US$35M fabrication facility at Enmore to create 500 jobs

Over 500 job opportunities would be created over the next five years with the coming on stream of a US$35 million investment in a fabrication facility at Enmore, East Coast Demerara.
The entity behind this development is a majority Guyanese-owned joint venture company named Guysons K+B (GKB) Industries Inc, which has acquired in Enmore 55 acres of land from the Guyana Government to establish a fabrication facility that would be offering services to the oil and gas industry.

The services to be offered would include tubular goods, premium threading and accessory services, as well as turnkey manufacturing solutions.
Announcement of this joint venture was made on Wednesday morning on the sidelines of the ongoing International Energy Conference being held at the Marriott Hotel in Guyana.
While the complete investment is US$35 million and the intention is to employ 500 Guyanese, an initial sum of US$7 million would be injected into this initiative in 2022, and 150 recruitments would take place in this year alone.
President Dr Irfaan Ali has said Government welcomes such investments in a bid to make Guyana a fabrication hub for the region.
“Guyana must become the hub for fabrication machining services for this region. The region has huge yachting industry, cruise ships come here all the time, and we have to start getting into those markets. What oil and gas does is it gives us the accelerated momentum to get there, because you have the sophisticated investors and technology now interested,” he noted.

According to the Head of State, with similar private investments slated to come on board later this year, Government is working assiduously to implement an elaborate road network and transportation system to link the vastly developing East Coast Corridor with the port facilities.
However, President Ali has posited that, with more investments coming into the country, Government’s priority would be ensuring that Guyanese are benefited. To this end, he stated that Guysons K+B Industries would be held accountable for the commitments they have made, which include certified training of Guyanese to produce skilled and qualified employees.

“The company has signed on to a number of commitments of milestones that have to be met as we go forward: jobs, investment, what has to be done, the type of changes that we have to see… They have committed themselves in writing to this. It shows their seriousness about advancing this very quickly,” he asserted.
The President has noted that the company’s progress would be monitored by the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), the Finance Ministry, and the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest).
However, Vice President of Sales at K+B Industries – the US partner of the joint venture company – Nick Becnel, has said Guysons K+B Industries has already started training Guyanese to take up employment at the facility.
“To be successful, we plan to invest in the community and, more specially, in the Guyana people. Despite the challenge of the ongoing COVID pandemic, K+B and Guysons have been conducting both virtual and in-country training for the local Guyanese workers,” he stated.
According to Becnel, the company’s next phase of training includes sending the local GKB team members to the United States for more in-depth training at K+B’s world class facilities. This, he noted, would benefit both of the joint venture partners as they learn from each other.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh has said this investment is reflective of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government’s push for partnerships with local participation, in keeping with the country’s newly established local content laws.
“This partnership between Guysons and K+B represents a good example of what can be achieved through the spirit of the local content framework that we have established, leveraging local and domestic expertise and capital, but also mobilising international expertise and partners such as that which is found in GKB,” the Minister stated.
Dr Singh further noted, “This partnership is what we would like to see multiplied and replicated many times over.”
The Finance Minister went on to say that this is in keeping with Government’s commitment to righting the wrongs done to sugar communities with the closure of estates, including Enmore’s, under the APNU/AFC regime.
As such, Dr Singh pointed out that, in addition to these 500 job opportunities, Enmore would also soon benefit from another 300 employment opportunities with the establishment of a call centre in the community.
The closure of the Enmore Estate under the previous APNU/AFC Government has heavily impacted the community. As such, one resident, Jenny, has welcomed this investment and the opportunities it would create for not just Enmore, but other surrounding communities.
Chief Executive Officer of Guysons K+B Industries, Faizal Khan, posited, “For Guyana’s oilfield people to forget our sugar people is like us forgetting ourselves. This resides very closely to me, since my mother and father were born very closely to sugar estates.”
Guysons Engineering Limited was established in 1992, and has developed into an industry leading engineering and machining shop. The Guysons Group of Companies is now geared to support Guyana’s growing oil & gas industry with the establishment of Guysons Oil & Gas in 2018, which is directly contracted to ExxonMobil.
US-based K&B Machine Works opened as a full-service machine shop to serve the oil & gas industry. Four decades of intense customer focus and dedication to hiring likeminded leaders has resulted in K&B Industries being recognised worldwide today. (G8)