Speedeet and Wilar are two 12-year-old best friends from Pike Street, Kitty, Georgetown. Every week they have an adventure that teaches them something new about Guyana.
The Biggest Ship in the Sea
The breeze was blowing strong off the Demerara River when Speedeet and Wilar parked their bicycles by the seawall and looked out at the brown water stretching toward the Atlantic.
“You know what out deh?” Speedeet said, pointing toward the horizon where the river met the ocean. “Way, way, way out deh?”
Wilar squinted. “Water?”
“SHIPS, Wilar. Big big big ships. Bigger than anything you ever see.”
“Bigger than de ferry?”
Speedeet laughed so hard he nearly fell off the seawall. “Bai, de ferry could park INSIDE one of these ships and still have room fuh a cricket pitch. Dem call them FPSOs.”
“FP-what-now?”
“Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading vessels,” Speedeet said, like he was reading from an encyclopedia. Which he had been. “Dem sit in de ocean over de oil wells and pump de oil from under de seabed. Store it. Then load it onto tanker ships that carry it away.”
Wilar thought about this. “So de oil under WE water.”
“Correct.”
“And de ship pump it up.”
“Correct.”
“And now Exxon own ALL FOUR ships.”
“Also correct. Dey just buy de fourth one. US$2.3 billion dollars.”
Wilar whistled. He didn’t actually know how much $2.3 billion was, but he knew it was more than his mother spent on groceries. Significantly more.
They sat on the seawall, legs dangling, watching a fishing boat chug upriver. The fisherman waved. They waved back.
“Speedeet,” Wilar said, in the careful voice he used when he was thinking hard. “If somebody come to YOUR yard, dig up YOUR mango tree, sell de mangoes, and then buy a truck with de mango money — whose truck is it?”
Speedeet looked at his friend. “Dat is a very good question.”
“And if dey tell you, ‘Don’t worry, you getting some of de mango money back — AFTER I pay fuh de truck, de gas, de driver, de insurance, and me lunch’ — how much mango money you actually getting?”
“Less than you think.”
“EXACTLY.”
They sat in silence for a while. A pelican dove into the water and came up with a fish. The pelican, Wilar noted, did not have to share the fish with anyone.
“But here’s de thing,” Speedeet said eventually. “Dem ships also creating jobs. Guyanese people working in de oil industry. Engineers, technicians, supply chain people. De money flowing into de economy in different ways — not just de direct oil revenue.”
“So it’s complicated.”
“Everything in Guyana complicated, Wilar. Dat’s why we gotta read. And ask questions. And not just accept what ONE person or ONE newspaper tell we.”
Wilar pulled a folded piece of newspaper from his back pocket. He always carried newspaper. His grandmother said it was good for wrapping fish, swatting flies, AND getting educated.
“Look here,” Wilar said, pointing to an article. “Dem also putting $25 billion into green energy. Solar, hydro, gas-to-energy. So eventually, we might not need to depend on just oil.”
“Dat’s smart,” Speedeet said. “Because oil don’t last forever. Ask Trinidad.”
“True true.”
They hopped off the seawall and picked up their bikes. The sun was getting hot and Speedeet’s mother had promised cook-up rice for lunch, which was not the kind of promise you tested by being late.
As they pedalled back through Kitty, passing the familiar landmarks of Pike Street — the rum shop, the parlour, Miss Devi’s house with the big mango tree, the gutter that always overflow when rain fall — Wilar had one more thought.
“Speedeet.”
“Yeah?”
“When we grow up, we should build we OWN ship.”
Speedeet grinned. “A Guyanese FPSO?”
“Why not? We smart. We read. We ask questions. And we know where de oil is.”
Speedeet pedalled faster, the wind in his face, the future wide open like the Atlantic.
“First,” he said, “we gotta pass Mathematics.”
“DETAILS!” Wilar shouted, and they raced home laughing.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW!
What is an FPSO? A Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading vessel is a giant ship that processes and stores oil pumped from beneath the ocean floor. Guyana has four FPSOs operating in the Stabroek Block, about 200 km offshore.
What is ringfencing? When an oil company operates multiple projects, ringfencing means each project’s costs can only be recovered from THAT project’s profits. Without it, costs from one project can reduce profits from another — meaning less money for the country.
What is renewable energy? Energy from sources that naturally replenish — like sunlight, wind, and water. Guyana is investing in hydropower and solar to reduce dependence on oil and imported fuel.
Speedeet and Wilar is a children’s educational series set in Georgetown, Guyana. New stories every Sunday.