Guyana’s President David Granger says the issue of energy was discussed with a team of United States Congressional officials during a meeting held on Thursday at State House in the country’s capital, Georgetown.
Some of the visiting Congressmen, the President said, expressed an interest in the area of energy and it was explained to the US officials that a Department of Energy had recently been established in the South American country.
“We explained that we are choosing – we are not wedded to one concept – we are choosing; some areas may have solar, some areas may have hydro, some areas may have wind, some areas may have natural gas. So we are looking at a mix of energy sources,” Mr Granger said.
The cost of electricity in Guyana is considerably high and has served as a barrier to the growth and expansion of enterprise – particularly those in the manufacturing sector. With the discovery of more than 4 billion barrels of oil off the country’s coast by ExxonMobil, officials have been looking at cheaper ways to generate power. This has seen ongoing discussions taking place with the US oil major about the prospect of taking gas to shore.
“We are confident that we would bring the tariff rate down to below 15 US cents per kilowatt hour and maybe we’ll keep moving downwards and have cheap energy and this would be important to the manufacturers,” the President said.
Electricity tariff in Guyana currently hovers around 25 to 35 US cents per kilowatt hour.
