Against the backdrop of what is widely believed to be the country’s significant potential to become a major producer of oil and natural gas, Guyana can anticipate support from the United States in building capacity in the creation of structures that would ensure accountability for oil and gas revenues once exploitation gets underway.
An article published in the just released 2015 edition of the annual Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) Investors’ Guide To Doing Business in Guyana and sourced to “the US Embassy in Guyana” discloses that Washington is already working with the government here and with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank “to facilitate Guyana’s participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard aimed at “improving revenue transparency and accountability in the extractive sectors.” According to the article the EITI has become a key international instrument “for monitoring and reconciling company payments and government revenues from oil, gas, mining and forestry at country level.”
The EITI is an accountability and anti-corruption mechanism set up in 2002 and membership of the organization will bind an oil-producing Guyana to certain standards in terms of reporting on revenue and other key areas of the sector.
Reference in the US Embassy article to the support which the Government of Guyana is receiving from the United States in pursuit of affiliation to the EITI comes against the backdrop of what is known to be expert estimates by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) of the Guyana-Suriname Basin as “the second largest resource potential among unexplored oil basins in the world,” estimated by experts at 15 billion barrels of oil and 42 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Guyana’s energy exploitation programme, the article says, can anticipate “a range of technical and capacity-building assistance” under Washington’s Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI). “With major investment often comes significant company-funded infrastructure projects such as roads and schools. As corporations strive to become integrated corporate citizens of the host country they typically provide a significant boost to the local economy through increased spending in hotels, restaurants and other general services,” the article adds.
