…air link, information sharing on oil and gas covered

A TWO-YEAR Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for trading relations and information sharing has been signed between the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Guyana-Ghana Chamber of Commerce.

The event took place at the GCCI’s office on Wednesday and the MoU was signed by GCCI President, Nicholas Boyer, and Executive Secretary (ag) of the Guyana-Ghana Chamber, Nuertey Adzeman. The MoU will see the two chambers collaborating in areas such as responsible business conduct, due diligence and responsible oil and gas supply value chain.

The two parties will host a series of meetings before operationalisation in the coming weeks. Furthermore, the GGGI is working towards fielding a mission of industry stakeholders from Ghana to Guyana before the end of this year. The visiting stakeholders and GCCI will participate in joint research, workshops and training events and will collaborate with major stakeholders from civil society organisations involved in oil and gas supply value chain.

“We see Ghana as a potential trading partner, a partner who has significant experience in industries that we are developing. Oil is one but oil is not all. There is also mining in Ghana as well as several other industries that we should collaborate on,” Boyer stated. “This MoU will form the basis from which the Guyana-Ghana Chamber of Commerce and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry can share information and allow our members to make connections and start to do market research so that businesses can develop and trade can increase between our two countries.”

Exploration for oil and gas in Ghana began in 1896 in the onshore Tano basin; however, the discovery of significant hydrocarbon accumulations in 2007 and the commencement of production of the Jubilee field in November 2010 are marked as the most significant in the sector in the last 2000s. Adzeman told the media that, over the years Ghana has been learning from countries like Nigeria, Norway and others.

He stated that the signing of the MoU for the Guyana-Ghana Chamber represents an opportunity for the country to assist Guyana, given its ties with Africa, to benefit thoroughly from the coming of oil and gas.
“Guyana has found oil in commercial quantities and we thought we could play a role in assisting in developing the oil and gas industry because we know we have a relationship with you ancestrally [and] you don’t have the numbers and need to build capacity as quickly as you can. We thought there’s a lot we can share in that aspect,” he said.

Adzeman is also the Executive Director of the Ghana Oil and Gas Service Providers Association and member of the Local Content Committee of Petroleum Commission in Ghana. He has racked up over 25 years of experience in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria and additional years in Ghana. The two chambers began talks back in May 2019 at the hosting of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, where they shared adjacent boots. Furthermore, the MoU comes on the heels of the recent State visit of Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, to Guyana for arrangements for future collaboration in the areas of trade and investment, agriculture, culture and more.

WORDS OF ADVICE
Asked his opinion on the areas Guyana should focus on ahead of ‘first oil’, he expressed the importance of the development of a local content policy through local participation. Expounding on his idea of ‘local participation’, he stated that this can be achieved by encouraging every foreign business coming in to Guyana to have a local partner with a “stake of equity” in the business.

Adzeman also pushed for the transfer of knowledge from experienced international companies to local companies for a future transition which would see local companies managing the country’s oil and gas affairs for themselves. Both representatives of the chambers also lobbied for a regulatory body to be put in place such as a Petroleum Commission take on a watchdog role in the industry. Boyer stressed the need for the same to have a minimal political influence as possible. The government is currently working to advance its Petroleum Commission Bill with the help of local and international partners.

Meanwhile, the two heads also spoke to the importance of developing a shorter and more reliable air link between the two countries which would propel investment and trade. In November 2018, the Governments of Guyana and Ghana signed an Air Services Agreement here at the Third African Diaspora Meeting held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
Under the Agreement, airlines operating from Guyana or Ghana will be able to fly to any destination within both countries as well as provide any number of services between both countries and beyond to any third country, with no restrictions on capacity, frequency, aircraft type and routing.

In December 2018, Guyana also signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement with Ghana for the exchange of knowledge and technical expertise in the area of civil aviation. Then, in June 2019, the two countries signed an agreement to abolish the visa requirement for citizens desirous of travelling between the two countries. “If we have a more direct air link or an air link with less than three stops at this point, it makes it easier to do business,” Boyer said.

Adzeman assured that the need for a direct air link between West Africa and South America through Guyana is a matter on the “front burner” for Guyana-Ghana Chambers. “Fortunately for us, both governments are talking already so we, as private sector, will help to push them and come with modalities as to how to implement those things they have signed,” he said. “It is very critical in this partnership we are trying to forge [because] people cannot move freely, goods and services cannot move freely.” Should the first two years of collaboration between the two Chambers prove successful, the MoU is likely to be renewed.