Guyana’s seeming meteoric accession to recognition as an emerging leader in the global oil and gas industry is expected to be further accentuated against the backdrop of the forthcoming February 14-17 showpiece Second Edition of the International Energy Conference and Expo Guyana 2023 (IECEG) which, like its predecessor, will feature ExxonMobil Guyana as the event’s premier sponsor.
Scheduled to be staged at the Marriott Hotel in the country’s capital, Georgetown, the event, which will be held under the theme ‘Harnessing Energy for Development,’ is being seen as further burnishing the country’s image on the international oil and gas circuit by enabling a meeting of minds and discourses on contemporary sectoral issues among internationally acclaimed minds in the global energy sector. When news of the staging of the forum was announced in November last year, the announcement included the disclosure that it was expected to assemble internationally renowned policymakers, academics, industry professionals and entrepreneurs from around the world, as well as “Heads of State and Government and global energy thought leaders” including American Economics Professor, Jeffrey Sachs, considered a global leader in the discipline of Energy Development.
A gathering of such notable minds in the energy field here in Guyana is bound to attract wider global attention to the country as a focal point in the ongoing global discourse on oil and gas which will feature contributions on both international energy development as well as the implications of the further growth of the sector against the backdrop of climate change concerns. The announcement by ExxonMobil, back in 2015, of its first confirmed oil find offshore Guyana has had the effect of not just changing the ‘coordinates’ for the country’s economic development but has also served to alter previous international perceptions as a country doomed to a permanent condition of underdevelopment. Back in November last year, President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, in announcing that the US oil giant will once again be sponsoring the forum this year, described Guyana as a “thought-leader on low carbon development with an ambitious strategy to secure growth and prosperity for current and future generations.” Routledge asserted that these credentials “put Guyana in the driver’s seat on energy issues regionally if not globally,” even as he described the February forum as “an ideal platform to learn of developments and engage in the debate.”
The significance of ICEG for Guyana extends beyond the illumination of the country as an emerging power in the field of oil and gas industry. It also singles out the country as a likely focus of attention in the accompanying ongoing global discourse on the fossil fuel industry and the environment, even as climate change occupies increasing space on the international human development agenda. International media interest in events like ICEG 2023 also opens the door to more expansive coverage of Guyana to spotlight on issues that go beyond the oil and gas sector.
