Jul 05, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – Neither the vision nor the objective, not intended to be the practice. It is not to extract and leave. It is to build Guyana. That is very pleasing to hear from anyone. It rings more inspiringly coming from the U.S. Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot. The ambassador was celebrating the 250th anniversary of Independence for her country by reassuring all who would listen in this country. “U.S. companies are not just here to extract and leave like some other countries.”

It seems that Ambassador Theriot is a student with her own logic, one who is more at home with contradiction. For one, U.S. oil giant, ExxonMobil, would be foolish to leave. Its extraction rate is spiraling, with no end to spiraling oil production decades into the future. Which company, American or other, would leave under such circumstances? Would ExxonMobil leave after a mere six years of exploitation of Guyana’s rich oil fields with another 40 years, at a minimum, of premium oil production to go? We at this paper have a duty to remind the ambassador of these inconvenient truths. A duty that becomes more pronounced with Chevron, another U.S. oil giant, now part of the great oil boom in Guyana. The company spent US$53B to get its foot into the rich acreage of Guyana’s Stabroek Block. It follows, therefore, that its presence, like that of ExxonMobil, is guaranteed to continue for decades to come. Hawklike Venezuelans, should they surface, could not get the Americans away from Guyana’s big gusher, the Stabroek Block.