Aug 24, 2026 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, was proud to say it, set himself up for good things. The company’s US$55B investment in Guyana’s oilfields has been repaid. That is great for ExxonMobil, something worth boasting about, especially when that achievement was two years in advance. What about Guyana, what did it get paid in? Was it the highest form of auditing ability and expertise, or is it something still to be fully settled? We do not know, and the verdict of the jury is still being waited on. But the numbers are known, and they do not leave in the best of places.

ExxonMobil took out, grabbed back, its US$55B straight from the top of oil revenues. It was second in line, with only Guyana’s meager 2% royalty ahead of the company. It is a nice arrangement. A still better arrangement finalised with the Guyana Government was what involved audits of that same US$55B investment that was spent. To state frankly, what have been called audits. To make matters simple, ExxonMobil’s US$55B investment can be broken into two tranches. The first tranche was for US$28.5B in the company’s expenses, which were reviewed in three separate audits. The second tranche was for US$26.5B which has not been audited. But what does that matter now, since ExxonMobil has already recovered its entire investment in Guyana?