{"id":33135,"date":"2023-05-04T00:52:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T00:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/exxon-guyanas-environmental-agency\/"},"modified":"2023-05-04T00:53:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T00:53:34","slug":"exxon-guyanas-environmental-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/exxon-guyanas-environmental-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Exxon, Guyana&#8217;s environmental agency in breach of oil-spill insurance -court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Kiana Wilburg<\/p>\n<p>GEORGETOWN (Reuters) -An Exxon Mobil unit is in breach of insurance obligations for its first offshore oil project in Guyana in part due to errors by the environmental regulator, a Guyanese court ruled on Wednesday, a decision the government rejected.<\/p>\n<p>Exxon &#8220;engaged in a disingenuous attempt&#8221; to dilute its obligations under its environmental permit for Liza One, the project that inaugurated Guyana&#8217;s oil production in 2019, High Court Justice Sandil Kissoon said in the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>An Exxon-led consortium that includes U.S. oil firm Hess and China&#8217;s CNOOC is producing about 380,000 barrels of oil per day &#8211; the South American nation&#8217;s entire crude output. <\/p>\n<p>Guyana&#8217;s Environmental Protection Agency and the energy ministry so far has approved five offshore oil and gas projects submitted by the group.    <\/p>\n<p>Liza One&#8217;s environmental permit requires the provision of two forms of insurance coverage, one from the affiliate that stands at $600 million in case of an oil spill, and a parent guarantee committing to cover all costs beyond the $600 million threshold.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kissoon&#8217;s ruling, Exxon must furnish Guyanese authorities with a liability agreement from an insurance company by June 10, or the Liza One environmental permit will be suspended. The agreement would cover potential damages from incidents including spills.<\/p>\n<p>The company &#8220;engaged in a course of action made permissible only by the omissions of a derelict, pliant, and submissive Environmental Protection Agency,&#8221; the judge wrote.     <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ruling is what it is and we will comply at this time,&#8221; a spokesperson for the EPA said. <\/p>\n<p>Exxon is reviewing the court decision and evaluating next steps, a company spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>The government said the ruling breached its statutory duty by failing to enforce compliance by Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, and that the &#8220;Judge fell into error in his findings.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The ruling will be appealed and orders sought to suspend the judgment, the government said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Kiana Wilburg in Georgetown; additional reporting by Sabrina Valle; editing by Grant McCool)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/exxon-guyanas-environmental-agency\/file-photo-illustration-shows-exxon-mobil-logo-and-stock-graph\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420V7-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420V7-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kiana Wilburg GEORGETOWN (Reuters) -An Exxon Mobil unit is in breach of insurance obligations for its first offshore oil project in Guyana in part due to errors by the environmental regulator, a Guyanese court ruled on Wednesday, a decision the government rejected. Exxon &#8220;engaged in a disingenuous attempt&#8221; to dilute its obligations under its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-33135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420V7-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33436,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33135\/revisions\/33436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}