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Drilled

S8 Bonus: A Verdict

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The day after our season finale last week, we got some incredible news from Guyana: the High Court ruled against the oil company and the government in the big insurance case Melinda Janki filed. We caught up with Janki shortly after the verdict was released for this conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Amy Westervelt.

0:09.3

This week there was some huge news related to our most recent season in Guyana.

0:16.3

A verdict came through on one of the cases that we covered, the one that Melinda Janky

0:21.5

filed that had to do with insurance, and particularly with something called financial assurance.

0:29.3

The case argued that Guyana's Environmental Protection Agency, its EPA, had failed to

0:35.6

require proof from SOX on subsidiary in Guyana, and from ExxonMobil itself of the sort

0:45.0

of liability coverage needed for a risky offshore oil project, like the one that's happening

0:51.6

offshore Guyana right now.

0:54.3

The law asks not only for an insurance policy from the local operator, but also for an unlimited

1:02.6

guarantee from the parent company, in this case ExxonMobil, that it will cover any damages

1:09.6

related to the particular activity that's being permitted, in this case oil drilling.

1:16.1

Part of the argument was that an oil spill offshore Guyana would not only impact Guyana,

1:21.6

but could potentially impact multiple other countries nearby.

1:25.2

In fact, Exxon's own environmental impact assessment for its most recent well indicated

1:31.2

that a massive oil spill offshore Guyana could impact up to 14 Caribbean countries.

1:38.4

Those are all countries that depend on fishing and tourism for their economies.

1:43.3

What this case argued was that the government was allowing Exxon to ramp up production

1:48.1

quickly to get around certain permitting requirements, while also not requiring that

1:55.9

it have this level of liability coverage, opening up the country of Guyana to enormous

2:01.3

financial risk, because imagine if there was a deep water offshore blowout, and it did

2:07.9

impact 14 Caribbean countries, where would those countries go looking to cover those

2:14.0

damages? If there was no policy in place requiring Exxon to pay for those damages, those

...

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