Guyana wants to harness its natural gas reserves offshore to fuel energy needs and the country’s Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo says help from India is being sought.
The Vice President was recently in India on a one-week official visit, hoping to advance partnerships in a number of areas. But much focus has been directed towards oil and gas cooperation.
“We’re expecting shortly to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that would not (focus on) just the exporting of crude oil but would look at the energy sector and its development in its totality,” Dr. Jagdeo said during an interview with WION news outlet.
That MoU has not been inked as yet as the two countries hope to conceptualise the mutually-beneficial “architecture” for broader cooperation.
Already though, it is known that India is interested in a long-term agreement for the supply of Guyana’s oil and Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali announced recently that the South-Asian country is expected to send a proposal on this soon.
With that proposal, Guyana is expected to assess whether it will get a beneficial deal supplying its share of oil produced in the prolific Stabroek Block offshore to India.
Outside of the long-term oil supply, President Ali had said that the two governments are also exploring the possible award of oil blocks directly to India.
The Vice President offered additional details on what Guyana is interested in. He detailed that support, including technical assistance, is being sought from India.
“…You have a lot of smart people here who can help us to work in defining the growth of the industry but not just on oil. (Also) the gas sector as we move to develop a gas policy to start utilising the gas resources,” Dr. Jagdeo said.
Outside of the oil and gas sector, Guyana is eyeing assistance in environmental management.
Before the interview, Dr. Jagdeo met with his counterpart in India, Jagdeep Dhankhar and during this engagement, energy cooperation was a key feature.
“Both leaders agreed to continue to work on strengthening of the bilateral partnership in various sectors including petroleum and natural gas, agriculture, agro-processing, education, healthcare, capacity building, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), renewable energy and climate change,” a release issued by India’s Ministry of External Affairs noted.
