The Guyana Government is looking to ensure that experienced and skilled Guyanese working in the country’s burgeoning oil and gas industry receive commensurate salaries as their overseas counterparts – something that the major operators here support. According to Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat, there has been no resistance from the top industry players in Guyana. In fact, he disclosed that the United States (US)-based oil giant, ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), has already signalled its willingness to support this move.

“I’ve had further conversations with Alistair [Routledge, President of EMGL… and they are in support of it, which is fair. We are not asking for anything that is contrary to the way in which they operate. We are not asking for anything unlawful. We are asking for something that is fair,” Bharrat declared during a recent episode of the Starting Point podcast. In fact, Minister Bharrat noted that even Exxon’s tier one contractors are also on board with this push for Guyanese to receive fair pay. “I recently met with the SBM CEO, who was in the country and paid a visit to me, and I raised that with him too. And they’re on board… SBM is one of the major contractors for Exxon… They’re contracted by Exxon to operate the [four] FPSOs (floating production, storage, and offloading) vessels.”

“There’s another major FPSO company, which is MODEC. The next FPSO that is coming… MODEC would be operating that FPSO… And MODEC as well too, they’re fully on board. In fact, they mentioned to me they’ve had this structure in place for a while now of fair pay. That once you have the qualification, the skill set, and you’re working in a manner that is acceptable by the company – that is having good work ethics – then it must be a fair pay system.”