Guest Editorial: Guyana Then and Now How Energy Is Reshaping Its Future

The views and opinions expressed in guest editorials published in JPT are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or views of SPE, its members, or its affiliates.

Aspirations, plans, roadmaps, visions, and ambition for Guyana’s development have never been in short supply.

Among everyday Guyanese, past and present politicians, technocrats, policymakers, and other well-wishers, there has always been consensus on the need for development and sustainability. The persistent shortage has been resources, both financial and human.

We can debate the kind of economy postcolonial Guyana inherited and how it has fared over the past 60 years. What is not debatable is the outcome: a historically constrained economy marked by a high debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, persistent unemployment, limited economic opportunity, and restricted access to finance and other forms of support for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

According to the independent statistics organization Worldometer, Guyana’s GDP before the discovery of offshore oil in 2015 was around $5 billion. Fast-forward 10 years to 2025, and that figure was approximately $25 billion. Half of the development formula is now in place; the next challenge is the shortage of people needed to execute the country’s ambitions.

This highlights that the nation has long suffered from massive brain drain. Most of our best and brightest minds have left Guyana. There were different drivers, leading to a push-pull effect; nevertheless, we now have a diaspora that rivals the in-country population in size.

I was faced with a decision, as many of my peers have been in recent decades, to choose between staying home with limited professional opportunities and moving beyond the shore just 2 years after graduating from university in 2014. It was an easy decision to make—being able to take care of my family was the highest aspiration I could think of—but a hard one to live with, as the thought of leaving home risked leaving me heartbroken.

I am now, thankfully, back in my homeland, where I am an active participant in my country’s transformation. Better yet, I know that the number of people who find themselves in the position I, and many others, once faced will decline over time as Guyana continues to blossom with opportunity.

There is now a real urgency to recruit the right people in the numbers needed across the country.

Source: Getty Images.

The Impact of Energy

A decade has now passed since the first successful well was drilled offshore in 2015, and I can barely recognize the landscape compared with that of my childhood. The transformation is evident in new roads that crisscross the coast, new hospitals, new businesses, and massive new housing developments. A newly constructed bridge now stands tall on the horizon, linking East and West Demerara. The list goes on.

The only fly in the ointment is the chaos it creates—an endless flurry of construction everywhere, juxtaposed with people going about their day-to-day business. This massive surge of capital development is set to continue. Yet one key need remains across the country: energy.

Ask any Guyanese, and they will tell you how proud they are of the country’s forests and rivers. That pride has extended to policy, with past governments seeking to monetize Guyana’s more than 80% rainforest coverage through the Low Carbon Development Strategy.

It may seem an ironic twist that the country’s largest contributor to development now comes from the exploration, production, and sale of fossil fuels. The bottom line, however, is that access to energy is the foundation on which sustainable progress and prosperity are built in any society.

To this point, the origin, sustainability, and cleanliness of energy are central to the ongoing debate in Guyana as we transform our country. This is an area of strong focus for the SPE Georgetown Section.

As chair of this section, our main mission today is to ensure everyone starts from a common understanding, that energy is essential for Guyana’s progress. We focus on providing clarity and balanced perspectives in discussions on the energy mix and emissions targets, while maintaining an apolitical stance.

We strive to foster energy advocates and improve the country’s energy literacy at all levels. Looking ahead, we plan to continue supporting relevant debates about oil and gas from both Guyanese and global perspectives, recognizing that each small step advances our progress.

Building the SPE Guyana Strategy

The SPE Georgetown Section was launched at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic under 2020 SPE President Shauna Noonan. The year before, I fondly remember having an enjoyable conversation with her husband, Mike Noonan, at a Toastmasters Club meeting in Texas, discussing the idea of starting a section in Guyana and why I thought it was a stellar idea.

I said to him, half-jokingly, “Even engineers in Guyana do not know what engineers do.” Some 5 years later, the SPE Georgetown Section is thriving and earned a Section Excellence Award in 2023. We also launched the University of Guyana Chapter in 2024 which is quickly becoming a model for incubating future talent for the oil and gas industry.

The student chapter helps motivate and inspire students while providing practical tools for graduates to secure positions in both the oil and gas sector and participate in the SPE Georgetown Section. For the past 2 years, we have also secured support from ExxonMobil Guyana to participate in the SPE’s PetroBowl competition, which has sparked even more excitement for learning in addition to joining the global PetroBowl fraternity.

The SPE Georgetown Section focuses on technical program content for young and mid-career professionals that highlights the upstream value chain in Guyana. Importantly, it also covers hot topics that often attract sensationalized media attention, such as fiscal metering, debottlenecking, and the commissioning of floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) units.

The section’s strategy is to provide technical content for capacity development and industry advocacy. This is crucial in an era when the industry faces intense scrutiny—as any high-risk industry should—but is also often underpinned by misinformed and misguided data and analyses. The section is dedicated to building advocacy, not just for the industry, but for energy provision, especially in Guyana.

As a new section, we are truly fortunate. We enjoy being one of the largest technical membership bodies in Guyana with the full support of industry stakeholders. Our approach is akin to the mission to provide great customer service.

We are committed to supporting our industry partners by highlighting both their products and services and the efforts they make to grow local businesses and talent in support of local content.

But our intent is not to stop there. The next phase of support is to engage with technical sections, promote multistakeholder collaboration for technical paper publications, and borrow from SPE’s Energy4me approach in the coming years.

Transformation of Guyana’s energy sector will continue in the decades ahead. More FPSOs will be added offshore. Power generation will be driven by natural gas from offshore fields to enable manufacturing and other industries to flourish. This will also reduce domestic supply costs and improve living standards.

Another gas-fueled development is also possible in the Berbice region of Guyana. While these developments take shape, the SPE Georgetown Section and student chapter, supported by SPE, will stand with Guyana and its partners every step of the way. We will fulfill our mandate: serving people, focusing on energy, and enabling aspirations.

Kenny Bissoon, SPE, chair-elect of the SPE Georgetown Section since 2025, was also one of its first members, joining in 2020. He was born and raised in Guyana. He has more than 10 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, including 8 years with ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd., where he is currently employed. Bissoon has also held upstream roles in Trinidad and Tobago. He is an advocate of the role SPE plays in facilitating energy literacy and the oil and gas industry’s role in transforming the Guyanese economy. He holds a BSc degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Guyana.