Guyana’s membership of EITI is necessary but not sufficient

Introduction Today’s article brings to a conclusion the three-part series of columns that have been reviewing Guyana’s proposed membership of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Similar to my earlier examination and assessment of government’s proposed establishment of a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), Guyana’s deliberative effort to secure membership of the EITI is undoubtedly a…

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Preparing for oil: More on Guyana seeking membership of the Extractive Industries Initiative

Today’s column continues the discussion of Guyana’s long declared policy option of seeking membership of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) as a cornerstone of its approach to governance of the fast approaching time of oil and gas production and export. Last week’s column had started the discussion, but regrettably, due to space, constraints, gaps…

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Preparing for Guyana’s oil & gas industry: Membership of the Extractive Industries Initiative (EITI)

Introduction Last Sunday’s column completed my presentation of ten lessons which I have argued the Guyanese authorities can profitably learn from a studied appraisal of worldwide experiences with oil-based sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) over the past six decades. As I had indicated at the start of that presentation on the lessons to be learnt, after…

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Guyana: More lessons gathered from global experiences with Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF)

Today’s column continues the presentation of lessons Guyana can learn from global experiences with oil and gas-based SWFs. Two further lessons (4 and 5) are added to the three which were presented last week. Lessons 4 and 5 focus respectively, on national objectives and design rules. Lesson 4 (Schedule 4) Schedule 4 lists seven national…

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Guyana’s oil & gas: Drawing lessons for its intended Sovereign Wealth Fund

Today’s column attempts to draw lessons from global experiences with Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), operating in the oil and natural gas sector. This effort is intended to aid my ongoing examination of Guyana’s impending development of a robust oil and natural gas sector. Today, such SWFs constitute an important  subset of SWFs found in the…

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Aspects of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Guyana-type economies

Following last week’s discussion of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) as a mechanism for avoiding and/or controlling the triad of crises typically associated with booms in oil and gas export revenues, I describe below the Government of Guyana’s declared intention with regards to its own SWF. Recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources has declared Guyana’s SWF…

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Guyana’s Sovereign Wealth Fund: Safeguarding against the triad of oil & gas export-led crises

Introduction In last week’s column I had advanced the opinion that there were three policy priorities seemingly driving government’s approach to the development of the oil and gas sector. If taken in their widest meaning, these priorities can be said to represent the overwhelming bulk of government’s policy concerns, as publicly indicated to date. To…

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From Guyana’s oil and gas discovery to production: Delays, stranded assets and all that

Introduction There has been a veritable spate of commercial oil and gas discoveries since the 2000s. In its 2016 Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank had indicated that over recent years there have been signs of this flagging among developing countries. This circumstance has raised concerns, as delays in oil projects are always problematic…

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