EXXONMOBIL Guyana’s Centre for Local Business Development (CLBD) is in the process of assisting four companies in acquiring International Organisation for Standardization (ISO), the CLBD Project Director Patrick Henry disclosed on Wednesday.

Already, the centre has secured ISO9001:2015 Certification for Guysons Oil and Gas Services and Guysons Engineering – two Guyanese-owned companies that fall under the umbrella company Guysons.

Henry said that some of those companies will be going forward to their audit stage. “So that’s started and then we have a list of other companies that are interested so we are just working with the industry to figure out how to sequence those in a sense of trying to get the companies that are necessarily needed quickly into the process to try to get them in as quickly as possible,” Henry explained.

He added that the Centre will not only be focusing on companies in the oil and gas sector, but they are also welcoming the interest from other companies as well, to come on board and learn about the process and procedures for obtaining their ISO certificate.
They are also focused on businesses of any type, which are not prepared to go into the oil and gas sectors, to provide them with the knowledge on same, through the classes they provide.

Henry said that they have already 1,200 businesses from across the country in their supply registration board, including machine shops, restaurants, hotels and a variety of other businesses.

“Over the past 18 months the centre helped thousands of Guyanese businesses get registered, they come through our classes, they learn about the oil and gas sector, and they leave, better equipped to manage successful businesses,” he said.

The Centre for Local Business Development provides a space for local firms to learn about opportunities in the oil and gas sector, strengthen their competitiveness, and prepare them to supply the oil and gas sector with various services. The intention is to register local businesses, to provide them with the opportunity to bid on contracts linked directly to the country’s budding oil industry, so as to not only boost themselves, but Guyana as a whole.