Should Guyana build a small refinery?

Sep 12, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – The public discourse, thus far, on a refinery for Guyana asks some legitimate questions about cost, management, financing and commercial risk. But it makes a fundamental analytical mistake of evaluating the proposed Guyanese refinery as though its purpose were to become another Petrotrin—a medium-scale refinery competing in international markets for export sales.

That is not the proposition that Guyana has in mind. The proposal has consistently been for a relatively small modular refinery designed principally to secure Guyana’s domestic fuel supply.