As authorities in Guyana forge ahead with the establishment of a local content policy that is likely to be backed up by legislation, the largest oil and gas company operating in the South American country is making it clear that it supports efforts to build local capacity and sees this as a sustainable business model.
“It is important that we develop local content,” President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge said last week in response to a question about his views on Guyana’s move to establish a local content framework. “You know, for a business here to be sustainable, it can’t be run with expats and solely overseas companies.”
Speaking at the Aberdeen-Guyana Gateway event, Routledge said Exxon sees this as an important part of growing its footprint and a sustainable supply chain in the country, just as Aberdeen did in the 1970s and 80s. He pointed out that when the company started operations in Guyana, capacity had to be built from the ground up since oil and gas was new to the country.
“So, we started from, as you like, from a lower foundation, with very little industrial bench strength but have made a lot of progress,” he said. “The Government, is of course, very eager to see that we continue that work and they launched a draft local content policy earlier this year.”
The ExxonMobil Guyana President said the biggest benefit of this move was that it increased the level of engagement between the many parties that need to come to the table and talk about what are the barriers to continuing that progress and in creating an environment that not only supports local content but also supports the bringing in of expertise and capital to help grow the industry.
Guyana’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) held multiple rounds of consultations on the revised draft local content policy in recent months with oil and gas companies, special interest groups and other stakeholders.
“All feedback has been on some specific areas of enhance business development for both the oil and gas sectors and related manufacturing and industrial development for the economy,” Coordinator of the Strategic Stakeholder Consultations, and Petroleum Economist at MNR, Bobby Gossai Jr., had told OilNOW.
“So, that engagement… [It] has been very constructive,” Routledge pointed out. “I understand they plan to move forward from the draft policy and to legislation. Of course, a big part of the focus would be on all the targets in there that are so difficult to achieve that it becomes restrictive on progress.”
He said all sides understand the pitfalls of getting into a position where there are unachievable targets and this is an area where most of the discussions on how the process is moved forward in a constructive way, has been taking place.
“We are actively recruiting about 35 people, maybe more this year, to have a population onshore, a population of about 400-450 people and so we are looking forward to the full mix of skills,” he stated. “Obviously, it is hard to find people that have worked in anything like our industry, but it is not just technical skills we are looking for. We are looking for procurement skills, we are looking for accounting skills, you know, across the board.”
