With the inaugural Guyana International Petroleum Business Summit now completed, some are still questioning how they can benefit from the oil and gas sector. According to the Guyana Office for Investment, there are in fact ways to get a foot in the door.
GO-Invest CEO Owen Verwey
At a press conference on Friday, GO-Invest Chief Executive Officer Owen Verwey was asked about ways in which persons who may not have participated in the summit can capitalise on the industry.
“What they should do to get themselves prepared to take advantage of these opportunities? I think, first and foremost, we don’t have enough of a corporate culture,” Verwey pronounced. “We have that culture where it is a one man show and standardisation is still to raise its level. Not that we don’t have that in Guyana, but the actual practise of it in all aspects of business is very important. Record keeping, traceability, those are key aspects we need to do.”
He added that making oneself informed, aware and educated as to what is going on, what is required in the industry, is also important, adding that this is very important in the embryotic industry.
“(The industry) is heavily technologically driven. So what you know today is not necessarily the same thing that will be required tomorrow. So it has to be a continuous process of you updating your knowledge and your level of understanding. Thirdly, we see the bigger businesses expending funds to come to this market to learn something.”
Opportunities
As such, Verwey noted the importance of businesses positioning themselves to take advantage of opportunities like the summit provided. These opportunities, he said, include chances to network with other businesses. He also posited the potential of other industries forming themselves into syndicates.
This is one of the booths from the summit that drew the attention of the youths
“They need to be going out there and networking, whether it’s in the oil and gas industry or other industry. They have to be working to learn and to look for the additional opportunities that are out there,”
“Last but not least,” the GO-Invest CEO suggested. “(Explore) the possibility of some of the smaller guys in Guyana consolidating with others, as is currently happening in the mining industry, the syndicates. These small mechanic shops or welding shops may have to start considering things like that that will help to up the scale of their operation, bring efficiency to them, and help manage their cost of training and cost of operation.”
Syndicates
In the mining sector, syndicates were developed after the Natural Resources Ministers met with miners in January 2016. The decision was made to cluster small miners across the mining districts for them to benefit from concessions and support each other… something they were unable to achieve mining on their own.
Even as a collective syndicate, however, the group still had to contend with the bureaucracy. For instance, A mining syndicate developed for small miners in the Toroparu, Upper Mazaruni, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) had complained about being treated unfairly by the Government after an application for 10 mining blocks was turned down.
The three-day GIPEX summit opened on Wednesday last at the Marriott Hotel. The participating entities had included oil giant ExxonMobil, Repsol Exploracion S.A., HESS, CNOOC Nexen, CGX Energy Inc. Schlumberger, JHI, GBTI, GTT Baker Hughes, Siemens, ECO Atlantic Tiger Tanks, Oceaneering, DAI, EDO, Clariant, TechnipFMC, Scotiabank, Macorp, Bristow, VSH, ERM, and Laparkan.
The cost of almost US$2,000 was required for a booth at the exhibition. Organisers of the event had defended this, noting that the summit was intended to be a self-financing venture and so there had to be a way to recover the costs.
