Guyana is on a rapid journey to becoming one of the top oil producers in the Latin America and Caribbean region, going from no known resources just five years ago, to having more than 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The new oil producing nation will see billions of U.S. dollars flowing to the state over the lifetime of its offshore resources and several local businesses have begun taking the steps that would ensure they are best positioned to benefit from growing opportunities in the new oil and gas economy.
Andrew Mendes is the Chief Executive Officer of Panthera Solutions, a joint venture that was established in 2018. The partnership is a 51 percent Guyanese-owned venture between Farfan and Mendes and Crosbie Group out of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
“Farfan was typically in the forestry, mining, [and] agricultural sector…being a main supplier to those sectors. And, with the advent of the oil and gas industry in Guyana; while we were providing some services initially to that industry, we realised that we would need a lot of help in building the capacity to really effectively service the oil and gas market,” Mendes stated.
He noted that Farfan and Mendes was therefore “challenged to really improve all our processes and practices to become a consistent and reliable supplier of quality products and services for the industry.” As such, they actively engaged in training their technicians in the services they would be offering to the industry, including scaffolding, industrial cleaning, and sandblasting. Panthera, he said, was one of the first Guyanese companies on board the Liza Destiny FPSO when it arrived last year and has since put in over one thousand hours of work on the oil producing vessel.
“We have seen the spin-off benefits into the rest of our business from meeting the requirements of the oil and gas sector,” he said. “When I started to look at the oil and gas sector in 2016, 2017…I realised that we would really have to raise our game to a much higher level.”
After months of practical implementation, and hundreds of hours of effort, Mine Services Ltd and their partners were able to obtain ISO 9001 certification, which Mendes said would not have been possible without the support of the Centre for Local Business Development (CLBD). The Centre was established by ExxonMobil back in 2017 to help Guyanese businesses build capacity and improve their competitiveness in the oil and gas industry.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Jennifer Falconer, one of the proprietors of Falcon Logistics. She noted that her company, in its initial days of operations, provided services such as vessel support, brokerage, and immigration services to the mining industry. “Falcon believes strongly in local content and we check every box for ‘local company’,” she said, noting that Falcon has “grown from strength to strength and have expanded our services and our facilities.”
Unlike Panthera, they no longer work with other industries due to the large influx of work from the oil and gas sector.
Meanwhile, for Sudarshan Sukha, the emergence of oil and gas in Guyana provided the opportunity to establish a new business. Arrow Oilfield Services Inc. is 100 percent locally owned and operated by Sukha and his partner. He reflected on where they began, sharing, “We started off in 2017, basically myself and our other Director Kavir…. two guys on a laptop getting into the oil and gas [industry]. We started observing the industry since 2015, plotting strategically, looking for what is needed and how we have to adapt to enter such an industry.”
He continued, “I am a Structural Engineer, Kavir is a Civil Engineer and with that base, we entered the oil and gas industry very slowly through the Center for Local Business Development which was very instrumental in our growth and development.”
Arrow Oilfield began by offering procurement services in 2017 then moved onto facilities management the following year. He was proud to share how they developed relationships with ExxonMobil’s prime contractors and later began offering construction services.
“Through this process, we have basically grown from nothing into where we currently are. All through, opportunities offered to us through the Center for Local Business Development, I cannot say enough how pivotal they were in our development,” he emphasised. According to Sukha, capacity building is paramount to any operation. “In order to keep up with the demands of the oil and gas industry, we as local companies have to evolve out of our old ways and into the pace of the new sector,” he said. He noted too that they were able to do so by accessing the many seminars and oil and gas courses that were made available by CLBD.
The Guyanese business operators were part of a panel discussion at the recently concluded Caribbean Virtual Oil and Gas Summit (CARIVS).
