Guyana has rejected Venezuela’s objection to a planned three-dimensional multi-client seismic exploration program within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), stating that the activity falls fully within its sovereign rights.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation issued its response after Venezuela released a March 11 communiqué opposing the seismic initiative.
“Guyana categorically rejects the assertions contained therein, which are legally unfounded, inaccurate, and entirely inconsistent with established principles of international law,” the Ministry said. The ministry said Guyana has the authority to permit activities in maritime areas linked to its coastal territory under the 1899 Arbitral Award.
“In such maritime areas, Guyana enjoys sovereignty up to 12 nautical miles in the territorial sea, and sovereign rights beyond 12 nautical miles in the Exclusive Economic Zone and the continental shelf,” the Ministry said.
The government said the survey area is within Guyana’s maritime jurisdiction over which the country exercises sovereign rights.
“These rights include the exclusive authority to explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources within its maritime jurisdiction,” the Ministry said.
The seismic program forms part of Guyana’s effort to build more data on its offshore basin and support future investment. The survey will cover about 25,000 square kilometers and is intended to help de-risk unexplored acreage.
“Guyana’s decision to facilitate the acquisition of high-resolution seismic data through a 3D Multi-Client Seismic Survey represents a legitimate and lawful exercise of its rights and is entirely consistent with international law and established state practice,” the Ministry said.
The government also rejected Venezuela’s attempt to describe the area as undelimited.
“Accordingly, Guyana firmly rejects Venezuela’s attempt to characterise these lawful activities as occurring within ‘undelimited maritime areas’,’” the Ministry said. “Such claims constitute a deliberate misrepresentation of both the geographic and legal realities governing Guyana’s maritime jurisdiction.”
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The Ministry said Venezuela has no authority to invalidate decisions taken by Guyana within its maritime jurisdiction.
“Moreover, Venezuela’s assertion that it will not recognise concessions, licences or activities authorised by Guyana in its maritime domain is wholly without legal effect,” the Ministry said. “Under international law, no State may arrogate to itself the authority to invalidate the lawful sovereign decisions of another State within its own territory or maritime zones.”
Guyana and Venezuela have been embroiled in a territorial controversy over the Essequibo for several decades. Since large deposits of oil were found off Guyana’s coast in 2015, the Maduro regime has grown increasingly aggressive. Venezuelan troops have been amassing at Guyana’s western border and its navy has intercepted oil vessels in Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone. U.S. oil major ExxonMobil has said its exploration and production activities offshore Guyana continue uninterrupted.
The border controversy is currently before the International Court of Justice. The substantive case centers on the 1899 Arbitral Award, which legally determined the boundary between the two countries. Venezuela accepted the boundary for decades before declaring the award null and void in 1962 and claiming more than two-thirds of Guyana’s territory in the Essequibo region.
“It should be recalled that when the boundary between the two States was definitively settled more than a century ago by the 1899 Arbitral Award, Venezuela accepted and benefited from that settlement and the legal certainty it provided,” the Ministry said.
