Guyana had a strong bargaining position when the contract came up for renegotiation in 2016 because Exxon had just made a giant offshore oil discovery, but “inexperienced” bureaucrats failed to press for substantially better fiscal terms, Global Witness said in a report... Government officials were more concerned with a maritime border dispute with Venezuela than negotiating better terms, the group said... “We have complied with applicable laws at each step of the exploration, appraisal and development stages, anything to the contrary is baseless and without merit,” Exxon said in an email.

... The report is likely to re-ignite debate over which political party is best suited to manage the country’s new-found oil wealth just weeks before national elections.