—Scottish city officials due in Guyana next week

By Paul Mc Adam

A HIGH-LEVEL “working” delegation is expected soon to further enhance the relationship between Georgetown and Aberdeen. This was revealed to the Guyana Chronicle by United Kingdom High Commissioner Greg Quinn recently. The top UK official described Aberdeen as a long standing “oil town which started off from a very low place.” The city experienced an oil boom but eventually diversified its economy, thus it has gone through good lessons and bad lessons of how to deal with oil wealth, High Commissioner Quinn added.

He further stated that the Scottish city’s officials, due in Guyana next week, “were experienced in how to spread oil wealth beyond just the obvious.” This, he said, has done them good stead in preparing industries which are not just dependent on oil wealth, but rather diversified in agriculture for example, and other sectors. Some of the lessons, he said, would be beneficial to Guyana as his countrymen did not necessarily do it the right way when oil was first discovered, “That information can be shared so that Georgetown doesn’t repeat some of the things we did.”

The follow-up visit by the Aberdeen city officials follows an initial three-day trade mission led in part by the British High Commissioner to Guyana, Greg Quinn, late in November 2018. The city is set to become “twinned” with Georgetown, according to a report 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 mission to Aberdeen was 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.

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 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 ExxonMobil. Aberdeen has 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 deep-water divers to subsea engineers and helicopter companies — are either headquartered in Aberdeen or house their European operations there. It is also a centre for oil and gas education, hosting undergraduate and masters programs in petroleum engineering, petroleum economics and more at the University of Aberdeen.