Guyana’s Standards Bureau to craft oil and gas sector safety certification programme

Last Updated on Tuesday, 15 May 2018, 16:59 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), in collaboration with the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago, will be engaging with oil operators and potential contractors to develop a Safe To Work (STOW) certification programme for the oil and gas sector.

According to GNBS Director, Candelle Walcott-Bostwick the team from the Energy Chamber will visit in June to share their experience of implementing the STOW-TT Certification Programme; and to determine if a similar programme can be created locally.

Walcott-Bostwick believes the consultation with oil operators in Guyana will be useful since the agreed upon requirements will cater for Health, Safety and Environmental measures that will have to be attained by contractors before they can be certified. “Once they are STOW certified it will give them that prequalification to be eligible for selection”, Walcott-Bostwick was quoted as saying by government’s Department of Public Information.

The GNBS official said the initiative will give regulators in the local energy service sector the opportunity to collaborate and execute joint Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) inspections to ensure full compliance by local operators.

In 2004, the STOW-TT certification programme was implemented in Trinidad, after the Energy Chamber received several complaints from its members in the energy service sector, on challenges experienced in meeting the HSE requirements.