MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela after Guyana's oil claiming border dispute in The Hague

The Venezuelan government wants to resolve the border dispute in direct talks with Guyana, but the latter insists it has been already regulated with the 1899 settlement

“We will demonstrate Guyana's claim is inadmissible,” Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said on Thursday to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is the United Nations' highest for resolving disputes between states.

Venezuela had ramped up its claims to a huge, sparsely populated area west of the Essequibo River, covering almost half of the former British colony territory. But massive oil deposits have been discovered offshore turning the situation in a first rate dispute.

The Venezuelan government wants to resolve the border dispute in direct talks with Guyana, but the latter insists it has been already regulated with the 1899 settlement.

Guyana brought a case in 2018 asking the court to confirm the border was established by a 1899 arbitration process between Venezuela and the then-colony of British Guiana.

In Thursday's presentation Venezuela told judges at the ICJ that they should throw out a case filed by Guyana in the long-running border dispute, which promises to be long and fatiguing.

In the meantime the economy of Guyana has become one of the fastest growing in the world with a gross domestic product growth of 19.9% in 2021. In 2016, Guyana had a per capita GDP of US$ 8,300 and an average GDP growth of 4.2% over the previous decade. Guyana's economy was transformed in 2015 with the discovery of an offshore oil field in the country’s waters about 120 miles from Georgetown.

Crude oil production started in 2019 and is already 360.000 bpd, light and sweet and expected to reach a million bpd by 2030.