Oil and gas sector continues to blossom

TAKING advantage of Guyana's anticipated growth and the expansion of local content in the country's oil and gas industry, various local companies have invested enormous sums of money in building infrastructure and expanding their capabilities during the past few years.

Local firms, therefore, stand to lose a great deal of money if the oil and gas sector in Guyana doesn't maintain high levels of activity for the medium to long term.

Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Vice-President, has justified the government's decision to maintain high levels of activity in Guyana's oil and gas sector for at least the next 15 years in light of this fact.

“I gave a detailed explanation as to why we need to keep economic activities high and momentum going in the industry for the next 15 years at a minimum,” Dr. Jagdeo had said.

He added: “We’re encouraging a lot of Guyanese to invest in this sector. We are doing a lot of carving. The Guyanese, who we’re encouraging to invest, we don’t want their investments or their skills to be stranded.

“If the momentum dies, all of those people can’t amortise their investments and they would be stranded and they may be owing the bank and stuff like that.

So, we want more business to come to our people and we also want them to do well in the future. We explained that 100 times.”

The remarks follow statements that the Vice-President made on Monday last while delivering the keynote address at Guyana’s inaugural Local Content Summit.

Addressing the debate in sections of society about the need for development of local content, and overcoming hurdles and challenges, Dr. Jagdeo identified the pace of the industry as a factor in ensuring continued local content is build out.

As such, he reasoned that it mandates a certain posture on the government’s part.

“We have said it carefully that all that we are doing is to sustain the level and we do so aggressively and unashamedly to sustain high levels of activity for a minimum of 15 years.

“For example, many of them [local persons] are putting up buildings to rent. They have to have business for the next 15 years to pay back for those buildings and make money. Keeping that in mind, it mandates said. content required for respective sub-sectors.

Since the passage of the Local Content Act in December 2021, Guyanese businesses have been reaping massive benefits from the oil and gas sector, raking in some US$700 million in payments in 2022.

Meanwhile, regarding the broader energy sector, Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips, has emphasised the government’s dedication to completing the gas-toshore project, which is the government to act in a certain manner.

West Bank Demerara. Kalpataru Projects International Limited (KPIL) of India was awarded the contract for this project which is expected to be completed next year.

The contract was signed by Derrick Cummings, Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister; Maurice Gajadhar, Chairman of Guyana Power and Light Inc., and Mainak Majumdar, General Manager (International Projects), Kalpataru Projects International Limited (KPIL), in the presence of Prime Minister Phillips.

“You don’t want international investors to have investment stranded; but they can handle that, they are big companies and do their own risk calculation; most importantly we don’t want the Guyanese investors to have their investments stranded,” the Vice-President