There is and there will be an account to be canceled: the debt of the Guyana government and the ExxonMobil oil company with Venezuela, for the oil extracted, stripped, stolen, from the marine and territorial space that sooner than later will be the ninth star of the Venezuelan flag: the Essequibo.
The discussion is a geopolitical legal tangle of thousands of legal and legalistic angles and twists, replete with ideological biases of all kinds, especially when today Venezuela must listen, with bitter sarcasm and without any desire, to arguments as byzantine and trivial from Guyana as the insubstantial and empty one that the Essequibo belongs to it because the Bolivarian nation "had not paid attention to that territory for a long time."
Insubstantial and empty because it corresponds to Venezuela, as indicated by international jurisprudence, what it is and has been embodied in all Venezuelan constitutions, since the first of 1811: the geopolitical space of the General Captaincy of Venezuela.
Today Guyana, displaying the culture inherited from British colonialism, claims sovereignty to extract and negotiate oil that does not belong to it, which it should never have exploited without talking to Venezuela, as indicated in the Geneva Agreement, signed by the two nations in 1966.
Off the coast of Guyana, there are hydrocarbons in the subsoil of its territorial sea. You have total freedom, right and sovereign exercise to industrialize and negotiate it as you see fit. But you must respect the bulk of that stone oil, that Mene, that Devil's Excrement, the gas, the condensate found in the marine subsoil of the Venezuelan Essequibo.
And the Guyanese bourgeoisie, the leaders of the ruling People's Progressive Party, led by President Irfaan Ali, dazzled and enraptured by the chrematistic idea of getting rich with Venezuelan oil, have agreed with ExxonMobil and with it the political support of the United States. .
It is enough to read the ExxonMobil website to realize the intense search, drilling and exploitation activity for high-quality crude found to date in only 18 discoveries made in the Stabroek Block, in the Venezuelan Essequibo territorial sea.
“Gross recoverable resources from the Stabroek block are now estimated at nearly 11.000 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including Liza and other successful exploration wells at Payara, Liza deep, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, Pacora, Longtail, Hammerhead, Pluma, Tilapia, Haimara, Yellowtail, Tripletail and Lau Lau”, says the US oil company.
Faced with such intense oil activity in Venezuelan territory, the suggestion is that the Bolivarian Government should create the subsidiary PDVSA Esequibo with the purpose of exploring, exploiting and producing the resources present there and carefully monitor each movement of Guyana and ExxonMobil. There is a high risk that they are extracting, from Guyana, oil pipelines underneath, the oil found in the Venezuelan marine subsoil that borders the Essequibo.
Analyst Luis Prieto, a specialist in Oil and Natural Gas Business and Conflict Studies, states that the Stabroek oil and gas block is mostly located on the Atlantic coast of Guayana Esequiba (the so-called Claim Zone), while the Roraima Block It is located in the Venezuelan territorial sea, in the projection of the Orinoco Delta.
"Both are demarcated by Guyana in absolute and intentional ignorance of the limits established by the 1966 Geneva Agreement and the designation of Guyana Esequiba as disputed land and maritime space."
"Guyana has brought to international business meetings the allocation and exploitation of said Off Shore areas in the Roraima Block, an area that is not in dispute by the Geneva agreement and that belongs to the Atlantic coast of Venezuela," explains Prieto.
To gain mercantile political solidarity and put stones and obstacles to the just Venezuelan claim, Guyana has handed over its oil industry to the companies ExxonMobil (USA) with 45%; Hess Corporation (USA) with 30% and China National Off Shore Oil Corporation (CHINA) with 25%. Also Shell as a trader and the Canadian CGX in the Pomerroon block closer to the coast of the Essequibo Territory.
Along these lines, Guyana has called for new rounds of oil and gas licenses with an expectation of 25.000 billion in crude oil reserves. It currently produces around 380.000 barrels of oil equivalent, MBPD, and maintains two (02) FPSO wells in operation (Liza Destiny and Liza Unity), while the FPSO "Prosperity" is being repositioned, a new element that seeks to add 200 MBPD. It expects 1.180.000 BPD in 2027.
In its defensive cunning, Guyana recognizes and tries to have the irritable Paris Arbitration Award of 1899 recognized, a legal act in which the US swept under the rug the Monroe Doctrine, that of America for the Americans, and representing Venezuela, without our presence , ceded Guayana Esequiba to Great Britain, a territory of almost 166.000 square km, similar to the size of Uruguay.
The fight in Venezuela led to the establishment of the Geneva Agreement between Venezuela and Great Britain in 1966 (since Guyana was still part of its colonies), which provides for maintaining the territory of Guayana Esequiba in dispute without ceding to Guyana or Venezuela the sovereignty of it. This pact is the only one that Venezuela recognizes, since it sovereignly represented the nation. That same year, after the Geneva agreement, Great Britain admits the independence of Guyana.
Since 2018, the International Court of Justice has heard the case in dispute between Guyana and Venezuela over the Essequibo Territory. Prieto points out that the International Court of Justice decided in April 2023 to bring the dispute between Guyana and Venezuela to trial, this time without the participation of Great Britain, since today both nations, Venezuela and Guyana, are sovereign.
Regarding the maritime territory, Venezuela has an Atlantic front projected by the mouth in the Orinoco Delta, which extends to international waters between Trinidad & Tobago and the projection of the Essequibo Territory.
However, Guyana ignores the terms of the Geneva Agreement, adheres to the Paris Agreement of 1899 and makes use of the Atlantic front of the Essequibo territory, projecting a straight coastal line through the Orinoco Delta that eliminates the Venezuelan territorial sea in that area. On it, it carries out exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.
The analyst denounces that the expenses in the international instances of Guyana are paid for by ExxonMobil, a company known for a large international lobby in favor of its devouring interests.
“In 2007, ExxonMobil decided not to participate in the Joint Venture schemes contemplated in the Venezuelan legislation enacted in 2002, the year in which the new law was enacted “coincided” with the political crisis that led to a coup d’état and an oil strike. This North American transnational has been the main promoter against Venezuela for the implementation of unilateral Coercive Measures by the North American government and others.”
“The great task that the national representation has in the trial for the recovery of the Essequibo Territory is to enforce the historical right of Venezuela and subsequently obtain compensation from Guyana due to the extraction of hydrocarbon resources, both on our Atlantic coast, recognized internationally, as in the one generated by our Essequibo Territory. This could lead to the bankruptcy of the entire Guyanese productive apparatus if the "Uti Possidetis" of the Captaincy General of Venezuela is complied with."
So far, the 14 blocks offered by Guyana, with 25.000 million barrels at stake, at a cost of 60 dollars per barrel, would be 1.500.000 MMUSD, without quantifying until now the relative to Natural Gas.
Guyana tries to make the interests of transnational companies prevail over the sovereign interest of Venezuela. Guyana and ExxonMobil must compensate Venezuela for the equivalent of the cost of the oil extracted from the Essequibo.
