-Minister Bharrat says over 1,000 local companies registered through the local content Secretariat with record investment of over $700 million
-lauds boost in consumer, investor confidence

FROM diversified investment opportunities beyond oil and gas to balancing Guyana’s oil resources with environmental sustainability, Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, has stated that the government is ensuring a sustainable path forward for the nation.
The oil and gas sector represents both a cornerstone for growth and a pressing challenge in the push to balance development with sustainability, and this is precisely what Minister Bharrat explained during day two of the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain expo.
“It is often said that it’s not how much you have, but it’s how well you manage it, and that has been Guyana’s success story,” the Minister said.

It is important to understand that the spur of economic growth from the oil and gas sector is not restrictive but it has trickled down to the Guyanese people and the Minister said that this is a result of building a framework that ensures that the benefits flow to the citizens.
The piece of legislation, which is the Local Content Act (LCA) facilitates a wave of entrepreneurship with local businesses in the oil and gas sector. The Act prioritises Guyanese companies in 40 key service areas, benefitting both new ventures and long-established firms. These areas include fabrication, electrical works, housekeeping, and janitorial services, to name a few.

With the aim to offer support to those local entrepreneurs that are rising to the challenge, the Minister noted that over 1,000 local companies are registered through the local content Secretariat, either with foreign investors or standalone so much so that an investment of over $700 million was recorded through the LCA.

Discussing the LCA further, the Minister said: “It was by no way designed to keep away foreign investment. It was designed to ensure that there is local participation in the oil and gas sector, because we have seen different models around the world, and in many of those models, local participation has been very limited, and we wanted to ensure that in Guyana, we get it right.”

The extraordinary leaps that Guyana is taking, is not tied to just the oil and gas sector, but the Minister also pointed to how consumer confidence has increased.
For instance, in the last five months, over 10,000 vehicles were registered, a milestone for a country that was struggling to register that same number in two to three years, he explained.

He said: “That is real development. That is real progress. It simply means that the average Guyanese, the young professionals, even students, can today, own their own motor vehicle.”
Good visionary leadership, bold decisions and partnerships are what the minister credited for Guyana’s unprecedented growth.
While speaking on how Guyana’s oil production has grown significantly, the Minister said: “We can safely say when those three FPSO sets arrive this year, 2026 and 2027 we can safely say that we’re in a good position to increase our production to 1.3 million in another three, four years from today. That is unprecedented.”

Even though Guyana is set to see more record growth from the oil and gas sector, the government has also crafted a strategy to utilise and monetise the country’s gas to unlock more opportunities.
The gas-to-energy project, which is a manifestation of this strategy, will reduce electricity costs by 50 per cent and, according to Bharrat, it will transform the lives of citizens.
Speaking more on the project, the Minister said: “It will enable us [to] add value to our resources, to engage in downstream processing, to ensure that we create more jobs for people, to ensure that we create opportunities for the growth and expansion of the local private sector, to ensure that we create investment opportunities for foreign investment in the manufacturing sector.”

Guyana has relied on primary exports of its products, but with the gas-to-energy project, the Minister said that it will add value to the country’s resources and help to truly move towards downstream processing.
This year’s theme for the Guyana’s Energy Conference and Supply Chain expo is: “Connecting the Dots: Integrating the Future” and is being held from February 18-21 2025.