Rohee slams Bloomberg oil exploration report
The Essequibo belongs to Guyana and if we give concessions to anyone to exploit the country's resources we expect them to do so. This was the reaction of Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee, when asked yesterday at a press conference he hosted to comment on an October 8, report from Caracas by the Bloomberg News Agency. The Bloomberg report quoted Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jose Vicente Rangel, as saying that the oil companies granted permission to explore for oil offshore of Guyana had agreed to suspend their operations until Venezuela's claim to the Essequibo region had been settled. It echoed reports which had been carried by the Venezuelan daily, El Nacional. Rangel is also reported as saying that a settlement could involve an agreement to share the resources of the area being claimed by Venezuela. However, Rohee asserted that he knew of no agreement which provided for the non-exploitation of the resources of the Essequibo nor of proposals to share the resources to be exploited with Venezuela. Earlier this year, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, had indicated the possibility of the wrong boundary markers being used when delineating the oil exploration concessions and that the mistake might have led to the operations of the companies taking place in Venezuela's territorial waters. The concessions involved are those granted to Century Offshore Management Corporation, a subsidiary of Exxon Corporation and Maxus Energy Corporation. "My understanding is that the GGMC, in giving out the oil exploration licences, neglected to utilise the approved boundary markers and that some other representation [was made] of where the boundary markers are between Guyana and Venezuela," Dr Luncheon had said. Rangel had protested to then UN Good Officer, Sir Alister McIntyre, about the concessions granted by Guyana. The reports in El Nacional claimed that the operations of Century had penetrated the maritime area off the Delta Amacuro. It also reported that Rangel had urged the Venezuelan Energy Minister, Ali Rodriguez Araque, to contact Exxon expressing the country's deep concern and the position it had taken on the matter. The El Nacional report said too at the time that shortly before leaving for Germany and Italy with Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, Rangel had said that one of the oil companies had agreed to re-examine its agreement with Guyana in the light of the concern and position taken by Venezuela.
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