Guyana oil sector galloping at breakneck speed

Jul 13, 2023 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

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– even as Pres. Ali admits country faces human resource crisis

By Kiana Wilburg

Kaieteur News – A US$1.8B gas-to-energy project, an auction of 14 new oil blocks, ongoing audits for US8.9B in expenses by ExxonMobil, along with a suite of legislative and regulatory reforms—These are but a few of the herculean tasks the government must juggle in Guyana’s oil industry.

The extent to which these undertakings will be successfully handled however, all depends on how well the PPP/C administration responds to the shortage of human resources.

It has already been established by several local and regional authorities that Guyana’s population of roughly 700,000 persons is not enough to meet the unprecedented demands of the industry. Be that as it may, many multi-million dollar projects requiring massive human resources are still receiving government’s approval.

The government is currently undertaking the country’s most expensive development with the gas-to-energy initiative. That project, expected to reduce electricity costs by 50 percent using gas from the Stabroek Block, will need for example, a team of qualified experts/specialists as well as a capable workforce to support its operations when it comes on stream in 2024. What is the human resource management plan to ensure this project is a success?

If all 14 oil blocks are awarded in the upcoming auction, then who will be responsible for ensuring new players abide by the letter of their contracts? Guyanese or foreign help?

Significantly, stakeholders have pondered the pace at which Guyana is boosting its capacity to keep track of, and audit, ExxonMobil’s rising costs in the Stabroek Block. The American oil giant has five sanctioned projects already and a sixth is underway for review by authorities. What is the government’s plan on managing this critical area to ensure revenues aren’t lost?

On matters of regulation, how many Guyanese are being trained to support the enforcement of new laws to come for the oil sector?

Kaieteur News at a press engagement with President, Dr. Irfaan Ali yesterday was unable to drill down into the foregoing matters. Nonetheless, Ali was still asked to say how human resource management is being tackled in light of these growing responsibilities within the industry.

The Head of State stressed that a number of immediate measures are being implemented to ensure the right institutions are in place for Guyanese to be empowered to take advantage of opportunities in the world’s fastest growing economy.

Ali said, “As you know, we have invested tremendously in Technical and Vocational Education, much of which is to support the oil and gas industry. Secondly, we have supported private training opportunities directly for oil and gas, whether it is in the maritime industry, welding and fabrication, auxiliary services, transport and logistics, all of this we have supported.”

Other complementary efforts he said include the building of a national skills training centre. “This is a more than US$100M investment that will include the hospitality institute that will train about 6000 people and we are working on creating a system in which all of our teachers will become trained right from where they are…and this will enable them to access higher salary scales which we are also working on to reflect this.”

The Head of State also highlighted the importance of the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) Scholarship programme which is geared to produce not only persons that can function in the oil industry, but also in other industries that are key to government’s plan for a diversified economy.

Though the President did not provide details on the number of persons or experts supporting the oil sector’s management, as well as a forecast of how that is expected to grow, he did note that help is forthcoming from Guyana’s bilateral partners. These include Qatar, Ghana and India. “They are willing to send a full slew of human resource capacity to work with our people to help bring them up to speed with the management of the sector,” he said.

Notwithstanding those efforts, Ali agreed that the country is facing a crisis of skills. He said this not only cuts across the oil sector but also in the expanded construction sector. Even the health sector he said has not been spared as he painted a grim picture of shortage of nurses at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

“Only yesterday I met with a number of nurses at GPHC. Some of them are doubling up on shifts because of the shortage. When I spoke at the GPHC administration, they now have hundreds of nurses short of their full complement and that is why we are moving aggressively with a training programme to bring more nurses into the system,” the President said. He also shared that Guyana is even looking to Cuba for possible support from its nurses in this regard.

While the government must also manage the challenges of the human resource shortage across various sectors, Ali said his administration still has to maintain its focus on building out other aspects of the economy with support from the oil revenues.

Ali said this would entail giving persons more opportunities to be entrepreneurs, opening up more lands for agriculture, improving access to capital with reduced interest rates, improving access to housing, investing in value added agro-processing etc.

“… we are pushing this economy in a new direction,” Ali said, adding that this pathway is modern, fast paced, technologically driven and, coming back to the heart of the issue, indeed of support by a different type of human resource asset.

While Ali and other members of his administration have said the short-term solution will be the importation of skills, no clear plan of how this will be achieved and when, has been disclosed to the wider media.

In the meantime, Guyana remains regarded as having the world’s fastest growing economy with 11 billion barrels of oil already unlocked in the prolific Stabroek Block, operated by an ExxonMobil-led consortium.

The country is projected to grow at an average 25 percent annually from 2023 to 2026, with growth in the non-oil sector projected at 7.9 per cent this year. This will build on the 11.5 per cent growth in the non-oil sector last year.

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• Dr. Irfaan Ali, ExxonMobil, legislative, President, regulatory

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