GtE Project loan: Documents to be submitted to US EXIM bank’s board this month – VP

Documents that are needed for the Guyana Government to acquire the multi-billion-dollar loan it is seeking from the United States Export Import (US EXIM) bank, are expected to be submitted this month.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo was asked for an update on the US$646 million loan request for the Gas-to-Energy (GtE) Project. Guyana is presently seeking this sum from the US EXIM bank, which will help finance the transformative project.
According to Jagdeo, Guyana will be submitting the necessary documents to the US EXIM board this month. Additionally, the Vice President provided behind the scenes information on the recent visit of a delegation from the US Foreign Relations Committee.

“I think they’re working towards getting the documents to the board, which would be sometime in November. The US delegation that I met, which is some of the staff members of the legislation in the US, went extremely well. We spoke a lot about the future and our future plans. And how we intend to manage the resources in a manner that would ensure long term prosperity for Guyana,” the VP said.
According to Jagdeo, it was emphasised to the visiting team that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has established through its track record, its ability to manage financial windfalls. This includes the work the party did from 1992, to bring Guyana back from the brink of economic collapse.
“We’re equipped with the tools to manage these resources sustainably. And I gave a number of examples. I told them about the effort to develop the frame work to manage the oil and gas sector was in place. I outlined some of those frameworks.”
“How we’re dealing with the question of corruption and accountability, resources, all of these issues. We had a really good conversation and it lasted quite a while. So, we’re pleased that they reached out and that some of the distortions that they sometimes get from different sources, can be explained,” Jagdeo added.

Back in April 2023, it was announced that the Guyana Government had applied for the loan from the US EXIM Bank to finance the US$761 million GtE Project, which includes the construction of an Integrated Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) Plant and a 300-megawatt (MW) combined cycle power plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara (WBD), utilising natural gas from the country’s offshore operations in the Stabroek Block.
In September 2024, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh met with senior officials of the US EXIM Bank in Washington DC during which discussions were held on the loan. And the VP had said at the time that after the bank makes a submission on the project to its board, this will be followed by a 35-day notification, after which it returns to the board.

As part of its internal due diligence process, the US EXIM Bank hired two consultants – Ramba Consulting Group, a professional governmental consulting firm which did an environment assessment of the GtE Project, and Sargent & Lundy, one of the world’s longest-standing full-service architect engineering firms, which did the technical assessment of the project.
These works were done during site visits over the past year. In fact, back in June, President Dr Irfaan Ali had revealed that the feedback from those two assessments were positive. He said the teams found “no fatal flaws” from the technical and environmental due diligence work done here.
However, even as Guyana awaits the approval of this loan, Government has already spent some US$400 million on the highly anticipated GtE Project and could potentially fund the entire initiative if the request from the US EXIM Bank is not approved.
Meanwhile, there have been local and international lobbying efforts to block the funding for the GtE Project by the US EXIM Bank. Earlier in June, it was reported that Friends of the Earth United States, an NGO with over 16,000 members, wrote Chairman of the US EXIM Bank, Reta Jo Lewis, demanding the institution do not fund the GtE Project.
However, these efforts have been dismissed by the Guyana Government and even the local private sector had written the US financial institution to declare their support for the transformative GtE Project that will not only provide cleaner energy but also cut the country’s high electricity costs by half.
Nevertheless, while Guyana awaits funding from the US EXIM Bank, construction works on the project continues with Government expecting the power plant to come on stream in the first half of next year. (G3)