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Feasibility study underway for Deep Water Harbour

Mar 20, 2015 News

– facility among requirements for Marriott’s success
As the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration seeks to forge ahead with the idea of a Deep Water Harbour—which was listed as a key requirement for the success of the Marriott Hotel —it has announced that a feasibility study for the project is underway.
This study, according to incumbent Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, will be done at no cost to the Government of Guyana.
Prime Minister Hinds released a statement yesterday to the media that served to make this information public. By that means, Hinds disclosed that the Chief Representative of the Overseas Operations of China State Construction Engineering Company Ltd (CSCECL), in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, Zhile (David) Zhang, will be in Guyana next week to follow up on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it entered into with the Government of Guyana.
Hinds did not say when this MOU was signed. However, he noted that it allows for CSCECL to carry out a Preliminary (Pre-pre-feasibility) study of a Deep Water Harbour in Guyana in the area of the mouth of the Berbice River and with an associated Development Park/Export Processing Zone.
Hinds disclosed that Zhang will be followed by a technical team from his company which will carry out the Preliminary Study, “at the company’s expense and without any obligations on the part of the Government.”
As to the other measures that were agreed to in the MOU, Hinds did not elaborate.
The Prime Minister noted that “in the mid 1990s, the Aroaima Operations of Reynolds (ABC/AMC) Bauxite Operations constructed a Deep Water Shipping Facility in the mouth of the Berbice River, which facility could have been seen as the first step towards a traditional PANAMAX (65,000 ton) sized port. Over the years there have been a number of interests in a Deep Water Port in Guyana.
A number of preliminary studies/proposals were put to Government by Boskalis, a team sent by the Government of India and Oldendorff (the Germany based shipping and barging company contracted to the Berbice bauxite operations, BCGI/RUSAL).
He said that “during the recent visits of the President of China to CARICOM and the subsequent BRICS meeting in Brazil, there were announcements that China had committed large funds for infrastructure development in the Caribbean, Central and South American areas. Chinese firms, aware of this financing and always on the search for new business opportunities (like all businesses) have been proposing to be partners in desired economic developments. The desired deep water harbour in Guyana is one such.”
Hinds said that the Guyana Government is now welcoming and facilitating offers to carry out and present Preliminary Studies/Proposals at no costs to and no obligations on the part of the Government.
“A team from Dalian Port Corporation visited Guyana during the week of 15th September, 2014 and Prime Minister led a team on a return visit to Dalian over 10th  to 13th October, 2014. The Government has advised that if a Deep Water Port on a BOOT (build, own, operate, transfer) basis was to appear to be feasible, Government at that stage would proceed by way of an open invitation for proposals, said Hinds.
The Deep Water Harbour was specifically listed as one of the requirements for the controversial Marriott Project to be successful.
A feasibility study which was conducted by an international company, part of which was released to the media, had made it clear that for Marriott Hotel to achieve success, certain “economic initiatives” of the country had to be first realized.
The study, which was conducted by HVS Consulting and Valuation out of Miami, Florida, in the USA, cited some of these initiatives as the need to find crude oil, build a deep water harbour and the realization of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project.
HVS Consulting and Valuation stated emphatically that its projections for the success of the Marriott Hotel are based on the assumption that the initiatives were to be realized since March last year, none of which has happened.

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