hub in Georgetown. He has no doubt that Guyana needs to
embrace Exxon’s plans for Stabroek oil. “Damn it,” he says. “Get
it out of the ground.”
Somebody has written a message on a whiteboard at Guyana
Shore Base that reflects Mangal’s attitude. It reads, “Don’t obsess
over who’s baking the cake. Figure out how to get a slice.”
Lars’s younger brother, Jan, would almost certainly take issue
with that. Jan Mangal, who also has a long track record in the oil
industry, has become a leading critic of exploration deals that
Exxon and other companies cut with the government.
Jan, 49, worked at Chevron Corp. for 13 years after earning
a doctorate in engineering at the University of Oxford. He became
Granger’s energy adviser in 2017. From the start, he clashed with
ministers who unsuccessfully resisted his call to have all of the
country’s oil contracts published and open to public scrutiny. He
didn’t last long in the role, leaving after a year when his contract
wasn’t renewed. He’s now a consultant.
“Corruption is the main reason why countries like Guyana
fail with oil and gas,” Jan says. “It undermines everything.” He
says that Guyana didn’t get a fair deal from Exxon—he calls it a
dated, “colonial contract”—and that other leases have been
awarded without due process, potentially costing the countryHess Corp. and China’s state-backed Cnooc Ltd., handing them
30% and 25% stakes, respectively, in exchange for sharing drill-
ing costs.
When Exxon began drilling the wildcat well Liza-1 in March
2015, Guyana was just a couple months away from a general elec-
tion. On May 20, four days after Granger emerged as the surprise
winner, Exxon announced it had struck oil.
The timeline would later prove controversial and become
a focus of the SARA investigation. But one thing was clear: Oil
was coming.
WHEN LIZA-1 struck oil, Lars Mangal, one of Guyana’s foremost
petroleum professionals, knew exactly what to do. He’d spent two
decades working in oilfield services around the world for Houston-
based Schlumberger Ltd. before ending up in the U.K. Now he
needed to pack up his belongings, get back to Georgetown, lease a
dockyard, and bid for the Exxon services contract. “This is the big
one,” Mangal, who turns 54 in August, recalls thinking.
He was right. His company is now one of the lead local inves-
tors in Guyana Shore Base Inc., which acts as Exxon’s main service
Guyana Shore Base in Georgetown is the main service hub
for Exxon’s operations in the vast Stabroek exploration block off the coast
Bynoe remembers that when he played cricket
as a child, his bare feet would get shiny: “We knew oil was around”VOLUME 28 / ISSUE 4 53