…preparing for opportunities, challenges peculiar to oil producing countries GOVERNMENT is ensuring that Guyana is well prepared for the opportunities , problems and  challenges peculiar to an  oil-producing country.
President Domald Ramotar made this observation yesterday while declaring open a five-day programme in oil and gas for technical officers in the Natural Resources and Environmental sectors.
The programme, dubbed a 5-Day MBA in Oil and Gas,  is being facilitated by international consultants  Warren Business Consulting, on behalf of Minexco Petroleum.
Warren Business Consulting is a US-based management consulting and business training company providing strategic services to the energy industry, primarily in the oil and gas sector.
Minexco Petroleum is a private junior oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company, building a robust portfolio of upstream oil and gas ventures across West Africa and Guyana.
The oil and gas programme for Guyanese, the first of its kind locally, is being held at the Regency Suites/Hotel, Hadfield Street, Georgetown, and  aims at providing participants with a holistic perspective on how the oil and gas industry works.
The course covers such topics as petroleum geology; structural characteristics of the oil and gas industry; oil supply chain and gas supply chain, The basics of oil and gas exploration and recovery; methods of state and foreign participation, government fiscal terms and agreements with investors, as well as other topics of interest.
The participants include officers of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), GUYOIL, the Guyana Energy Authority (GEA) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), among others.
Declaring the programme open, President Ramotar said that when  some people hear about oil, their eyes get beady and they begin to see dollar signs   everywhere they look.
He said that oil could be considered a blessing, but could very well become a curse if the resulting economy is not prudently managed.
“We have to be aware of the negative aspects which we will have to bear in mind to make ourselves immune (to them), such as the tendency for the industry to pull away labour and capital  from other sectors,” he said.
He pointed out that oil wealth in some countries had led to “Dutch Disease”, that is a crippling of the rest of the economy, such as agriculture and manufacturing, and this leads to serious problems.
“We don’t want to fall into a situation where, if we find oil, we become absolutely dependent on oil, to the exclusion of other important areas for growth and development,” he stressed..
He added though, in the event of the discovery of oil, Guyana can consider itself at an advantage, since this country would  not have to start from the beginning, making the same mistakes that some other countries made when they were developing their own oil and gas industries
“We can learn and we can study the experiences of oil producing countries and extract the best practices and apply them to Guyana, in this event,” he said.
The President, who had been instrumental in getting the programme going, said it would be useful in removing some of the disadvantages Guyana could face in the event that oil is discovered.
He told the participants that in recent years, the mining sector in Guyana has attracted much international attention,  that  Government had concluded many mining agreements, and that mining,   as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP), has been growing steadily over  the years
He said that locals had developed considerable expertise in gold and diamond mining, and in bauxite but petroleum,  for which the country reportedly has a huge potential.
He said that the oil and gas course was long overdue.
He stressed that it is the objective of government to maximise the benefits of the mining sector for Guyanese, and urged participants to make maximum use of their exposure to the programme.
Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert M. Persaud, said that the ministry welcomed the training programme as an  opportunity to build its technical capacity in the development of the potential hydrocarbon sector of the economy.
He said that the programme was part of the government’s efforts to develop the skills base that is needed in Guyana to avoid dependence on expatriates and external knowledge in the development of the oil and gas sector.
He said that the current programme will also fit into another initiative to develop a larger corps of Guyanese who are knowledgeable in mining and mining development, primarily  through the establishment of a mining school.
He said that his ministry intends to launch the mining school in September, and that programmes such as the current one will be among those on the curriculum.
He stressed: “The aim is to develop local capacity, to grow and nurture  Guyanese who can manage the opportunities and challenges of the mining sector and the oil and gas sector.”