TRAINING is always required to conduct any aspect of economic activity successfully.  For traditional industries such as agriculture and mining, which have been operating for centuries,  there is always a corpus of trained personnel manning them. Though the numbers of such trained personnel may be inadequate, there is always time and opportunities to upgrade.  With the oil and gas industry, it is very different.  Very few countries have oil and gas industries, and their advent is always sudden.  This suddenness results in the absence of locally trained personnel to man the industry, and oil and gas industries in their early years have had to depend on personnel from developed countries. This dependency could continue for many years, except Governments would take concerted action to train local personnel to take over from the expatriates.

The oil and gas industry of Guyana is the most recent in the world, but both the Government and the people of Guyana have decided that they will not repeat the mistakes of others and are determined to have locals manning all aspects of the industry as early as possible.  This aspiration could not be quickly achieved because no comprehensive training institutions are available in the country. This results in training having to be done abroad on an ad hoc basis without the possibility of a comprehensive training plan.

It came as a breath of fresh air when it was recently announced that a US $20 million training facility was launched at Lusignan, ECD by a consortium of three investors, the lead being 3t EnerMech with Oninduik Development Inc and Windsor Technologies.  The facility began its operations about a year ago and has its first batch of students ready for graduation and this graduation is encapsulated in the official launch.  Prime Minister Mark Philips did the official launch and several Ministers attended the ceremony, attesting to the importance Government has given to the Training Centre.

The training programme provides a Level One qualification from the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB).  Level One consists of three phases, Pre-learning Assessment and Safe Passport are the first two and the third is done practically.  The Government of Guyana would support the Centre by offering scholarships under the GOAL programe to those interested in careers in the oil and gas industry.

Prime Minister Mark Phillips encouraged Guyanese to be involved in the industry as part of its human capital: “A crucial factor to the success of our Nation lies in our people. We must ensure that we utilise the benefits of the Oil and Gas Sector to build a bright future for this generation, the next and beyond.  To do this, we must inculcate a culture of ownership, a culture where our local ownership, a culture where our Local Content, our people, can thrive and that is the workforce itself. As the first entity with approval to deliver OPITO (Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organization) – accredited training for the Oil and Gas Sector in Guyana, our human resources are now strengthened at a global standard to actively and competently participate in the building of this new and abundant area of our country.  With an industry requiring high skills and knowledge, it is reassuring to know that these capacities can be imparted to our people without leaving their home soil. The launching of the EnerMech Training Centre is the beginning of the process of growing the local human capital of the oil and gas industry.”