Georgetown: As Government continues to develop the framework for the nascent oil and gas sector, efforts to engage international partners and countries are proceeding apace.
Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud met with a mission from the Bureau of Energy Resources of the US Department of State, which was headed by Director Paul Hueper.
Hueper was accompanied by Nicole Gibson of the Office of Energy Programmes with the aim of further assisting Guyana in the development of its technical capacity in relation to the oil and gas sector.
Minister Persaud noted that the Government of Guyana has been working with the US Department of State since 2010 on human resources development for the hydrocarbon sector, through various workshops and seminars.
He stated that the Government of Guyana must now determine how it will manage the sector by looking at the various models.
“The Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI) can assist in determining the best governance option for Guyana. The ideal situation is to govern by legalisation where petroleum revenues are separate and not available for normal usage. The Government of Guyana is currently seeking to undertake a study which will determine the best model for the development of a sovereign wealth fund type system,” the Natural Resources and Environment Minister said.
He pointed out that the first step must be to develop the governance and regulatory framework which will support the growth of the sector in the long term, since every country must have its own model for the development and management of this sector.
It is expected that the EGCI will work with the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) on the implementation mechanism for addressing the various issues of capacity development.
The EGCI is a US State Department-led interagency effort to provide a wide range of technical and capacity building assistance to the host Governments of select countries that are on the verge of becoming the world’s next generation of oil and gas producers.
The countries receiving EGCI assistance have world-class hydrocarbon resource potential and expect to receive sizable, near-term financial windfalls from the development of their oil and gas resources. EGCI’s core objective is to help these countries establish the capacity to manage their oil and gas sector resources responsibly.
Although EGCI’s goals are country-specific in nature, the programme broadly tries to ensure sound and transparent energy sector governance for the benefit of national economic development.
Minister Persaud also noted that drilling in deepwater areas as well as test evaluation (productivity test) will continue.
The Natural Resources Ministry had launched its Upstream Gas and Oil Policy to ensure the sustainability of the emergent sector on January 22 this year. The Minister had noted at that time that Guyana would be embarking on a number of engagements with bilateral and multilateral partners on how the country could receive the support it needed to have a comprehensive overview of the situation.
He noted that Guyana was currently a prime target for petroleum exploration. The country’s offshore basin and, to a lesser extent, its inland Takutu Basin are currently attracting a great deal of interest from petroleum exploration companies. The Policy envisions a strong, vibrant, and sustainable Private Sector-driven oil and gas industry, which will contribute significantly to Guyana’s socio-economic development. The policy document represents Guyana’s first attempt at setting out specific policy objectives and implementation measures for the exploration and potential development of upstream oil and gas resources found here.
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