Ast and present
odities such as oil on the world market. The search for oil, or the concern that oil as needed apparently returned, as in 1981 e then PNC government announced plans to tablish a national petroleum corporation to upervise oil exploration and development. he minister in charge Hubert Jack told the uyana National Assembly that “prospects r finding oil in commercial quantities were ood.” But Guyana’s economy at the time ould have been relatively free of the obseson with the search for oil as there were other commanding heights of the economy” availble. For centuries, beginning from the period f slavery, sugar stood out as the standard earer for the Guyanese economy. Bauxite ame later. Alan Adamson, in Sugar without Slaves, flects on the rise of British Guiana’s Demerara’s) export of staple products etween 1789 and 1802. According to him, ugar exports rose by 433 per cent, coffee by 33 per cent and cotton by a whopping 862 er cent in that period. It was deemed the planter’s golden age”. After cotton and cofe had withered away sugar became number ne, lasting seemingly for an eternity with the oniker “Bookers Guiana” in tow. Bauxite ecame a significant boon to Guyana’s econmy for a while but this too waned by the 980s. Sugar has declined from its central role
the Guyanese economy over the last few ecades and has for all intents and purposes ollapsed. Oil has now become the new frain of economic rescue, success and glory. were backpedaled. The reality of oil companies and their technical and economic power and leverage over small states looms over any negotiation and agreement. For its part the Guyana government subsequently announced its own priorities. The timing for the benefits accrued from oil drilling was pushed back to 2021. Reality, it appeared, had set in.
Exxon-Mobil—a tributary company of the first and once powerful global oil giant, Standard Oil—is now the de facto multinational that can facilitate incredible wealth which can either turn country’s fortunes around, or lead to ruin when the host society is unable to manage its petroleum revenues.
The ABC countries have already stated that Guyana will be “in complete control of its destiny” and that the Guyana government will be negotiating with a private company, in this case the conglomerate Exxon-Mobil. Of course, statements are one thing, reality is another. The history of the major Western capitalist economies is that they have multiple options and hidden and open ways to place pressure on governments in the developing world. Guyana for its part announced a new regulatory mechanism in the form of an oversight body to monitor the expected 700 to 1.4 billion barrels of oil at the Liza sites. The thirst for black gold is now as much in the air as it was back in 1930 when a Daily Chronicle editorial enthused:
“Black gold has made the wealth of America, it is creating wealth for the neighbouring republic of Venezuela, it has enabled Trinidad to withstand the shocks of sugar and cocoa adversity, and if the results of recent prospections in British Guiana are fulfilled it should provide more real prosperity for this poor benighted country than was ever dreamed of…”
Whatever the result of the ExxonMobil oil exploration for Guyana it is absolutely necessary that Guyanese from all walks of life and positions in and out of the state weigh carefully one point in the Vote for Oil coupon from the Chronicle of 1930: “learn more about the oil industry” before oil flows and money is transferred in 2021.
Is Guyana prepared for oil after a relatively long search?
Whatever the outcome for petroleum revenues in the next few years, Guyana cannot be complacent in ongoing negotiations with ExxonMobil and with the use of oil wealth in the society at large. As noted in other historical experiences, even very wealthy oil societies like Trinidad, Nigeria and Venezuela have succumbed to the vagaries of the international market as well as to corruption, mismanagement and misuse of oil revenues. Can oil provide the epic needs and changes that Guyana requires? Or will it, as in the case of our neighbours Venezuela and Trinidad, provide mixed or even fatal results? Will the expected oil wealth be equitably utilized or squandered in the hands of a corrupt few or mismanaged by another modern state that possesses no clue how to be transparent and fair with economic riches? What are the potential environmental hazards of oil mining? Restating what the Chronicle printed in 1930, we must become “oil minded” in both senses, that of expectation and that of caution in relation to the advent of a new lease on economic life for Guyana in the form of oil money.