ExxonMobil Guyana is working to expand fabrication, machining, and repair services to support its growing oil and gas operations. President of the company, Alistair Routledge, explained that this effort is part of its strategy to strengthen local businesses and reduce dependency on overseas services.
“We’ve made in the past, certain strategic investments with local suppliers, such as growing out the Guyana Shore Base and the Vreed-en-Hoop Shore Base. Those enabled more work to be done in-country,” Routledge said on a recent episode of Energy Perspectives.
The focus now is on meeting the future demands of maintaining and upgrading ExxonMobil’s expanding fleet of floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. “As we look down the line and more mature assets, these multiple FPSOs being installed will generate repair activity, maintenance activities, and possibly brownfield projects where you modify existing facilities,” he explained.
To encourage local investment, ExxonMobil is working to provide clarity about upcoming opportunities with a market study. “What we wanted to do is try to help give the right signals to the market, to local investors, around what sort of investment would make sense. That would strengthen the local market and opportunities for local businesses but also support the industry as it matures,” Routledge noted.
Opportunity for Guyanese to fabricate well jumpers for ExxonMobil | OilNOW
He acknowledged the challenges for local fabricators in planning investments without a clear understanding of consistent demand. “The nature of this work is project-based. For example, there may be one project for a few hundred tons of steel, but fabricators need to know they’ll have a consistent demand, such as a thousand tons annually, to justify their investment,” he said.
The initiative aims to align industry demands with local capabilities to ensure more work can stay within Guyana. “This approach ensures efficiency, builds capacity locally, and supports investors in making a reasonable return,” Routledge concluded.
Local companies are already providing fabrication services for FPSOs, on contract with both SBM Offshore and MODEC. Just last month, SBM Offshore held a steel strike ceremony for the Jaguar FPSO for which three local firms are fabricating over 300 tonnes of steel.
