Canje Block owners extend tentacles deeper into oil industry

In a series of articles, Kaieteur News has been exposing how Guyana lost billions in revenue after former President Donald Ramotar gave away the Canje Block oil concession to Mid-Atlantic Oil & Gas, a company with zero experience, wherewithal or track record in the industry.
In this three-part series, Kaieteur News now reveals how Mid-Atlantic has strategically maneuvered its way into other aspects of Guyana’s oil industry through its association with a local logistics company, GLASS Holdings Inc, revealing a larger web of financial interconnection linking oil majors, concession holders, government agencies and local politicians.

GLASS Holdings Inc.
As this paper had reported two weeks ago, it was through a land deal involving senior People’s National Congress Reform (PNRC) member James Bond that the previously unknown Guyana Logistics and Support Services Inc. or “GLASS Holdings Inc” became known to Guyana. Bond who had acquired 20 acres of land at Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara from the National Industrial & Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), and flipped 10 acres to GLASS Holdings Inc. through his company, ARKEN Group Inc for US $1 million.

GLASS’s website speaks to a range of services being offered by the company; equipment rental, procurement, recruitment services, customs brokerage services, relocation and domestic support, along with office and residential rentals and other additional services.
On their website GLASS Holdings Inc., claims that it is “the only full-service, one-stop logistics company, that has been successfully servicing the emerging oil and gas sector in Guyana since 2011.”

However, Kaieteur News is in receipt of documents revealing that the company has only been legally registered since July 29, 2019. In support of the fact that the company is much younger than it claims it is, the presence on the website of three PDF documents, an environmental policy, a quality policy along with a safety policy dated October 15, 2020, February 28, 2020 and September 13, 2019 respectively.
The legal registration documents also included several Directors – Management Consultant, Storm Jackson; Canadian Insurance Actuary, Daniel John Patton; and Trinidadians attorney Stefan Adrian Haresh Mungalsingh, accountant Glenn Sherman Sobransingh and businessman Wayne Anthony Lennox Persaud.

GLASS’s website also indicated a list of clientele which included big names in the oil and gas industry such as Schlumberger, Tullow Oil, Diamond Offshore, and Seacor. More importantly, among the companies listed were two key associated players in the Canje Block deal, JHI Associates and Mid Atlantic Oil & Gas.

Glenn Low-A-Chee
As previously covered in the story on the Bond land deal, when GLASS Holdings wrote to NICIL in relation to a hold on lease payment for the Peter’s Hall land, the letter bore the name and signature of the company’s Managing Director Glenn Low-A-Chee.
This was confirmed when Kaieteur News called the number on the letter and Low-A-Chee answered our questions in relation to that story.

But this is not the only position Low-A-Chee enjoys – in company documents related to Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas, seen by Kaieteur News, a “Notice of Secretary” filing shows that the oil block owner removed original Company Secretary, Nicholas Chuck-A-Sang on October 1, 2015 and replaced him with a Glenn Low-A-Chee.

Further documentation shows that in 2017, Low-A-Chee not only still held the post but was also promoted. Documents speaking to a “Resolution of the Board of Directors” stated that Low-A-Chee was “authorized and instructed to do all the acts, deeds and things which are necessary to give effect to the appointment of the aforesaid person as an additional Director of the Company.”
Kaieteur News is also in receipt of a document bearing Low-A-Chee’s signature in which he consented to act as the Corporate Secretary of Mid-Atlantic on November 27, 2017.

This publication contacted Low-A-Chee to field questions about his involvement with both companies. When initially contacted his response was, “Nah, I can’t comment nothing on that.”
He suggested that questions be sent via email, which was done, specifically on if he could confirm whether he held the position as Secretary and Director of Mid-Atlantic. To this, Low-A-Chee replied, “I have been the Corporate Secretary of Mid-Atlantic Oil & Gas since October 2015,” an answer in keeping with documents seen by this paper.

Kaieteur News also asked Low-A-Chee whether GLASS Holdings Inc. was employed by Mid-Atlantic Oil & Gas to which he said “GLASS Holdings Inc. does NO work for Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas Inc. nor has never done any work for the company.”
When it was pointed out that Mid-Atlantic is listed as a client of GLASS Holdings Inc. on its website, Low-A-Chee claimed that the company has no website.
“GLASS Holdings doesn’t have a website,” Low-A-Chee said on a call with this paper, “hold on, that’s a different company, Guyana Logistics Services Inc. GLASS Holdings doesn’t do anything for Mid-Atlantic, Guyana Logistics does.”

It should be noted that on the GLASS Holdings letter, a 110 2nd Floor, Duke and Barrack Streets, Kingston address was listed and that address is identical as the one listed on GLASS’s website. The same landline number, 226-4090, listed for GLASS on the company’s website is also listed as the landline in Low-A-Chee’s letter to NICIL as his company’s contact number. In further commenting on his claim that they were two different companies with the same address, he appeared to blur the lines even further.
“We rent them an office space and we look after transportation when they are in the country, pick them up, bring them home, that kinda thing,”

Low-A-Chee told Kaieteur News.
Conflict/s of Interest
In the second part of this series, we will explore how the relationship between GLASS and Mid Atlantic Oil and Gas not only establishes an intrinsic conflict of interest, with Low-A-Chee operating in executive/administrative positions in both companies, but how the incestuous arrangement extends in several directions with repercussions for everything from local content to the government’s ability to monitor recoverable expenditure.

In an interesting late development in the production of this story, after a Kaieteur News reporter had asked Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo at a Friday press conference whether the relationship between Mid Atlantic and Glass constituted a conflict of interest, not one but two public relation agencies contacted this paper with a very basic press release. It reads simply:
“Mid Atlantic Oil & Gas Inc. hereby advises the general public that it has not acquired any property at Eccles/Peter’s Hall, East Bank Demerara from NICIL or any other Company/Agency/Individual is not associated with Glass Holdings Inc.”

The notice is unsigned by lists a cellular number along with e-mail address that include the names of Mid Atlantic directors, Hewley Nelson and Dr. Edris Dookie. Calls to the number, to clarify the fact that both Low-A-Chee’s admission and existing documentation contradicts the claim of no association between the two companies, went unanswered. Part two of the three-part series will be published tomorrow.