A Policy Guidance for Managing Guyana’s Petroleum Resources to Enhance the Local Workforce, Supply Chains and Business Environment for Transforming the Economy and Well-Being of Guyanese.- Revised Draft – February 2021

iNTRODUCTION

Since the discovery of major commercial quantities of petroleum resources in 2015, the Government of Guyana (GoG) have made participation by Guyanese in the activities of the sector a priority. During the period of 2017 and 2018 two drafts of a local content policy were produced on behalf of the Ministry of Natural Resources for public comment. The second involved extensive public consultation among the range of stakeholders across the country and industry and included an implementation strategy and the framework for an implementation plan. In 2019, on behalf of the Government of Guyana, the second was revised and expanded into a third draft, inclusive of a detailed implementation plan. Thereof, the draft was further revised by a team from the Commonwealth Secretariat (CS) out of which a comprehensive report was produced for the Government of Guyana, inclusive of guidelines on its implementation and pointing towards the utility of regulations and lessons learnt in different jurisdictions, including new oil producing countries. In January 2020, the report was finalised and published. Hitherto, each revision reflected the rapidly changing circumstances and evolving stakeholder needs and government direction while underscoring the need for supporting legislation/regulations to efficiently enforce the provisions of the policy.