The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has granted SBM Offshore a licence for the operation of its helideck onboard the Prosperity, the country’s third floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel which is expected to begin producing oil later this year.
This is the first FPSO helideck to have been certified by a Guyanese inspector.
The helideck is a platform on the vessels that supports the landing and takeoff of helicopters that are used mainly to transport personnel and some categories of materials.
The licensing comes on the heels of an inspection by Guyana’s first helideck inspector, Adrian Bassier, who was also presented with his licence yesterday. During the ceremony held at the GCAA head office in Kingston, Georgetown, GCAA Director General Egbert Field said the occasion was significant and a remarkable moment for Guyana’s aviation sector.
He stated that with the advent of oil and gas, there was no licensed inspector in Guyana to carry out routine and regulator checks on the vessels’ helidecks. In the past, he explained they had to utilise the expertise from Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana.
“Today we can happily say that Guyana has its first helideck inspector after the last inspection… The civil aviation forms an integral part of that development and we are now on the verge of becoming a very big oil-producing nation. In moving forward with that, the elements to support our oil production has got to be put in place,” Field remarked during the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, who also attended the ceremony, said that equipping the agency with the technical expertise places them in a better position to serve the needs of the oil and gas sector.
“There is a pride that Guyana can do things and Guyana is going places. When we had to get a helideck inspection a few years ago we had to engage a foreign partner, Ghana, to be exact, to do that work for us. We didn’t have to go that same route again of having a foreign partner to do that inspection, we now have the capacity in the country… and that is very important.”
Edghill expressed the hope that more persons will be certified to improve the in-house skillset of the regulatory agency. In building the skillset of the aviation sector, the Minister said that he would also like to see the search and rescue capacity enhanced and significantly boosted.
“We have to ensure that new monitoring mechanisms are in place… it is one of the things I would want to see accelerated…” he said, pointing out the increase in air traffic activity in Guyana’s airspace.
He encouraged the GCAA to engage in mentoring new junior officers and afford them opportunities to learn and pursue courses to advance their careers.
“We have to be able to take that to other areas of ensuring we have capacity-building,” he asserted as he challenged the GCAA Board of Directors Chairman to pursue a civil aviation training school. Such a facility, he posited, will build capacity not only in Guyana but the wider Caribbean.
Meanwhile, a representative of SBM Offshore Guyana said that receiving the certification is integral to their operation as the helideck is their main means of entry and exit on the FPSO.
He noted that while achieving the licence may seem simple, it is a significant requirement for the operations of the FPSO.
