A new petroleum production bill to update and modernise Guyana’s existing legislation in the sector is currently in the pipeline and will be made public shortly.

This is according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall S.C., during Tuesday’s edition of his weekly show, Issues in the News.

During the live broadcast, he said that while Guyana has a Petroleum Exploration and Production Act which was enacted in the 1980s, the government is working on a new petroleum production bill.

The previous act, Nandlall said, was enacted when the country was not a petroleum producer and since Guyana has moved successfully into that sector, the current piece of legislation has become outmoded and cannot be a proper regulatory framework for the current sector.

“We have recognised that a long time ago, and we are working on a brand-new bill that will take into account and will address the modern realities of Guyana as an oil and gas producer. So, that is in the pipeline and that will be made public shortly,” he said.

Additionally, Nandlall related that there are some other related legislations that the government is working on as it relates to the oil and gas sector, and in due time those will all be made public.

Among some of those to be reviewed is the Local Content Act of 2021, which, he said, the government has made a commitment to reviewing and adding regulations to.

In this regard, Nandlall related that Guyana has now had the Local Content Act enacted for some two years and said that as more experience is gained, it will be subject to reviews.

“We have acquired under our belt, two years of experience as an oil and gas producer, operator, exporter and I believe now we are at a particular vantage point that we can now review our experience and start to work on modernising and making adjustments to the local content law,” the Attorney-General said.

This, coupled with bringing in additional regulations, he related, will strengthen the legislation to enable the government to achieve the core objective of the legislation which is to protect Guyanese and Guyanese companies in the oil and gas sector.

The Attorney-General committed to the continual review of the legislation and ensuring that lessons learned in the sector are taken on board so that they could play a role in the updating and modernising of the legislation.