ExxonMobil Guyana Limited has confirmed that Guyana’s oil revenues are currently being used to repay the cost of the gas pipeline built to transport gas from the Liza Fields offshore to Wales, West Bank Demerara, directly contradicting earlier assurances from both the company and the government that repayment would only begin once the pipeline became operational.
Vice President and Business Services Manager at ExxonMobil Guyana, John Colling, made the admission during a briefing on Tuesday when asked directly whether the country’s oil was being used to pay for the structure. “Yes. We have mentioned this before, the pipeline was charged to the cost bank,” he stated. When pressed on the earlier public explanation that Guyana would purchase gas over a 20-year period to repay the pipeline costs, Colling confirmed that the commercial terms of the agreement specifically allowed for those costs to be recovered through cost recovery. “Those costs were included in the cost bank and are currently to be recovered as part of normal cost recovery,” he said, noting the pipeline appears under “wells and facilities” in the company’s financial statements.
This confirmation stands in direct conflict with assurances previously offered by ExxonMobil Guyana President Alistair Routledge, who had indicated that repayment would only commence when the pipeline becomes operational. The pipeline remains dormant, as the Wales Gas-to-Energy project, which it was built to serve, has not yet been completed. Guyana is therefore currently paying for infrastructure it cannot use, through oil revenues it cannot recover, under contract terms it has refused to publish.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told this publication last month that the gas destined for the power plant is free, stating plainly, “Gas to the power plant is free. You can quote me on that.” Colling’s admission on Tuesday raises immediate and serious questions about the accuracy of that claim, given that cost recovery for the pipeline is already underway regardless of whether a single cubic foot of gas has flowed through it. Former Finance Minister Winston Jordan called on the government to publish the relevant contracts, stating, “We have not seen a single document in relation to this project and so we keep speculating. They can end all the speculation by putting the document in the public domain.”
What makes this admission particularly consequential is the position it places Guyana in financially. Cost recovery under the Stabroek Block production sharing agreement means that the expenses charged to the cost bank are deducted from gross oil revenues before Guyana receives its share. The pipeline, built and charged to that bank while the GTE project remains unfinished and the structure sits idle, is effectively being paid for by reducing the national take from every barrel of oil lifted. Guyanese citizens are financing infrastructure they cannot yet benefit from, through revenue they have not yet received in full, under a contract they have not been allowed to read.
The government that spent years criticising the 2016 Stabroek Block production sharing agreement for its lack of transparency has replicated that same opacity in every agreement associated with the Gas-to-Energy project. The GTE contracts with ExxonMobil, the gas purchase arrangement, the pipeline cost recovery terms, and the Lindsayca construction agreement have all been withheld from the public. Citizens have been forced to piece together the true cost of this project from admissions made under questioning, leaked documents, and contractor financial statements. That is not governance. It is management by concealment.
The broader implication must be stated clearly. If cost recovery for the pipeline is already underway while the GTE project is delayed, overbudget, and embroiled in a contractor dispute that has already cost US$102 million in settlement payments, then every additional month of delay is not simply an inconvenience. It is a compounding financial loss extracted directly from Guyana’s oil revenues. The government owes citizens a full accounting: how much has been drawn from the cost bank for the pipeline to date, what the projected total recovery cost is, when that recovery is expected to be complete, and whether the 20-year gas purchase agreement exists in addition to or instead of the cost recovery arrangement. Publishing the contracts would answer all of these questions. The continued refusal to do so answers a different one.
SOURCE: Kaieteur News, “Exxon admits to grabbing Guyana’s oil profits to pay for gas pipeline,” June 13, 2026
