United States-based international merchant bank, Merrill Lynch, which operates under the auspices of Bank of America, has expressed interest in helping Guyana to set up its Sovereign Wealth Fund (SVF) to manage revenues earned from the emerging oil and gas sector for local development.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge, disclosed that on the sidelines of the recently concluded United Nations (UN) General Assembly he met with a number of agencies including Merrill Lynch, during which they were briefed on the progress and process of oil and petroleum with the intention of determining where they can help.
“They were interested in our own development fund, which is equivalent to the Sovereign Wealth Fund, and they have a variety of issues in terms of their experience and the options for collaborations that they can offer to us,” the Minister posited.
According to Greenidge, as part of the functions of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, he met with the bank and listened to them before channelling them to relevant
stakeholder authorities in Guyana.
“They indicated an interest in speaking to those who are responsible for setting up and organising the fund… We listened to them, explain what we’re doing in a variety of areas and facilitate a meeting between themselves and the Ministry of Finance, the Governor of Central Bank also saw them. I know they have excellent capacity in the management of the equivalent of Sovereign Wealth Funds and we did not discuss with them their interests, but we did discuss what we have in place and they did indicate that they would take that up as recommended with the Ministry of Finance,” he stated.
Minister Greenidge outlined that Merrill Lynch is not a stranger to Guyana and had previously done work with the Central Bank of Guyana under the Bank of America.
In preparation for first oil in 2020, Government in August laid the highly-anticipated ‘Green Paper’ for the establishment of the Sovereign Wealth Fund in the National Assembly.
The Green Paper sets out preliminary proposals to stimulate discussion while also points to possible courses of action open to the SWF legislation.
Guyana is expected to earn as much as US$380 million annually from royalties in the first three years of oil production, which commences in two years’ time, at 120,000 barrels per day from ExxonMobil’s Liza Phase One.
The US oil giant has forecast daily production at 500,000 barrels in another five years.
