Esequibo II – Part I: The Territory That Returned to the Center of the Geopolitical Chessboard

(Image by SurinameCentral / wikimedia) “ Oil, empires, and the border that no longer fits on a map, and turned a forgotten frontier into the planet’s new energy chessboard.” “ When a border begins to produce oil, it ceases to be a legal line and becomes a test of strength. The Esequibo no longer belongs only to the colonial past. It belongs to the energy future that the United States, China, Russia, Venezuela, Guyana, BRICS, and the oil companies do not want to let slip from their hands…” One year ago, I published Esequibo I, which examined the historical and territorial background of the controversy between Venezuela and Guyana. Now, Esequibo II, divided into two parts, analyzes a different and far more complex stage. The conflict can no longer be understood solely as a border dispute. Since oil began to flow off Guyana’s coast, the Esequibo has also become a matter of energy, corporations, sovereignty, and geopolitical competition in South America and the Caribbean. The Esequibo can no longer be read as a border dispute confined between Venezuela and Guyana, nor as a convenient case file for jurists who arrive after the oil has already begun to flow. It is claimed Venezuelan sovereignty, colonial memory, jungle, rivers, Atlantic access, gold, bauxite, diamonds, offshore oil, ExxonMobil, Guyana, the United States, China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, and BRICS. In other words, it is not a map. “It is an architecture of power…” The central question is no longer merely who signs a ruling, who administers the territory today, or who drills tomorrow. The question is whether a territory historically claimed by Venezuela can be turned into an energy platform under external protection while Caracas is pressured, sanctioned, or diminished in its effective sovereignty. Because if the United States attempts to reduce Venezuela’s real sovereignty, it also attempts to reduce Venezuela’s ability to defend the Esequibo… “That is where the next decade begins. And that is also where the real column begins.” This column, Esequibo II – Part I, examines below the historical and legal background of the dispute, the strategic value of the Esequibo, and the reasons why it has once again come to occupy a central place in global geopolitical competition. Esequibo Territory The disputed territory covers nearly 160,000 square kilometers and is associated with an offshore area where massive oil and gas discoveries have been made, including the Stabroek Block operated by Exxon and its partners. That combination explains why the Esequibo ceased to be a periphery and became a test of the twenty-first century. “Territories begin to be lost when others write their history, drill into their wealth, and manage to make the world confuse silence with acceptance.” What Is the Esequibo? The Vault the World Pretended Not to See The Esequibo is not an empty jungle or a lost border at the edge of the map. It is a territory with rivers, forests, fresh water, communities, Indigenous peoples, mining, an Atlantic coastline, gold, bauxite, diamonds, timber, mineral potential, and offshore oil. Its value does not arise solely from what the platforms are drilling today. It comes from its location, its access to the Atlantic, its territorial depth, and its ability to connect resources, routes, and power. For decades, the world treated it as an inconvenient periphery, an old issue, a distant dispute between two South American countries. The old courtesy of power: calling remote what cannot yet be exploited. But when oil appeared, the border ceased to be remote and became urgent. Then came the statements, the companies, the jurists, the military warnings, and the sudden international concern. “The Esequibo is a territorial vault. And the modern primitive does not discover a territory when he understands it. He discovers it when he can extract from it…” Who Owns the Esequibo? First It Was Venezuela, Then Came the Arrangements For Venezuela, the Esequibo is neither a recent ambition nor a border invented by the oil boom. Its claim arises from the historical title inherited from the Spanish Crown, the Captaincy General of Venezuela, and the principle of uti possidetis juris, under which the new republics inherited the territories that belonged to them at the time of independence. That is the deep foundation of the Venezuelan claim: not expansion, but territorial continuity. An analysis by The Fletcher Forum summarizes precisely that the Captaincy General of Venezuela included the Esequibo region and that, under the principle of uti possidetis, the Venezuelan claim is presented as the preservation of territorial integrity, not annexation. Then came the arrangements. There was the British advance, the 1899 Award, Venezuela’s allegation of fraud, the posthumous letter of Mallet-Prevost, the 1966 Geneva Agreement, and the later judicialization of the dispute. But history does not begin with the latest case file or the latest oil platform. It begins earlier, when the empire drew, pushed, occupied, and then left others to defend as legality what Venezuela considers colonial dispossession. The 1966 Geneva Agreement confirmed that the controversy remained open among Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and then British Guiana. “The Esequibo was Venezuelan before oil turned it into a global business. First came territorial memory. Then came the maps corrected by power…” The Sequence of Dispossession From the Distorted Border to Hyper-Oil Plunder The Esequibo did not arrive at this crisis through a single act. It arrived through a sequence. First came the Indigenous peoples, predating every European map. Then came Spanish colonial title, followed by Venezuelan territorial inheritance, the British advance, the 1899 arbitration, Venezuela’s continuous claim, the Geneva Agreement, Guyanese administration, ExxonMobil’s arrival, offshore exploitation, and finally the legal acronym attempting to organize what power had already transformed into a business. That is the anatomy of modern dispossession: it does not always erupt all at once. Sometimes it advances in layers, with elegant names, solemn documents, retouched maps, respectable companies, and speeches about stability. First they come by river. Then through the jungle. Later through the map. Finally, through oil. Hyper-plunder does not need to declare itself a conquest. It is enough to drill while others debate sovereignty, export while others draft arguments, and invoice while the territory remains trapped between historical memory and corporate power. The modern primitive changed his tools. Before, he occupied. “Today he drills, signs contracts, protects platforms, and calls investment what history will sooner or later recognize as plunder and appropriation…” Venezuela Is Not Claiming a Fantasy It Is Claiming Territorial Memory and Sovereignty Venezuela is not claiming a fantasy or a border invented by current circumstances. It is claiming a territorial memory that runs through the colonial period, independence, the British advance, the 1899 Award, the 1966 Geneva Agreement, and more than a century of diplomatic protest. The dispute is older than any Venezuelan government and cannot be reduced to an electoral maneuver, a recent slogan, or the discomfort that Caracas causes in Washington. The Esequibo did not begin with Maduro, did not begin with Chávez, and did not begin with ExxonMobil. It arose from a territorial wound that Venezuela never considered closed. The 1966 Geneva Agreement recognized the existence of a controversy among Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and then British Guiana, and sought a practical and satisfactory solution for the parties. That point is decisive: if there were no controversy, there would be no agreement. If there were no historical claim, there would be no case file. If there were no Venezuelan territorial memory, the Esequibo would have been buried decades ago beneath maps, oil, and diplomatic silence. Venezuela may have internal crises, sanctions, political errors, and isolation. None of that erases the origin of the claim. A territory does not lose its memory because the government claiming it makes Washington uncomfortable. And here the larger issue appears: if Venezuela’s effective sovereignty is weakened, its ability to defend the Esequibo is also weakened. The objective is not merely to pressure Caracas. “It is to prevent Caracas from ever again having enough strength to dispute what it considers its own…” Guyana in the Esequibo A Young State, Real Administration, and Improper Territorial Appropriation Guyana is a young state. It became an independent nation on May 26, 1966, after having been British Guiana, a colony of the United Kingdom. In 1970, it became a republic within the Commonwealth. That origin matters because Guyana did not inherit a clean border, but a territorial controversy carried forward from the British colonial architecture. The Esequibo did not come into its hands as a territory pacified by history, but as an area claimed by Venezuela and recognized as a pending controversy in the Geneva Agreement. Guyana administers the Esequibo today, but administration is not automatically synonymous with legitimate sovereignty. Even less so when the territory represents nearly two-thirds of the map Guyana presents as its own and when Venezuela maintains that this appropriation arose from colonial dispossession. That is the uncomfortable point: a young state may have institutions, a population, and a need for development, but it cannot turn an administration inherited from an empire into unquestionable ownership simply because oil has now made the border profitable. The territorial appropriation of the Esequibo does not become just through the accumulation of years or through oil contracts signed with foreign companies. Time may consolidate administrations, but it does not always repair their origin. “And when a disputed border is transformed into the oil treasury, the old usurpation ceases to be a historical archive and returns to the present smelling of crude oil, expensive lawyers, and diplomatic escort…” Exxon and Hyper-Oil Plunder When Drilling Creates De Facto Sovereignty ExxonMobil does not enter the Esequibo as just another company. It enters as a component of U.S. corporate power, with financial capacity, diplomatic backing, offshore technology, lawyers, platforms, and an influence that easily surpasses the political size of many states. Its presence in the Stabroek Block does not merely produce oil. It produces reality. Every exported barrel strengthens a de facto administration. Every installed platform makes it more difficult to turn back. Every signed contract transforms a historical controversy into cash flow. That is the mechanism of hyper-oil plunder. It does not need to declare conquest. It does not need to change flags. It is enough to drill while others debate sovereignty, extract while others draft arguments, and invoice while the territory remains trapped between Venezuelan memory, Guyanese administration, and U.S. architecture. When a company massively exploits resources associated with a disputed area, it is not operating in a neutral vacuum. It is creating de facto sovereignty. The platform becomes an argument. The contract becomes a map. Exported oil becomes a practical border. “That is called investment. The word plunder, naturally, is reserved for peoples without expensive lawyers or shares on the stock exchange…” Hard Figures Territory, Oil, Minerals, and USD The Esequibo is enormous for a disputed territory and is equivalent to approximately two-thirds of the map Guyana presents as its own. This is not a symbolic strip of land under discussion. It is a territorial vault with rivers, forests, fresh water, an Atlantic coastline, gold, bauxite, diamonds, timber, offshore oil, and additional geological potential. Guyanese mining is concentrated mainly in gold, bauxite, and diamonds, and minerals accounted for approximately 39.96 percent of Guyana’s exports in 2020, according to EITI Guyana. The Stabroek Block is the oil center of the conflict. ExxonMobil projects that production capacity in Guyana will reach 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030, while gross production would rise to approximately 1.3 million barrels per day. Exxon itself reported that Stabroek had reached 900,000 barrels per day and maintains a vision of 1.7 million bpd by 2030. In dollar terms, the size of the prize explains the anxiety. At USD 70–90 per barrel, production of 900,000 bpd is equivalent to approximately USD 23–29.5 billion annually in gross flow. If 1.3–1.7 million bpd is reached by 2030, gross flow could range between USD 33 billion and USD 55.8 billion annually. “It is not an administrative border. It is oil, minerals, water, an Atlantic coastline, and power…” Stabroek, the New Key to the Atlantic When Oil Turns Guyana into a Major Player Guyana is no longer merely a country neighboring Venezuela with an inherited territorial dispute. By 2030, it could become an Atlantic energy platform, with ExxonMobil operating the Stabroek Block, Chevron inheriting Hess’s position, and CNOOC participating as the Chinese partner within the same oil heart. There lies the true irony of the century. The United States wants to contain China, but China is already seated at the table of Guyanese oil. The Stabroek Block surpassed 900,000 barrels per day, and Exxon projects production capacity of 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030. That is not merely business. It is de facto sovereignty, offshore-platform diplomacy, and geopolitics wearing an oil worker’s helmet. The Esequibo is no longer merely a controversy inherited from the nineteenth century. It is a border transformed into an oil platform, a jungle converted into a corporate balance sheet, and a territory where sovereignty begins to be written with drills, ships, contracts, and military escorts. Esequibo I shows the wound. Esequibo II must examine the real problem: who will control that oil by 2030, when the Caribbean, Venezuela, Guyana, Exxon, the United States, China, and the BRICS bloc can no longer pretend that they are speaking only about international law… “ Stabroek does not merely produce crude oil. It produces dependency, military protection, diplomatic influence, and a new regional hierarchy…” “ Every barrel that leaves the Guyanese Atlantic weakens the old border interpretation and strengthens a sovereignty built through contracts…” “ There, the flag flies in Georgetown, but the operational key is held by Exxon, Chevron, CNOOC, and Washington watching from the deck…” “ And CNOOC as the Chinese partner within that same oil heart…” “ Esequibo II – Part II will analyze the geopolitical implications of the conflict, the role of the great powers, the importance of energy resources, and the possible scenarios for regional stability.” Brief Bibliography – Part I International Court of Justice Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899, Guyana v. Venezuela A key source for the legal basis of the conflict and the status of the case before the ICJ. Associated Press Guyana Presses Venezuela on Border Gunfire as They Vie Over an Energy-Rich Region Useful for showing that the dispute is not merely historical, but a living, militarized tension connected to a high-value energy region. Reuters Exxon Starts Production at Fourth Floating Oil Vessel in Guyana A hard source for Stabroek, Exxon, production exceeding 900,000 barrels per day, the target of 1.7 million b/d by 2030, and more than 11 billion recoverable barrels. U.S. Energy Information Administration Brazil, Guyana, and Argentina Support Forecast Crude Oil Production Growth Useful for regional energy figures and projections of oil production in Guyana. Encyclopaedia Britannica Guyana A general source for the historical, geographical, and colonial context of Guyana, without overloading the bibliography.