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Two Int’l firms bid to establish Guyana’s petroleum data repository
Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat
Kaieteur News – Two international companies out of the United States of America (USA) have signalled their interest in helping Guyana establish its own petroleum data repository, a project being executed through the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The ministry had issued a tender seeking a firm to apply for the ‘Procurement of Data Management Services for Guyana’s Exploration and Production Data’ project. At a recent opening of bids at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) office it was revealed that Halliburton and Schlumberger Guyana Inc. were the only two companies that submitted their proposals for the contract.
Providing further details about the tender at a press conference on Wednesday, Subject Minister Vickram Bharrat said that it is to establish Guyana’s own data repository in country. “Presently we have our data in Houston (USA) being held by other companies, this is like our seismic data and everything that is being held by other companies,” he said.
According to the minister, many countries that have been producing for four or five years do not have a data repository in their own country and so setting up one in Guyana is “ambitious” and also not for the country’s data to be elsewhere.
“After four years (of producing oil) we are already moving to establishing our own data repository in country, that we can have our own people manage it, analyze it and its money making. It’s a very lucrative investment that we are taking on because not only spending money to set up the data repository, it is about getting our people to work there and to sell that data to companies that will come and seek to do exploration in Guyana, it’s worth a lot of money, so it’s like an investment,” he said at his press conference.
Noting that this is an investment for Guyana, the minister added that from the previously held bid round alone “companies had to pay US$2 million just to access the data on those ministry site of which we get a part of it but if we can have it in country it means that we will make that kind of money when we sell our data, because our data is in demand, everybody wants data from the Guyana basin.” Speaking of the data system last year February in Parliament, the minister related that the country is receiving 50 percent and not 100 percent of the revenue or service charge because of the absence of the data repository in country.
He said at the time that this data management system is particularly important even as the country continues to develop its oil and gas sector as there will be more data required not only from the Stabroek Block but all other blocks offshore, onshore and near-shore.
According to information provided in this year’s budget estimates – Volume 3, approximately $700 million has been allocated to set up this data management system and others projects under the Ministry’s ‘Oil and Gas Sector Development Programme’. Notably, it is being funded through a loan by the International Development Association (IDA), which is an international financial institution which offers concessional loans and grants to the world’s poorest developing countries.
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