How much money spent with locals stays in Guyana?

-- ExxonMobil wants to find out

Guyana's local content law has led oil sector players to spend roughly G$700 billion directly on goods and services from Guyanese nationals and businesses. However, President of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited, Alistair Routledge, says the company will soon study how much of that money is retained in the country.

ExxonMobil is the operator in the prolific Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, where oil production started in December 2019. Guyana has since become a global oil hotspot, and in December 2021, the Irfaan Ali administration enacted a local content law setting out the minimum levels of goods and services that must be procured from Guyanese.

Routledge hailed the law as one that helped get more Guyanese directly involved in the sector, with industry players spending about G$700 billion locally since. Still, he believes a deeper analysis is warranted as the company works alongside the government to determine the in-country value of that spending.

"We are looking to do some additional work later this year to introduce metrics that will truly help us to understand that on a deeper level," he said.

"How much of the money spent with a local supplier is actually retained in the country, whether because the employees are local and the money stays in local bank accounts, or because they have additional suppliers that are also local? Or that the owners are not just locals and have a Guyanese passport but they're also living locally and banking locally and the money is being retained locally and reinvested here?"

Routledge believes that understanding the in-country value of money spent locally should help Guyanese retain and maximise local content value. 

On the government side, Guyana's Ministry of Natural Resources and Local Content Secretariat have been monitoring how companies adhere to the 2021 Local Content law. Earlier this week, local content annual plans for more than 40 companies across Guyana's oil and gas sector were approved, tying companies to key deliverables meant to guarantee that Guyanese workers and services are supported.

Under Guyana's Local Content Act 2021, these annual plans must detail how companies intend to deliver on local content commitments throughout the year — including how many Guyanese they plan to employ and in what roles, what goods and services will be sourced from Guyanese companies, and the estimated value of local content to be delivered.