Gov’t ‘not going back’ on oil contract and that’s final: Harmon

The Government has made it pellucid that it will not renegotiate the terms of the petroleum contract signed with ExxonMobil and its partners.

There has been heavy criticisms of the petroleum contract, even from the President’s own petroleum advisor that the 2% royalty and the tax regime fall short of similar contracts internationally, but the Government will not move to renegotiate the terms of the agreement and that was made clear by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon.

“The President has said that we have dealt with the ExxonMobil contract; we are not going back on it.

“It was dealt with at Cabinet and the President has pronounced on the matter and that is the final pronouncement as far as we are concerned,” Harmon said Thursday at his post-Cabinet press briefing.

Harmon would not be dragged into the nitty, gritty of the contract, and had this to say about how the Government was addressing concerns: “There are matters which have [arisen] and we will be guided by international experts and what is best practice going forward.”

“We are looking at going forward, we are looking at the benefits to be accrued from this contract and from all future contracts,” he added.

Without a Petroleum Commission and a Sovereign Wealth fund to manage revenues just two years away from first oil, Minister Harmon said that the Government is confident of retaining the seat of government at the 2020 elections and so has been strategizing on how to spend the oil revenues, with a focus on infrastructure, large scale agriculture, and other priority sectors.

ExxonMobil and its partners expect to start producing about 120, 000 barrels of oil per day from the first quarter of 2020.