Proper data management system needed to protect nation’s oil wealth – World Bank

Jul 17, 2022 News

---

By Zena Henry

Kaieteur News – In offering Guyana the opportunity to access expert advice toward the proper management of the local oil and gas sector, the World Bank has highlighted the need to have good data management systems in place as a key variable toward protecting the nation’s oil wealth.

This is documented in the US$20M ‘Guyana Petroleum Resources Governance and Management Project’ line of credit appraisal document. The line of credit was secured by the previous government and was supposed to directly support the government and its agencies to management various aspects of the nascent oil and gas industry, but the money remains untapped as the current administration continues to refine the project.

Of the US$20M, US$4.1M was scheduled for the building up of the country’s ‘Petroleum Data Management’. The Bank highlighted that as exploration activities ramp up in Guyana, “the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) is being overwhelmed by the large volumes of oil and gas information and data – seismic surveys, well logs/reports, field data/tapes, samples, maps, geological models, etc.”

The Bank said, these are being generated and shared by companies as required by their contract/license but “GGMC simply does not have the facilities, the personnel or the equipment (hardware and software) to copy, analyse/interpret, verify, preserve/store and provide secure access to this data.”

It was explained that, “Petroleum data is extremely valuable because it allows the (Guyana government) GCRG to understand its resources and manage and plan the orderly evaluation and development of those resources.”

As such, under petroleum management, the World Bank credit sought to finance the establishment of a new National Petroleum Data Repository in Guyana, from conducting a needs assessment, to the acquisition of needed hardware and software, to the collection and storage of existing data such as core samples, well reports, field tapes, seismic reports, among others. “This activity will also contemplate the training of the team, appointed by GGMC that will be responsible for the data management,” and, once established, the Petroleum Commission and the GGMC will be among key beneficiaries.

Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head, Dr. Vincent Adams stressed the need to ensure proper data management of petroleum information. Just a day ago, he told the Kaieteur News that he too had made efforts to improve Guyana’s handling of oil related data as well as the access to the oil related content. Adams claimed that apart from the untapped US$20M loan, he too had secured a US$1M grant to directly improve capacity at the EPA. He explained that key focus areas involved monitoring and accessing pertinent information needed for oversight purposes. This, he said, meant that representatives of a highly skilled 36-member Petroleum Unit, that was formed under that project would have had to provide “24/7” monitoring aboard the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels offshore, and that Guyana would have been able to scrutinise for itself, all that is taking place in the oil fields.

By being onboard the FPSOs, Dr. Adams continued that the country would have had first hand access to the data being generated thus reducing the country’s dependency on the oil companies to provide information on oil reserves and other technical data. He explained that the country’s trained representatives would have to be onboard the FPSOs in the control room receiving the information as the oil companies do. Dr. Adams explained, however, that having proper access to data, with a proper management system allows for important decisions to be made by its relevant users. He confirmed that with the necessary data, Guyana would be better able to forecast oil revenues and estimate reservoir values among other determinations.

In 2018, when former Finance Minister Winston Jordan announced the availability of the World Bank line of credit, he told members of the press that the country had no local content, “SWF [Sovereign Wealth Fund], Petroleum  Commission Bill, Petroleum Fiscal Regime legislation and plus we don’t have people to draft them. So, under this loan, we have to bring people to help us draft these pieces of legislation.”

More recently, he told Kaieteur News that the country should be worried about its fast pace of industry development without the requisite measures and mechanisms in place. He highlighted that record high oil prices have seen operators trying to capitalise on returns. The problem, he had stated was that Guyana is not on par with the accelerated pace of oil development because it lacks the in-house expertise needed to efficiently monitor and manage the sector.

 

 

---

---