq.-kilometer (61,780-sq.-mile) area that is administered by Guyana and makes up more than half of its territory but which Venezuela has claimed as its own since the 19th century.