Guyana will need more workers with advanced technical and digital skills as automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence reshape jobs in the offshore oil and gas sector, ExxonMobil Guyana President Alistair Routledge said.
Routledge said the evolution is already visible aboard drillships operating offshore Guyana, where some work traditionally performed manually is now being carried out using automated equipment. He made the remarks during an oil and gas stakeholder engagement at the Leonora Technical and Vocational Education Training Centre in Region Three on August 6.
“For the future, we need to be building scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians that can lead in that space, can embrace these new technologies, and diversify the economy for the future,” Routledge said.
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Guyana’s offshore industry has created demand for technical workers as oil production and development activity expands. Routledge said continued investment in education will be necessary as the technology used in those operations advances.
He pointed to a recent visit to two of the five drillships operating offshore Guyana as an example. “For me, it blows my mind when you see how we’re using AI technology, robotics, automation,” Routledge said.
He explained that connecting sections of drill pipe traditionally required several workers on the drill floor. “Historically, there would have been half a dozen men on the drill floor, all with equipment moving and holding things and trying to move it in collaboration to quickly connect the next piece of 90-foot drill stand,” Routledge outlined.
Now, the operation he observed was substantially different.
“There was not one person on the drill floor,” he said. “It was all automated robots and machine equipment controlled by AI and other digital capability.”
Workers were instead performing some of those functions from a controlled environment using computers. The shift places greater emphasis on Guyana developing workers who can operate, monitor, and maintain increasingly sophisticated equipment.
Routledge pointed to technical training already being developed locally. ExxonMobil has collaborated with the government to provide technician training at the Guyana Technical Training College in Port Mourant, intended to prepare Guyanese for offshore technical roles.
The company also committed US$100 million earlier this year to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Guyana. Routledge said the initiative is aimed at strengthening STEM capabilities from the classroom through higher levels of education.
Routledge said the technological changes offshore demonstrate why Guyana’s workforce development will have to keep pace with the systems being introduced.
“That is the world that is in front of us,” he said. “That is what is coming.”
