United States companies interested in Guyana’s oil potential
–outgoing Ambassador Brent Hardt
INVESTMENT relationships between Guyana and the United States of America (USA) are growing, according to outgoing Ambassador Brent Hardt, who noted that several US companies are interested in doing business here.
“We’re each other’s closest trade partners in the sense that I think the trade relations between us is the biggest of any countries,” he said in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle.
“We’ve worked to encourage US investors to come here, and I know as the oil and gas field becomes increasingly of interest here in Guyana, we’ll hopefully see more US companies engaging in that area. There is already interest, and we look forward to seeing more and more companies here.” – US Ambassador Brent Hardt
Noteworthy is the fact that the Ambassador highlighted Guyana’s potential in the oil and gas field, which he said is increasingly becoming a point of interest for US investors.
US Ambassador Brent Hardt
Hardt said: “We’ve worked to encourage US investors to come here, and I know as the oil and gas field becomes increasingly of interest here in Guyana, we’ll hopefully see more US companies engaging in that area. There is already interest, and we look forward to seeing more and more companies here.”
Up to last December, principals from petroleum companies operating in Guyana had a meeting with Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud, and Deputy Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, Newell Dennison, in the United States.
The meeting was held against the backdrop that Guyana has petroleum prospecting licenses issued for exploration activities by petroleum companies in the offshore, coastal, near shore, deep water and ultra-deep waters of Guyana, and within Guyana maritime areas.
At the December meeting, a major investor, CGX, indicated that significant funding was being arranged for its own exploration programme over its prospecting areas, and that it should, in the near term, be advising on its plans.
As recent as June 20 this year, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Dewi Jones, said, “We are very pleased with the progress of all our activities thus far in 2014. We continue to work towards drilling our next offshore exploration well in Guyana, and are still optimistic that a joint venture partner will be secured prior to drilling.”
Additionally, Esso, Repsol and Anadarko were companies operating offshore, which concluded geophysical in their respective prospecting areas. Nabi Oil and Gas Inc. concluded a small geochemistry survey over their coastal onshore block in the last quarter of 2013; and together, such investments in exploration have been in the vicinity of US$50M.
All the companies present committed to keep their timelines, and especially with regard to processing and interpreting their new data, which has to inform on an anticipated next campaign of drilling speculated for as early as 2015.
