(Kaieteur News) – Chartered Accountant and attorney Christopher Ram has strongly criticised the financial reporting of the ExxonMobil-led Stabroek Block consortium accusing the oil giant and its partners of producing financial statements riddled with omissions and inconsistencies that obscure the true economics of Guyana’s oil industry.

In one of his recent installments of his Road to First Oil column, Ram argues that the accounts of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, Hess Corporation and CNOOC, despite covering the same oil block, the same petroleum agreement and being audited by the same firm, fail to tell a consistent story.

He contends that the discrepancies are so fundamental that they raise serious questions about how the companies received clean audit opinions.