GLOBAL WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
ExxonMobil’s Guyana project
provides blueprint for building
local workforce, infrastructure
in emerging E&P markets
Center for Local Business Development shows
Guyanese suppliers how to maximize growth
opportunities, improve safety management
BY STEPHEN WHITFIELD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
In developing countries like Guyana, an oil
company won’t be successful in their E&P
projects if they see the oil and gas in
the ground as the only resource being
developed. They also must consider the
potential local workforce and its techni-
cal and business capacities as valuable
resources, and then identify ways to devel-
op them. For ExxonMobil, as it embarked
on its exploration and development of the
Stabroek Block in Guyana, it recognized
that those efforts must also encompass
programs to build a competitive and thriv-
ing local business community.

In 2017, as it began Phase 1 of the
Liza project, the company launched the
Center for Local Business Development in
Guyana’s capital city of Georgetown. The
aim was to provide training to Guyanese
businesses and employees, developing
their skills, knowledge and abilities so
they could work more effectively in the oil
and gas industry.

The effort has been so successful in the
past four to five years that Susan Scott,
Socioeconomic Manager at ExxonMobil,
said it can provide a model for other com-
panies looking to jump-start local content
development in other emerging markets.

“The center really is a one-stop shop for
local capacity building, mentoring, cre-
ating networking opportunities and pro-
viding a platform for information shar-
ing,” she said. “The insights that we’ve
gained from this experience can really be
a benefit for others in determining how
they can foster that local participation
in emerging economies, whether through
doing something like this or taking the
individual components and applying them
to their own initiatives.” Ms Scott spoke
about the center’s development at the 2022
SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston, Texas, late
last year.

When the center first launched, the
focus was on engaging with local sup-
pliers and enhancing the competencies
of their workforce, as well as providing
general business support. There were sig-
nificant gaps in their awareness, not only
of how the oil and gas sector functioned
but also around its standards, practices
and requirements, Ms Scott said.

The center began holding three types of
basic awareness seminars – HSSE (health,
safety, security and environment), intro
to offshore oil and gas, and procurement.

The intro to offshore class was formulated
to teach local suppliers about the fun-
damentals, like what are the differences
between the various tiers of contractors
in the oil and gas sector. For example,
local companies were often seeking to
gain specific contracts directly with the
operato r because they didn’t understand
how the sector’s specialized business eco-
system or procurement process operated.

The seminar also showed attendees how
to leverage opportunities created by local
content requirements, along with the ben-
efits their country could see from oil and
gas development.

“In the early days, we were in a country
that had little to no energy literacy, par-
ticularly within the local business com-
munity. We had to ensure that the local
business community was engaged and
really in a position to benefit from the
industry ,” Ms Scott said.

The procurement seminar focused on
the processes around electronic procure-
ment and bidding for work with operators.

Participants learned, for example, about
standard payment systems in the industry,
which are typically based on milestones
and completed work instead of the upfront
payments that were more common with
Guyanese government contracts.

From 2017 to 2021, more than 6,000 peo-
ple attended the center’s seminars, and new
courses have also been added on financial
management, supply chain management
and human resources management. “ We
saw that the local companies we were
working with were growing at a fast pace.

As a center, we knew that we had to evolve,”
said Natasha Gaskin-Peters, Director of the
Center for Local Business Development.

“While these businesses had a base knowl-
edge of the fundamentals, they did not
know how to build management systems,
so we had to take them through the process
of building those systems.”
From 2017, when the Center for Local Business Development began operations in
Guyana , to 2021, the country saw a surge in the number of local suppliers.

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