GUYANA has sent out trade missions for decades, often to Commonwealth nations, home to members of the diaspora and with historic ties to Guyana. But last week’s trade mission to Aberdeen, Scotland was something different. Aberdeen is Europe’s undisputed capital of the oil and gas industry.

This three-day trade mission was also unique in that it was led in part by the British High Commissioner to Guyana, Greg Quinn, who stated that the trade mission was spending more time in Scotland than any other trade mission in recent Guyanese history.
Aberdeen is taking a similar interest in Guyana and their trade mission should arrive in Georgetown in January. The city is also set to become “twinned” with Georgetown sometime next year, according to reporting from Energy Voice. That means that the two cities will work to promote cultural and commercial ties and form strategic links to facilitate future business partnerships.

The current mission to Aberdeen is aimed at forging business connections and learning about the energy industry, which currently employs more than half a million people in and around the northern Scottish city.

As discussed previously in this column, Aberdeen was a small town traditionally focused on fishing and ship building before it became the de facto capital of the North Sea oil boom almost during the 1970s and 80s. Now it is home to hundreds of oil and gas service companies, including the headquarters of Stena Drilling, which owns the Stena Carron drillship that is exploring Guyanese waters under contract with Exxon.

While other nations, like Norway, now produce more oil in Europe, Aberdeen built up so much expertise in the specialised fields of building, installing, and servicing offshore oil and gas operations that it is now a global industry hub.

Most of the world’s largest oil and gas service companies—from deepwater divers to subsea engineers and helicopter companies—are either headquartered in Aberdeen or house their European operations there. It is also a centre of oil and gas education, hosting undergraduate and masters programs on petroleum engineering, petroleum economics and more at the University of Aberdeen.

Firms in Aberdeen are also working to leverage their experience in offshore activities into new industries, like servicing offshore wind farms and laying deep-sea fiber optic cables.
Fredrick Hamley Case, the Guyanese Ambassador to the UK, who also helped to lead the delegation, cited this experience as an opportunity for Guyanese officials and business executives to learn about developing local content. Scotland is a particularly interesting example of local content development, since the United Kingdom has no specific laws on local content, but basic economic demand proved to be a powerful enough incentive to develop sector expertise.

This offers an interesting look at the impact of letting firms operate and invest freely. It is important to remember that Guyana finds itself at a very different stage of economic development on the cusp of oil production than Aberdeen did. Though Aberdeen itself was a medium-sized fishing town, Scotland was a very industrialised region with a large number of established research universities and a history of shipbuilding and heavy manufacturing.
Guyana doesn’t have the same kind of pre-existing industrial capacity. Nonetheless, Aberdeen can offer many lessons for Guyana in the realms of fiscal management, jobs training, and quickly reorienting existing capabilities towards meeting the needs of a new industry.

Perhaps the most important thing Aberdeen can offer is the possibility of joint ventures between Scottish and Guyanese firms, an effort that appears to be well underway and a clear goal of both trade missions. Similar joint ventures are already established or planned between firms and American and Canadian partners. Hopefully more trade missions will continue this encouraging trend and bring further opportunities for these kinds of partnerships.