Guyana’s Department of Energy (DE) on Friday concluded a two-day capacity building workshop which focused on Field Development Planning for the oil and gas sector. Those benefitting from it were officers from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission’s Petroleum Department and the Environmental Protection Agency – two key regulatory bodies in the country’s oil and gas industry.
DE Consultant, Bayphase, conducted the training which also benefited staff of the Department. The aim of the training is to increase the capacity of local staff with a view to relying less on foreign consultants over time.
The workshop included topics such as; Resource Assessment and Reporting Standards; Key Elements of Field Development Planning; Cost Estimating and Validation for Oil and Gas Projects and the Life Cycle of the Oil and Gas Industry.
According to a press statement from the Ministry of the Presidency, Department of Energy, Oil and Gas Advisor, Mr. Matthew Wilks said that Bayphase assisted in the Field development review of the Liza Phase 2 well and as a result, has been passing its expertise on to local staff.
“Part of the undertaking was also to pass on the knowledge to our Guyanese team…The workshop looks at how oil companies plan developments; the information that they need to acquire to be able to plan them successfully and also the points at which a Government body should be involved in that planning, in terms of how early on should they engage with us and how they should take us through the journey,” Wilks said.
The statement said that GGMC Petroleum Engineer, Mr. Paul Williams, said the workshop gave him a more detailed understanding of phase development planning. “We got a better understanding of some of the reservoir characteristics in terms of understanding the type and the amount of oil that was found, and the mechanisms that will have to be put in place to properly and efficiently extract the petroleum resource. You realise that you’re looking at a lot of phased planning in the sense that you’re not just looking at what happens above the surface, but basically trying to optimise what is going on underneath,” he said.
GGMC is currently the regulator of the oil and gas sector in Guyana.
