– winning work on and offshore

(Guyana Chronicle) A LITTLE over four years ago, the average Guyanese and even Guyanese businesses were unaware of the country’s oil and gas potential until May 2015 when ExxonMobil announced its first of now 13 discoveries offshore Guyana.
Despite being unfamiliar, at that time, with the workings of the petroleum industry, Guyanese businesses, within a span of just four years, have taken a front seat in oil and gas sector.

Two years ago, only a few companies had started winning work in the sector and now Guyanese companies are winning work offshore. They are even working on the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO), said Director of the Centre for Business Development, Patrick Henry.

“Guyanese businesses are working with prime contractors, winning work directly from Exxon and that just shows how quickly the business community saw what an opportunity this was and how quickly they upskilled and invested and grabbed a share of the contracts and are continuing to grow with the sector,” said Henry during an exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle.

Guyanese businesses have been contributing to the oil and gas supply chain which includes services such as transportation and even professional services ranging from lawyers, accountants and even auditors. The sector also needs specialised services onshore to provide supplies, parts, chemicals and other inputs.

Henry said all companies that won contracts in the sector are up to standard and there has been a big movement of businesses winning work. Most of the businesses, which won contracts, were able to get up to standard through assistance from the Centre for Business Development.

“There has been a very rapid transition of the supply base in Guyana and very rapid transition of businesses to get to that level quickly, it has been impressive… Guyanese businesses deserve all the credit,” said the director of the centre.
The demand on the centre, the amount of businesses going through, the continual interest and the amount of businesses winning work, not only shows the enthusiasm, but it shows that Guyanese businesses rose to the occasion.

“It was a new industry, new opportunity, but they made an investment in staff, physical infrastructure and they are being rewarded with winning contracts based on those investments… I think the enthusiasm you can see is that the companies have been doing work, won work, winning more work and expanding, so it is exciting times to see,” said Henry.

ON GOOD TRACK
With businesses working both onshore and offshore, he said the private sector is well on its way to benefitting from the oil and gas sector.
Though Henry credited the development to the businesses, the centre also deserves some credit for the technical and professional work it has done with those local businesses.
The Centre for Business Development was established by ExxonMobil in 2017. It is managed by DAI Global.

The mandate of the centre is to help Guyanese businesses broadly understand the oil and gas sector and join the oil and gas supply chain for ExxonMobil or prime contractors.
“We have three areas of training and one IT (Information Technology) product called the Supplier Registration Portal that allows businesses to get information and get discovered by the sector,” said Henry.

SUPPLIER REGISTRATION PORTAL
The supplier registration portal was built by a Guyanese companies, Brainstreet and version 75. The portal allows Guyanese businesses to get on a system, put information about their business and allow the international prime contractors for Exxon to access those businesses. The prime contractors pull locals on to bid lists and issues requests for expressions of interest.

That portal was started in 2017 and today there are about 1,700 Guyanese businesses on that portal. According to Henry, the portal has a large group of businesses that are continually getting information about what is happening in the sector and they are making business decisions on whether they should compete for contracts.

The portal updates businesses about contracts through texts and emails but soon the centre will be launching an app which will allow users to access information faster.
Businesses can also access information through the traditional means such as seminars. The centre runs a series of three seminars called Introduction to Offshore Oil and Gas. During the seminar, businesses are taught what is happening 125 miles offshore Guyana, what is an FPSO and even how to make smart investment decisions.

There are also two sessions called procurement for local suppliers and the point of those sessions is to give businesses an idea of how the oil and gas sector does procurement differently and how they get businesses to go through a pre-qualification process.
Henry said the sector also has a big programme in health, safety, security and the environment. He said there is a big focus on safety, in the sense that the centre tries to ensure that local businesses put safety first. The programme teaches local businesses about the use of various equipment and how to conduct work in a safe manner so that everyone could get home safely.

Then the centre does something else called ISO 9001 mentoring and that is focused on getting individual businesses up to an international compliance level. After the centre guides businesses to get up to that standard, they can easily jump into the oil and gas supply chain.

“Through all these programmers, the businesses get a big overview of the industry, the requirements, how to get involved and what to do… then there is a certain segment of businesses that look at themselves and say I need to upgrade my financial management, human resource management system, inventory controls and supply chain management in order to get involved,” said Henry.

Over 1,000 businesses have participated in the seminar and about 200 have been involved in longer courses which teach them how to upscale and upgrade staff and workers.