The trio of activists say they have gathered evidence of illegal activities using satellite images. In April 2021, they alerted the Guyana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which oversees and licenses the nation’s oil industry.

One month after the complaint, the EPA revised the oil company’s environmental permit, extending the allowable flaring period from three to 60 consecutive days. The revised permit levies a US$45 charge for each ton of emitted CO2.

When the incident was revealed in August 2021, millions of cubic meters of gas had already been flared. In court, Esso attributed the flaring to a mechanical failure in the gas compression system.

The process has lacked transparency, activists say. For months, lawyer Melinda Janki—who represented the environmentalists in the lawsuit against Esso and played a key role in drafting Guyana’s environmental legislation in 1996—has unsuccessfully sought information about the case’s progress. Confronted with the judicial system’s opacity, she and the activists released a manifesto demanding an urgent decision in a case that directly affects Guyana’s environmental and social future.

The president of Guyana’s Supreme Court, Roxanne George, eventually issued a ruling in favor of the oil company. “It has not been proven that the modification of the license has caused or is causing additional adverse effects on the environment,” she said in 2023. “There is nothing in the law that prevents the issuance of a modified permit.” 

“Now the government is basically saying, ‘Pollute as much as you want, provided you can pay for it,’” says Vincent Adams, a former director of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency and an official at the U.S. Department of Energy for 30 years.

When he assumed leadership of the Guyanese agency in 2018, Adams says he inherited an institution ill-equipped to regulate the oil industry: “There wasn’t even one engineer trained in oil.” He recalls the agency functioned merely as a “rubber stamp” for requests from ExxonMobil and its partners.

In 2020, when Esso sought a license for the Payara field — the country’s third oil project — Adams says he demanded financial guarantees for environmental damages: It is a financial guarantee from the company to the government, specifying the amount the company would pay as compensation for environmental damage, such as an oil spill., unlike in the two previous projects. According to the expert, the environmental studies submitted for the licensing of all three projects—which were nearly identical—suggested that an oil spill in the region could potentially affect the entire Venezuelan coastline and reach several Caribbean nations, extending as far as Jamaica.

Adams left the agency in August 2020, with the change of government in Guyana, and recalls that only a month later the licenses were granted. “When I left, they took over,” says the engineer, who has since become one of the main critics of the current oil exploration model in the country.

Guyana’s oil exploration controversies predate the granting of licenses, extending back to the initial negotiations. After ExxonMobil discovered the first reserve in the country in 2015, the government had to create the Stabroek Block’s profit-sharing contract from the ground up, including deadlines and percentages for both profit distribution and cost recovery.

The agreement between Esso and Guyana was negotiated privately in 2016 and remained undisclosed until 2017. Only made public after strong external pressure, the contract has faced intense criticism from experts and political figures alike.

The contract stipulates that up to 75% of the monthly gross revenue from the block’s extraction will cover the companies’ development and operating expenses. The remaining amount is split equally between the Guyanese government and the consortium, granting Guyana a 12.5% revenue share.

The agreement also sets a two percent royalty rate on the value of oil sold, lower than rates in other countries. While rates in Brazil can reach 15 percent, the U.S. recently updated its royalty rate for exploration on public lands to over 16 percent.

A report by the U.S. financial research institute Ieefa highlights that the contract imposes unfavorable on Guyana, enabling oil companies to reclaim their expenses excessively. The document also reveals “hidden debts” within the agreement and cautions that the public treasury is shouldering an undue tax burden. According to the report, from 2019 to 2021, oil companies received US$3.6 billion, whereas Guyana received only US$607 million—a six to one ratio favoring the companies.

“It’s a very bad contract that deprives us of a lot of resources,” said Guyana’s former president, Donald Ramotar. During his tenure from 2011 to 2015, ExxonMobil conducted surveys off the country’s coast, resulting in the first major discovery.

While he shares the same political affiliation as President Irfaan Ali, he s revising the contract clauses. Ali acknowledges the agreement’s unfavorable but insists that the “sanctity of the contract” must be upheld.

The president has vowed to negotiate improved for future contracts. However, this promise might be inconsequential. All of ExxonMobil’s planned production fields are located within the Stabroek Block, which remains protected under the 2016 contract.

Georgetown Mayor Alfred Mentore, Ali’s opponent, emphasizes the review hinges on political will. “With the help of good lawyers, reaching a consensus is possible,” he says.

While not against exploration, he calls for a more balanced approach: “We need to find a balance between our impact on the environment and how we deal with development.”

Frederick Collins, president of the Guyanese anti-corruption organization Transparency Institute, is another staunch opponent of the contract.  His organization has published several analyses detailing its flaws in the country’s newspapers.

Collins described the agreement as “strongly favorable to Exxon” and criticized the government’s decision to keep it confidential. What stood out to him most, however, was the EPA’s failure to require financial guarantees for potential leaks.

Collins pursued legal action and emerged victorious. In May 2023, Guyana’s Supreme Court underscored the critical need for financial assurances in the country’s oil exploration activities. The court concluded that the EPA had shown “complacency and submission, placing the nation and its people in grave danger of a calamitous disaster.”Esso and the Guyanese government appealed the ruling. The EPA, in its appeal, estimated the cost of coverage for potential environmental damage at US$2 billion.  In June, the appeals court agreed, and suspended the previous decision.

Collins called the sum derisory to address the oil spill’s impact. He cited the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, which resulted in BP and its insurers paying $69 billion in reparations.

In 2024, Esso faced another court summons on suspicion of inflating the value of oil well equipment, potentially shortchanging the Guyanese government on profits.  The Internal Revenue Service alleges the company declared US$12 billion for machinery that actually cost less than US$5 million.

In a statement to Guyanese newspapers, the oil company said the equipment importer committed an “istrative error,” though it did not lead to any governmental loss. In court, Esso denied any liability for the incident, but the case remains unresolved.

We have repeatedly reached out to ExxonMobil and its subsidiary in Guyana, Esso, but received no response to interview requests. We also sent inquiries to oil companies Hess and CNOOC, but as of the publication of this article, we had not received a reply. The Guyanese government was also ed but did not comment. 

Coastal and Indigenous communities near Georgetown are divided and apprehensive about the expanding oil industry. In Hope Beach, 25 kilometers from Georgetown, sits a graveyard of abandoned boats. “They were used for fishing,” says fisherman Amran Samad, “but people put them up for sale and nobody wanted to buy them.” 

Oil extraction has disrupted local fishing, according to locals.  They report that heavy ship traffic and vibrations from offshore operations drive away shoals.  Meanwhile, an influx of cheap imported fish, linked to the arrival of more foreigners, has intensified competition and reduced demand for the local catch.

In the community of Anna Regina, 60 kilometers from the capital, a sign reads, “The mangroves protect us and our products from the sea. Let’s protect them.”

There, Doodneith Mdehnai, who runs a small stall selling vegetables and fish, shares mixed emotions. “I think oil is good because it brings money and jobs,” he says. However, he hesitated when considering the potential environmental impact: “The mangrove is our source of life. If a spill hits the mangrove, it will wipe it all out.”

In St. Denny’s, an Indigenous community, 100 kilometers from Georgetown, Councilor Donnet Frederick showcased a vegetable greenhouse funded by carbon credit sales.

“Our community received 80 million Guyanese dollars ($400,000) from carbon credit projects. This money was used to create a farm, build a greenhouse and renew our production,” he says.

In December 2022, Guyana signed an agreement with Hess Corporation, part of the ExxonMobil-led consortium, to sell 37.5 million carbon credits over a decade.  This project is potentially the first carbon credit program on the voluntary market on a national scale.

The project encomes all of the country’s forests, spanning 180,000 square kilometers and covering nearly 90 percent of the country’s territory. They are home to its Indigenous communities, who comprise 10 percent of the population. By 2032, Hess is required to pay the Guyanese government a total of US$750 million, with a commitment that 15 percent of the funds will be allocated to traditional communities.

But Indigenous leader Mario Hastings claims that the communities were seduced by financial promises and were not properly consulted about the project. 

Hastings served for several years as the chief (toshao) of the Kako village in the Essequibo region, an area recently embroiled in a territorial dispute with Venezuela. He said that in 2022, while still in office, he participated in a Toshao Council meeting in the capital, where the carbon project proposal was introduced.

“We received numerous pages in English, filled with technical jargon, and they demanded an immediate response,” says Hastings. Guyana’s Indigenous communities primarily speak their native languages, not English, in their daily lives. “We couldn’t present the proposal to our people. I refused, saying I couldn’t do that to my people,” he recalls. Ultimately, Hastings was overruled by the council.

Nicholas Peters, the policy and advocacy coordinator for the Association of Amerindian Peoples (APA), says that Indigenous communities have not been adequately informed about the carbon market project or oil exploration.

“Most coastal communities are unaware of the potential consequences of an oil spill,” says Petters, who advocates for broader community discussions on the topic.

The project proposes using forest carbon credits to offset emissions from Guyana’s oil industry. However, an analysis conducted by the Arayara International Institute for this report reveals that the offset would be largely negated. The forests hold an estimated 4.25 gigatonnes of carbon, equivalent to 15.6 gigatonnes of CO₂. Meanwhile, burning the known oil reserves could release up to 4.09 gigatonnes of CO₂, effectively creating a carbon bomb.

Deforestation and land-use changes have already affected Guyana’s forests and contributed to emissions. If new reserves are discovered, emissions from these activities, combined with those from the production chain, could further strain the environment. 

“The question arises as to whether, in the future, it will be enough to balance this impact,” says Joubert Marques, an environmental engineer at the institute and a scientific consultant for the report.

In 2024, APA and other organizations published a report denouncing violations in the Guyana government’s carbon project. The report highlights that the certification process “violated the safeguards” of Indigenous peoples by including all of the nation’s forests.

“We are now finding out that our forests may be ‘sold’ to the very companies most responsible for climate issues—the oil companies. However, we, Indigenous people, remain unaware of what was signed or agreed upon, as there was no proper consultation,” says Hastings.

The Every Last Drop project has also found that, alongside offshore production, there are onshore exploration areas that overlap with 13 Indigenous territories and one nature reserve in Guyana.

Trevon Baird, a professor at the University of Guyana, challenges the concept of “progress” through carbon credits. “You can’t just pour money into communities without considering the cultural and environmental impacts,” says the anthropologist, who studies the effects of these changes on Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Guyana and the Caribbean.

Indigenous people and vulnerable populations are “easy targets for projects” and will also bear the brunt of climate change, the researcher says.