Guyana Has Received Significantly Lower Oil Income Compared To The Oil Company

By Darsh Khusial

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, June 22, 2025: On Monday, June 16th, during an interview of Christopher Ram on a prominent Guyanese social media platform, outrageous claims were made by one of the co-hosts, a columnist for the Guyana Chronicle. The Chronicle columnist claimed that Guyana has received US$13 billion in oil income and that Guyana had received more than the oil consortium (the subsidiaries of ExxonMobil, Hess, and CNOOC that are registered in Guyana) to date. These claims seemed to have been pulled out of thin air, so we checked the Bank of Guyana Natural Resource Fund (NRF) statements and the oil companies’ financials. The graph below shows the year-by-year details of Guyana’s oil income versus the three named oil companies’ declared pre-tax profits; an interactive version of this chart can be found here.

The oil companies’ pre-tax profits consistently exceed Guyana’s income by a factor of 3-5x since 2021. Guyana’s cumulative income amounts to US$6.28 billion—half of what was claimed by the Chronicle columnist. The oil companies’ total pre-tax profits amount to US$29 billion, a figure that is more than 4 times the amount Guyana has received to date.

The Stabroek Oil Contract states that the profit share between Guyana and the oil companies should be 50/50. The total oil profits Guyana has received to date is US$5.5 billion, whereas the pre-tax oil profits reported by the oil companies are US$29 billion. The oil companies don’t pay taxes! How is this a 50/50 profit share?

It is very disturbing that claims are being made which seem to be skewed toward fooling the Guyanese people into believing that they are receiving a fair deal even with the contract as written.

EDITOR’S NOTE: EDITOR’S NOTE: Darshanand Khusial is an executive OGGN Other executive members include Alfred Bhulai, Andre Brandli, Janette Bulkan and Joe Persaud.