Guyana’s local business community continues to secure strong gains from the country’s oil and gas industry, with spending on Guyanese firms exceeding US$350 million in the first half of 2025.
Dr. Martin Pertab, Director of the Local Content Secretariat, confirmed the figures in an interview with OilNOW this week, as he reflected on the Secretariat’s mid-year performance.
“As of June 2025, the amount of local spend among the 40 sectors we carved out for Guyanese was around US$352 million. If we compare that with last year’s mid-year report, which was June 2024, it represents an 11.5% increase,” Dr. Pertab explained.
At the start of each year, oil and gas companies are required to submit annual local content plans, outlining projected spending across sectors.
According to Dr. Pertab, the 2025 projection stood at just over half a billion US dollars.
“At the beginning of the year, companies would usually submit to us annual plans… When we look at the figure, it was around US$526 million that would have been projected for this year.
“Now, if you compare the half-year performance to that amount, it represents 65 % of the projected amount,” he explained
The Director further highlighted that local companies are already capturing more than two-thirds of procurement opportunities available under the law.
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“As of June 2025, the amount of procurement opportunities that locals managed to benefit from was around 67% of what was projected for this year,” Dr. Pertab pointed out.
Training has also been a major focus for operators, with millions invested in upskilling Guyanese.
“Almost US$240,000 was spent on scholarships. Another US$1.1 million was spent on training in areas such as aviation, engineering and leadership, totalling somewhere around US$3.7 million within the first six months of 2025,” Dr. Pertab said.
With the Secretariat tracking stronger spending and deeper investments in skills development, he believes the framework is delivering on its objective. “The law was designed to ensure Guyanese benefit from the opportunities in oil and gas and the numbers show that those benefits are being realised,” he asserted.
The Local Content Act was passed in Parliament in December 2021 with the intent of regulating the activities in the emerging oil and gas sector in a manner that drives Guyana’s economic growth and development.
The country is also poised to establish a local content fund – as announced by Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali in 2023 – to help emerging businesses in the oil and gas sector.
