Photo Credit: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited
“Collaboration” was a word that kept popping up at the Guyana Energy Conference this week, just as it did at the T&T Energy Conference a few weeks ago. In Georgetown this week there was a strong feeling of collaboration and cooperation between Guyana, the new oil giant and the world’s fastest growing economy, and Trinidad & Tobago, one of the world’s oldest oil producers and an important player in natural gas and petrochemicals. This was surely helped by the presence of the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, and the Minister of Energy, Stuart Young, and strong statements about regional integration from President of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali and other leaders from Guyana.
But perhaps even more importantly were the many Guyana – T&T joint venture companies that had a strong presence at the accompanying expo. The respective private sectors are finding ways of working together for mutual benefit and creating value. This is key to regional integration. The free movement of people, capital and equipment across the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) will help all of the economies of the region. For energy services in particular, integrating the Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago markets will help efficiency and boost the competitiveness of service companies working across this space. Increased competitiveness will in turn increase the value retained in local economies from the spend of the major operating companies across the jurisdictions.
There is a clear political push now to make the CSME really function. It was good to hear Dr Carla Barnett, Secretary General of CARICOM speaking at the opening of the Guyana Energy Conference. I hope that the message of collaboration is carried forward to next week’s CARICOM Heads of Government meeting.
The historic decisions around free movement of people made in Port of Spain in June 2023 need to be fully implemented as quickly as possible and this CARICOM meeting, under President Ali’s Chairmanship, offers a key opportunity to really make progress. Based on his strong statements at the Guyana Energy Conference, he does not seem to be in the mood to allow implementation to drag out indefinitely (as has often happened in the past).
At a personal level, I thoroughly enjoyed attending the Guyana Energy Conference this year. Partly it is just nice to be at someone else’s event, where I am not constantly worrying about all of the logistics, but it was also great to catch-up with many old friends and colleagues and make some really interesting new connections as well. Things have come a long way from our first trade missions to Guyana some fifteen years ago, when many people were confused about why we were even bothering to explore the Guyana market for energy services. Today, Guyana is developing so rapidly it is hard not to get caught-up in the sense of excitement and opportunity. The opportunities are massive, but collaboration is going to be key.