Guyanese businesses have improved their systems and are successfully joining the supply chain for the South American nation’s emerging petroleum industry.
So says Project Director of ExxonMobil Guyana’s Center for Local Business Development (CLBD) Patrick Henry who disclosed that over 600 Guyanese businesses have so far completed training courses to better prepare for the industry.
In an interview on Tuesday, July 18, the Project Director related that the Center recently observed its one-year milestone in Guyana. He indicated that “the Center does three broad things. We do engagement and supplier registration. As part of our engagement activities, we run a series of offshore oil and gas, health, safety, security and the environment, procurement for local suppliers [courses].”
“We’ve had a great response from businesses in Guyana. We’ve had over 1200 Guyanese in those courses and around 600 businesses come through. So, a large volume of businesses are learning about the sector, trying to understand how to engage the international oil companies,” he stated.
Mr. Henry further divulged that the Center has commenced holding a series of supplier instruction forums “and when the companies like ExxonMobil or TechnipFMC are getting ready to do procurements they come and explain what those are and engage with businesses so people could ask questions and understand the processes.”
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Speaking to the CLBD’s efforts in further gearing local businesses for the industry, he pointed to the Center’s collaborative efforts with the Institute for Private Enterprise Development (IPED) and EMPERTEC. “We’re training businesses in things like Financial Management, Human Resources Management, Supply Chain Management…we’ve had a great response. Those were longer, almost three-month courses. We’ve had close to 100 businesses come through those courses which is an investment. We’ve started doing mentoring with firms that have been identified by the prime contractors to get them ready to take the leap into the supply chain,” he stated.
This is very encouraging news.