Aerial view of the the Guyana Shore Base Inc, an ExxonMobil's associate in oil discoveries, in Georgetown, Guyana on August 29, 2025. Guyana, a small country in northern South America that elects its president on September 1, boasts the world's largest per capita oil reserves and wants to escape the "black gold curse" and develop by escaping poverty. (Photo by Joaquin Sarmiento / AFP) (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty Images)

By News Americas Now Business Editor

News Americas Now, NY, NY, Fri. Oct. 16, 2026: As Guyana’s oil economy posts some of the fastest growth rates in the world, the government is holding back a US$19.6 billion audit of ExxonMobil’s spending that it has possessed since May 2025 – the largest and most consequential of three outstanding cost-oil audits the International Monetary Fund flagged this week as a governance risk.

The IMF’s 2026 Article IV consultation, released last week, praised Guyana’s economic trajectory – 19.3% real GDP growth in 2025, projected to hit 22.3% in 2026 – while explicitly calling on the government to resolve its backlog of unpublished oil audits and strengthen transparency around how ExxonMobil’s costs are being verified.

“Priorities include resolving outstanding cost-oil audits, improving the timeliness of public enterprise and agency accounts, further strengthening audit capacity, especially in the oil and gas sector, and ensuring consistent compliance with the procurement framework as public spending expands.,” the IMF stated. “Efforts to strengthen AML/CFT and anti-corruption frameworks should continue, including by strengthening the Integrity Commission and the asset declaration regime.’

THE PATTERN

The pattern spans three separate audits. The first, covering 1999–2017, flagged US$214 million in disputed costs more than five years ago; that dispute has only now reached the International Chamber of Commerce, which is working to appoint a sole expert to resolve it, Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat confirmed, with no timeline yet set. A second audit, for 2018–2020, found an additional US$65 million incorrectly charged to the country. But it’s the third audit — covering US$19.6 billion in Exxon costs, by far the largest sum in question — that the government has sat on since last May without releasing it or addressing what the auditors found.

The IMF’s broader message was pointed: durable prosperity from Guyana’s oil wealth depends on governance keeping pace with growth, not just the growth itself. The Fund also pushed Guyana to tighten public procurement compliance, reinforce anti-corruption safeguards, and move away from broad consumer subsidies toward targeted assistance — all while warning that the country’s fiscal deficit is set to widen from 5.5% of GDP to 6.4% in 2026 before improving in 2027.

With Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund now holding roughly US$3.3 billion and the country posting some of the highest reserves and lowest debt ratios in the Western Hemisphere, the open question the IMF is effectively putting on record is whether the government intends to make the full scale of disputed Exxon costs public —- or continue managing the country’s oil wealth with its largest audit kept out of view.

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