HGP Nightly News – The former head of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency is demanding that the government open its books on the country’s oil wealth, arguing that key documents detailing the nation’s reserves are being withheld from Guyanese.
Dr. Vincent Adams has issued a pointed call for the release of ExxonMobil’s quarterly reports, the 51 Notices of Discovery filed to date, and the seven Field Development Plans guiding Guyana’s oil production. In a public statement, Adams argued that these documents would settle the growing confusion over the true size of the country’s reserves, a question thrown into sharp relief by Exxon’s 2025 Annual Report.
That report stated that additions to proved reserves included 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent “primarily from the United States and Guyana.” The disclosure raised an obvious question: if Guyana was named as one of only two countries contributing to that increase, how much of the 2.1 billion barrels belongs to Guyana?
The government’s response, Adams said, was evasive. Officials cautioned that Exxon’s shareholder reporting follows U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules and should not be interpreted as a direct statement of Guyana’s national reserves. But Adams dismissed this as a distraction from the central issue.
He pointed to a troubling timeline: the last publicly reported estimate of Guyana’s reserves, 11 billion barrels, was announced in April 2022 following the 30th discovery. Since then, there have been more than twenty additional discoveries, yet no official update has been provided. Independent experts have offered far higher estimates, with some placing Guyana’s reserves at nearly 19 billion barrels.
The contradiction, Adams argued, goes beyond numbers. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo himself has publicly stated that “Exxon may not be telling the truth about Guyana’s oil reserves.” Yet the government continues to rely on the company’s figures while withholding the very documents that could provide clarity.
“These reserves stand for the bank account of all Guyanese, with government as custodian mandated to share account information with the rightful owners,” Adams wrote. He noted that before October 2022, Exxon routinely publicized each discovery, including non-commercial ones. Then the information stopped. “Information blackout started in October 2022 after four additional wells followed the April 2022 announcement, but no update was given,” he said.
The former EPA head urged the government to release the quarterly reports, Notices of Discovery, and Field Development Plans immediately. He explained that the Notices of Discovery contain the analyses and results of each of the 51 discoveries, while the Field Development Plans comprise the planning details of each project, with quarterly reports providing performance updates.
Adams made clear that this information is not proprietary. And he rejected any suggestion that the documents are too complex for public consumption. “If the government wishes to regain any hint of credibility and seriousness akin to their acclaim of transparency, they must keep the promise to not withhold any information by releasing these documents,” he wrote.
