President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge said this week he has seen unprecedented levels of progress in local content development and stressed the importance of education and training for Guyanese, in order for them to benefit from the opportunities emerging from the oil and gas sector.
“Even in the short time that I have been here, I have seen some really unprecedented progress on local content development,” he stated during the launch of the Guyana Energy Conference (GEC-X ’21) on Monday, February 22. Noting the commitment by the government of Guyana to local content development, he said that it is obvious that Guyanese participation in the sector is of great importance to the country.
He said Guyanese are enthusiastic about starting their own businesses, and local companies are eager to service the energy sector. The question of “how do you get started, do you have the finances to get going?” he said is an important one.
“As the largest foreign direct investor in the country, ExxonMobil takes tremendous pride but also responsibility and accountability in what we do,” Routledge pointed out, as he emphasized the company’s commitment to providing opportunities for education and training. “…That is something that ultimately will make Guyana competitive and let’s remember, the world is a competitive place so building the competitiveness of Guyana to overall and local businesses individually is really about what will make the local economy sustainable in the long term,” he said.
He pointed to the establishment of the Centre for Local Business Development in 2017 by ExxonMobil, which at present has over 2700 Guyanese businesses registered on its supplier portal.
“…Being here at the beginning of Guyana’s oil and gas industry is something ExxonMobil is very proud of but we also take it as a huge responsibility. This is an industry that is going…it’s the rock that’s going to create a lot of ripples across the country and help drive many parts of the energy industry and indeed the economy of the country in the future development,” Routledge iterated.
