Disclosures on the Gas-to-Energy project (Part 2)
By: Davina Bagot
(Kaieteur News) – When Lindsayca – supposedly an American energy company – landed an almost billion -dollar contract in Guyana to construct a Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility and 300 -megawatt (MW) power plant, the entity was bankrupt, faced with several lawsuits, over allegations of money laundering and other questionable business dealings. Research also shows that Lindsayca lacked a basic requirement to qualify for the project – experience in constructing a project of such magnitude.Daily News Digest
The financials
A careful examination of the company’s financials between 2016 and 2019 revealed that Lindsayca was drowning in debt to the tune of millions of US-dollars. Lindsayca, as per the pre-qualification and bidding process that started with the Request For Proposals (RFP) in September 2021 and concluded with bid submissions in September 2022 was required to submit three years of financial statements to the Government of Guyana (GoG) to ensure the company was in good standing.
Bankrupt, lack of experience and faced with mounting lawsuits – Lindsayca awarded multi-million U.S. contract in GuyanaAn independent commentator, Chartered Accountant and Attorney, Christopher Ram reviewed the financials seen by this newspaper and concluded that the company was under “significant financial strain, with issues that go directly to liquidity, sustainability, and the reliability of what is being reported.”
Ram raised concerns over the company’s persistent negative operating cash flows in both 2017 and 2018, which he says indicates that the business was not generating enough cash to support itself.
“I am also troubled by the extent to which the Company depends on related parties. The balance sheet shows large receivables from related entities, but even more significant payables to those same parties, with related-party liabilities exceeding $35 million. On top of that, a material portion of revenue comes from related-party transactions,” the Chartered Accountant said on Friday.Newspapers
He said that level of interdependence raises real questions about the commercial substance of the transactions, whether those receivables are recoverable, and whether the reported performance reflects genuine arm’s length activity. It also means that if that related-party support were withdrawn, the Company could face immediate difficulty, according to him.
From an earnings perspective, Ram said the position was not reassuring. “Despite growth in revenue, the Company recorded a net loss in 2018, and earlier profits appear to have been driven by one-off items rather than sustainable operations,” he explained. Operating expenses are consistently absorbing or exceeding gross profit, which suggested that the underlying business model is weak.
“More importantly, the audit opinion for 2018 was qualified. The auditors could not obtain sufficient evidence for certain subsidiaries and for a material portion of revenue due to inadequate accounting records. That, in my view, is a serious red flag and undermines confidence in the financial statements,” Ram added.
Finally, he raised concern over the quality of the assets and the broader risk profile. The Chartered Accountant explained that a significant portion of the assets consist of related-party receivables and other amounts whose recoverability is uncertain, along with substantial investment in assets not yet placed into service. He also cited a large, deferred tax asset that depends on future profitability, which was not evident at the time.
Consequently, he concluded that these opinions when put together, along with concentration risk and operations in higher-risk jurisdictions, “this is a high-risk financial profile with real uncertainty about stability and reliability”.
Ram’s review of the company’s financials and findings shared with this newspaper therefore raises serious questions about the due diligence conducted by the GoG in awarding such a large project to a company.
The project is currently delayed with sources indicating that the company is out of cash. As such, the GTE Task Force is considering an additional US$180 million payment that will increase the initial contract sum of US$759M.
If past behaviour predicts future performance, it would only mean that the company, which started bidding for the project while in a loss will continue to demand more money from Guyana to cover its losses.
But sparking deeper concerns about the award is the number of lawsuits Lindsayca and the associated Group of bidders were facing at the time it applied for the contract in Guyana and won.
The group, along with its partner, CH4 not only submitted the highest bid to the GoG but also lacked experience in constructing such a mega project. Neither entity had ever in its history delivered a turbine power plant, nor did they even participate as a sub-contractor worldwide.
Lawsuits
It was reported that Lindsayca, a Venezuelan corporation, was sued by Gazprom – a natural gas company, for $8,781,196 (bolivars) plus interest and legal fees in connection with a service contract for the construction and installation of $43M natural gas compression plant for Gazprom in Venezuela.
Gazprom in 2013 claimed that the company was overpaid for services that were never approved, not provided or performed below industry and contractual standards.
Meanwhile, in 2015, Lindsayca was awarded a contract to construct a gas compression facility in Colombia. With the aid of a translator, this newspaper learned that the company was flagged for several irregularities and the contract was terminated according to ‘Noticias Caracol’ Colombia’s largest private news entity.
The 120-million contract was first signed in December 2015.
The Colombian government initially agreed to pay $500,000 monthly for 20-years to Lindsayca. In the contract, the company stated its address, but when journalists turned up at the site, another company was operating there. Further, they were informed that the company works virtually from the address and only receives correspondence at the location.
The lawyer for the company said they were not obligated to be present at the address but should be there to sign the contract and complete their job. The lawyer could not say why the company did not have office space at the time when the contract was signed as he was not the company’s lawyer at the time.
The company went to arbitration with the government, but the outcome was never reported, similar to Guyana’s case. Lindsayca left Colombia and never delivered on that project.
Meanwhile, Lindsayca’s business partner’s Financial Entity in Puerto Rico, Banco San Juan Internacional (BSJI) (who delivered a multimillion financing proposal for Gas to Energy in support of CH4) is owned by the Venezuelan Bellosta Family. BSJI in 2019 was raided by the FBI in Puerto Rico for suspicious activities related to financial sanctions evasion and money laundering tied to Venezuela.
The company just two years later submitted a bid to the GoG for the gas project, raising questions about whether the administration conducted a simple Google search or proper due diligence to verify the company’s and its owners track record.
With no trace of any project of similar nature completed anywhere else, stakeholders continue to question how the GTE Taskforce evaluated the bids and ranked Lindsayca/ CH4 the best bidder in terms of technical capabilities, financial resources, and both their legal and technical track record to deliver Guyana’s single largest onshore investment in its history.
On Friday, Kaieteur News revealed that the GoG lost an arbitration with the contractor and was required to pay an additional US$82 million that was never made public.
Original link posted by Kaieteur News on April 05, 2026
