Almost a year after releasing a stinging report on Guyana’s oil industry and the contracts that were signed with major companies, international non-governmental organisation, Global Witness has withdrawn the report completely.

The report was issued weeks before the national elections in Guyana. The contents of the report were used in the political campaign and also formed the basis for months of discussions in the press on Guyana’s oil industry and the management of the industry by the former Government.

But in withdrawing its report today, Global Witness said the February 2020 report titled “Signed Away”, is not consistent with the focus on the climate change crisis and its impact.

The international body said it is for that reason that the group has decided to remove the report from its website and stop using it in its campaigning work.

“We regret any unintended negative consequences arising from the report, including its stifling of debate within Guyana around actions to address climate change”, Global Witness said in a press statement.

The body noted that since it started its work in 1993, it has sought to end the environmental destruction that harms so many people around the world – holding the powerful to account while advocating for people who have lost their livelihoods or lives.

The organization noted that as the destructive impacts of the climate crisis have become more acute, it has become clear that its work needs to change.

“It is no longer enough for Global Witness to demand that oil and gas businesses operate in a more transparent and accountable manner. We firmly believe that to save the climate, we need to work with others to achieve a just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuel extraction. To do this, we need to elevate the voices of activists fighting the forces driving the climate breakdown around the world”.

Global Witness said its report focused on how much revenue Guyana could obtain from oil if the government negotiated a fairer deal with oil major Exxon.

It added that its revenue analysis assumed that the Paris Agreement climate commitments would not be implemented – leading to an overestimation of the amount of oil Guyana would likely produce and the value of that oil.

“Under the new organisational strategy we have rolled out this year, this is not a scenario that we would accept because greenhouse gases have to fall by half over the next decade, for the sake of the planet and all of us living on it.”

The group also noted that since its publication, oil prices have dropped by more than a third and as COVID-19 continues to depress demand for fossil fuels and as countries implement policies to restrict the use of fossil fuels in order to tackle climate change, the prospects for sustainable income generation from new oil projects are increasingly questionable.

“These factors led us to overestimate the potential economic benefit of oil extraction. Based on feedback from civil society representatives in Guyana, we recognise that our report has made it harder for them to argue the case for cessation of oil production in their country”, the body said.

Global Witness, however, made it clear that its decision to withdraw “Signed Away” is not an endorsement of the way Exxon or Guyanese officials negotiated the oil licences awarded to the company.

“We stand by the integrity of the evidence we have presented. We also stand by the fiscal model produced by OpenOil that was commissioned by Global Witness. Expert, transparent, and instructive, OpenOil’s work and its fiscal model are standard-setting”, it noted.

The group also said it remains supportive of those who have been working to increase accountability around Guyana’s oil deals.

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