Guyana cannot take another five years to prepare for oil
– IDB Country Manager
By Kiana Wilburg
IDB Country Manager, Sophie Makonnen
Kaieteur News – Given ExxonMobil’s plan to have five oil projects working simultaneously in the Stabroek Block by 2026, it is clear that Guyana needs to increase how quickly it is strengthening its governance framework for the sector.
In light of this, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Country Manager, Sophie Makonnen, has said that the country cannot take another five years to get its act together.
During an exclusive interview with this newspaper, Makonnen said, “… I know people are worried and I understand. I understand how the world works and why they are worried. However, not enough work may have been done. I think that the next two or three years are crucial. The pace of preparation must accelerate. It cannot be what it has been in the last one to five years. He had to speed up. ”
Asked why she highlighted the next two to three years as critical, Makonnen asked: “I’m looking at the cycle of when the other oilfields come in, development cycles, political circles and that all. So I’m saying it can’t take 10 years to prepare. You can’t … It took a long time to get Guyana where it’s at in terms of what’s been done and there’s still a lot to do. So you can’t take another five years to continue. ”
Even when she said much more needed to be done, the IDB official said this should not be interpreted to mean that there is no move towards this.
He reminded Makonnen that the PPP / C administration has only been in power for a few months.
She added that she was aware that there was an oil and gas working group, where things were probably happening. But the difference between today and a few years ago, he said, is that there are key documents that the financial institution helped produce that are available to the PPP / C.
“… They don’t have to agree with everything that was produced. But it’s something to start working with. It’s not a blank sheet of paper, ”the IDB Country Manager stressed.
The Inter-American Development Bank has been one of Guyana’s key partners in developing its capacity to manage the oil sector. To this end, it has made several loans to Guyana, one of which included: GY-T1167: Strengthening the Technical Functions of the Department of Energy. This was approved on December 17, 2019 and amounted to US $ 606,062. The objective of this project is to provide immediate support for the implementation of protocols for the management and monitoring of Stabroek Block Production Share Agreement (PSA) compliance through improvements in general monitoring and enforcement standards during administration, production management and verification processes.
It is also intended to provide general training and support to key agencies within the oil and gas regulatory framework with particular attention to the use of contract management systems; and provide a platform for disseminating best practices for software solutions for monitoring compliance and for implementing systems of internal control necessary to maintain data integrity and integrity in the sector.