Guyana beefs up military presence on Venezuela border

Guyana has deployed more army troops along its disputed border with Venezuela amid a flare-up in tensions.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last week vowed to"reconquer" the resource-rich Essequibo province where ExxonMobil is developing a giant offshore oil field. The Essequibo covers the western two-thirds of Guyana.

The enhanced Guyanese deployment follows a government agreement with the US to improve its military capacity, as the two countries' coast guards conducted joint exercises.

The UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) today is determining a schedule for arbitrating Guyana's request for validation of its border with Venezuela that has been in dispute for 120 years. Caracas maintains the ICJ has no jurisdiction in the matter and says the Essequibo province is its territory.

The ICJ could rule on the matter "in two to three and a half years," Guyana's agent to the court Carl Greenidge said.

"We have changed our postures on the border," the head of Guyana's army Godfrey Bess said 13 January. "We are more alert and ready to constitutionally continue to preserve Guyana's patrimony."

Bess had said in November 2020 that foreign forces will never again be allowed to "target" the country's oil exploration and production operations.

Venezuela's navy in 2013 briefly seized a research vessel working in the Roraima block under contract from US independent Anadarko. And in December 2018, ExxonMobil suspended seismic surveys on a part of its acreage license after a research vessel it contracted was approached by a Venezuelan navy ship.

Canada, the Organization of American States (OAS), regional trade group Caricom and Guyana's opposition have joined the US in rejecting Maduro's intention to seize the Essequibo province.

The border dispute involves a part of the deepwater Stabroek block on which ExxonMobil has made several discoveries since 2015, estimating recoverable resources of 9bn bl oil equivalent boe), and from which it is producing 120,000 b/d of light crude.

The US major forecasts 750,000 b/d of oil production from Guyana in 2026.

By Canute James