Best of luck with their new oil find - from Axios Journal:
Out of nothing, a new petro-state
On the coast of South America, just north of Brazil, lies the obscure and impoverished former British colony of Guyana, distantly remembered for a bizarre mass suicide four decades ago that begot the term "drinking the Kool-Aid."
But today, the discovery of a massive trove of oil off its shores, including two finds just this week, put Guyana on the cusp of becoming one of the world's wealthiest nations, in the league of petro-states like Qatar.
What's worrying the experts:
Guyana seems wholly unprepared for the avalanche of cash coming its way. It's in political turmoil, with no plan in place for how to marshal and distribute the money among a population of just 780,000 people.
The exploration and production deal with ExxonMobil is one of the most one-sided in frontier oil, heavily favoring the company with about a 50-50 split. That makes it rife for future political discontent and local demands for renegotiation. (In the former Soviet Union — arguably a wilder and more costly frontier — the typical split is 80-20, favoring the country.)
"There is no way the explosion of money will be managed properly," says Amy Myers Jaffe, director of energy security at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Here you take this poverty-stricken country and make them Qatar in three years."
Guyana would be looking at $5 Billion in cash every year. They are woefully unprepared for this. I really hope that they are able to deal with it and not morph into some bannana republic.
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