– Govt. confirms failure to agree on sole expert
(Kaieteur News) – More than five years after a British consultant flagged the misuse of US$214 million of Guyana’s oil money by ExxonMobil, the stalemate has landed before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
This was confirmed by Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat in a brief telephone interview with Kaieteur News on Tuesday. The minister told this publication, “Yes the ICC will make a decision on a sole expert.”
The two sides were unable to agree to a sole expert to resolve the dispute on the first audit of US$1.6 billion in expenses racked up by Exxon during the period 1999 to 2017.
Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat
As such, Bharrat said the procedure laid out in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) has been followed where the two parties are currently before the international body awaiting the appointment of a sole expert to determine the way forward on the US$214 million dispute.
He was unable to state how soon a decision from the body is likely. “It’s already with the ICC. We have to wait on them. No fixed timeframe as yet,” Bharrat added.
In June this year, Exxon’s vice president and business services manager, John Colling hinted that the dispute may land before the ICC.
Colling said, “So we’re in discussion currently with the government of Guyana regarding the selection of the sole expert. We have not yet landed on a sole expert but have discussed a process to ultimately arrive at one.”
As such, he noted, “If we’re unable to arrive at a mutual selection, that can be referred to the ICC to make the selection, which very well may be the next step in the process.”
The discussions to appoint a sole expert have been ongoing between the two sides for over a year now. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo during a press conference in September 2024, disclosed that the time for discussions over the US$214 million disputed expenses of Exxon had expired, triggering the next step stipulated under the PSA.
“We now have to trigger the provisions under the PSA. Which means some form of a mediated settlement or arbitration. So, we have gone past the issue of clarifying between the two parties’ costs. We have a dispute over $214 million that should not be part of the cost bank,” the chief policymaker for the sector said.
Exxon said the two parties have been working diligently to find a sole expert acceptable to both sides.
When asked whether Exxon and the government agreed to a timeline to identify the sole expert before proceeding to ICC, Colling said, “We are willing to work with the government as long as it takes to bring this matter to resolution. I think ultimately all parties would like to move forward.”
He maintained, “As sole experts are considered they must meet a number of qualifications that are acceptable to both parties and certainly objectivity is one of them so that is one of the criteria that we are discussing with the government as well as relevant experience which is another key factor.”
The US$214 million in question was flagged by the British Consultant, IHS-Markit, in an audit conducted of Exxon’s expenses incurred between 1999 and 2017. Exxon submitted a bill of US$1.6 billion to Guyana for the period.
The audit report was completed and handed over to the GoG since March 2021. The consultant advised that “GoG has reasonable grounds to dispute $214.4 million plus overhead adjustments of the costs currently included by EEPGL (now EMGL) in the cost bank. This amount represents 12.8% of the cumulative cost recovery balance as of Q4 2017 Statement.”
Sole expert and the PSA
Article 26 of the Petroleum Agreement states that if the parties fail to agree on a sole expert within 30 days, such expert shall be appointed by the ICC in accordance with its rules for the appointment of experts and neutrals.
That timeline has long expired with some stakeholders accusing government of dragging its feet on the matter.
The oil contract states at Article 26.10 “…the parties shall cooperate fully in the expeditious conduct of such expert determination and provide the expert with access to all facilities, books, records, documents, information and personnel necessary to make a fully informed decision in an expeditious manner. The sole expert shall act as an expert and not as an arbitrator or mediator, and shall endeavour to provide an opinion on the dispute within thirty (30) days of his appointment, but no later than sixty (60) days after his appointment…”
While the first audit drags on, two other audits of the company still remain to be concluded as well. The second audit, for the period 2018 to 2020 was conducted by VHE consulting. The local audit team found that another US$65 million of the US$7.2 billion in expenses was incorrectly charged to Guyana.
Questions still remain on whether the full report was published by the GoG for the US$7.2 billion audit. Meanwhile Exxon’s third and largest audit, on record to date, amounts to a whopping US$19.6 billion. It was conducted by the same local group, VHE. Although government received that report since May 2025, it has refused to make the document public. The administration is also not inclined to highlight the disputed costs flagged by the auditors.
Source: Kaieteur News
